View source for User:TomStar81

{{semi-retired|date=May 2011}}
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<big>'''About Me'''</big>

I joined in September 2004, and I have picked up some of the tools of the trade, but I still have not mastered everything (yet...).  Feel free to correct me if I screw something up, but please do so '''''nicely'''''. 

Since I joined Wikipedia I have steadily expanded my horizons here, and have been know to drop welcome messages on the talk pages of new users who happen to edit articles I track on my watchlist. I am a member of the [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history|Military history Wikiproject]], which seeks to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of military history. 

In August of 2007, I was elected by the members of the Military history Project to serve as a coordinator for the project. Coordinators oversee the internal operations of the project and to ensure that the project remains active and healthy on Wikipedia as the encyclopedia continuously evolves. On July 8th, 2008, I became an [[Wikipedia:Administrators|administrator]] here on the English Wikipedia, and as such now have a few extra buttons to employ for the betterment of Wikipedia. I also now have a globalized account meaning that TomStar81 on any other Wikimedia project is me as well. In addition to this primary account, I maintain a separate account from which I edit when not logged in from a secured location. I was elected Lead Coordinator for the Military history Project in September 2009, a position I held until September of 2010. In September of 2018, I was unanimously elected as the third Coordinator Emeritus of the Military history Project.

Although a frequent contributor to the encyclopedia I took a leave of absence from Wikipedia in early November 2008 for personal reasons. While working offline I redesigned my user page, using the layout pioneered by {{User|Phaedriel}} but substantially tweaking it so that it would reflect my interests. I remained off Wikipedia until early 2009, where upon I returned. 

Occasionally, if I am bored or if I have nothing better to do with my time I will check the recent edits log to check for vandalism, or cruise aimlessly through the articles that pop up when I click on "Random Article" to further my own knowledge and to see if I can improve the page(s) in any way.

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I have found that my school work at the University of Texas at El Paso has been getting harder the closer I get to graduation, so I have been spending somewhat less time here than I have in the past, and I have been using this site more as a source and less as a recreational hobby. This has been especially true during May and December, when we college guys have our finals. Therefore, if you leave a message here during the school year or during finals week it may be a while before I get back to you.
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Lately I have been active here in a severely reduced capacity, owing to difficult real life circumstances surrounding me and what is left on my family. While I do check back here occasionally I find that the free time I have to do so and the joy I get from helping are both rather limited these days, which has helped keep me in a state of reduced activity. Despite this I am and will for the time being remain a wikipedian, and an administrator.
 
Anyway, if I can help with something, then I will definitely try, and if I can't, I may be able to at least point you in the general direction of assistance.

Oh, and uh, one more thing: My Spelling is Atrocious, so if I made it, and it's misspelled, please fix it. You will be doing us all a favor ;-)

&mdash;[[User:TomStar81|TomStar81]] 04:53, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)

=== Discovering Wikipedia ===

I discovered Wikipedia by accident when searching for information concerning the space ships in the [[Universal Century]] (UC) [[Mobile Suit Gundam]] [[anime]] series back in August '04, and was immediately intrigued with the possibility of writing material that could be published and read on the internet. As an ISP user I created articles for nearly all the UC era space vessels, and at the encouragement of {{User|Aqua008}} decided to register an account on Wikipedia in September 2004. 

I chose the name "TomStar81" because I had a (now defunct) [[Cartoon Orbit]] account dedicated to Toonami, but the Cartoon Orbit people required users to choose prefabricated names. After much thought I settled on "TomHameStar81" for my Cartoon Orbit account name &mdash; "Tom" as a salute to the host of [[Toonami]], "Hame" for the Kamehameha attack in [[Dragonball Z]], "Star" for anime series [[Outlaw Star]], and 81 because a two digit number was required and 77 (my favorite two digit number) had already been taken, and I wanted a number that would at least add or subtract to seven (8-1=7, thus the 81) &mdash; and shortened that to "TomStar81" for use on Wikipedia. I should note here that I have no preference on whether you pronounce the number as "eighty-one" or "eight one;" I usually switch between the two options myself, so feel free to use whichever one you prefer.

Initially, my editing was by choice confined to the anime series and video games of the first person shooter and real time strategy genres that I had played here and there, most of which had military-based themes. Owing to the military based themes I did some editing of the military related articles here, but at the time we had no single unified Military History project, so my editing was not so much to help the military projects as it was for my own interest. 

=== Joining the Military History project ===

Around 2005-2006 two major events occurred that lead to a radical reevaluation of what exactly I do here. First, the vast majority of old [[Command & Conquer]] pages I had labored to improve wound up at afd and were ultimately deleted. In the aftermath of losing so many articles &mdash; most in a few mass-nom afds &mdash; I swore I would never again create a page concerning an aspect of fiction on Wikipedia. At just about the same time as the mass deletions were occurring the formerly independent Wikiproject Battles, Wikiproject Wars, and Wikiproject Military took the unprecedented step of merging to form a single unified Military history Wikiproject, and I officially joined because of a vested personal interest in both World War II and battleships; since then, most of my editing has been for the military history project, although I do edit outside the scope of military history project now and again, usually when I am bored or looking to exercise admin privileges.

Since joining the military history project I have become a driving force behind the improvement of our warship article, in particular the {{sclass|Iowa|battleships}}. Without bragging, I do believe that I am the first Wikipedian here on the English Wikipedia to have gotten a battleship class article to Featured Article status, and am numbered among the first to have helped create a ships-exclusive Featured Topic. This in turn seems to have inspired others to take up the challenge of writing about individual ships, as the number of Featured Articles on ships has gradually increased since I began working on them. To better coordinate the ongoing effort to improve Wikipedia's Battleship related articles, I founded [[WP:OMT|Operation Majestic Titan]], the very first special project of the Military history Project. 

=== My administrator policy ===

My administrator policy has always been that '''administrators be thou for the contributors.''' As an [[Wikipedia:Administrators|administrator]] (or admin for short) I firmly believe that it is my duty to assist contributors to the best of my ability and within the confines of all applicable policies and guidelines. 

I realize that I am only human, and therefore I will inevitably make a mistake or two in exercising administrative privileges on Wikipedia. In light of this, I invite my fellow administrators to fix any mistake I make here on Wikipedia. I will not consider it wheel-warring if you reverse my admin actions as long as you leave me a civil note telling me what you've done and why and as long as you're open to discussion with me should I disagree. I seek to learn from my mistakes, but learning can only be accomplished if both parties in a disagreement over a course of action are willing to talk to each other in a civil manner.

Finally, I am and always have been an administrator open to recall. To recall me I ask that you initiate a [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment|request for comment]], explaining in detail the the action(s) that I have taken in the incident(s) that occurred. If [[Wikipedia:Consensus|consensus]] emerges during the request for comment that I have acted inappropriately then I will resign my adminship. Adminship is wonderful privilege to be entrusted with, but if you are not enough without the admin tools, you will never be enough with the admin tools. 

=== What I am currently up to ===

That which I need I do not want, and that which I want I can no longer have. [[User:TomStar81|TomStar81]] ([[User talk:TomStar81|Talk]]) 09:25, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

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[[September 11, 2001 attacks|Lest We Forget]]<div style="float: center; margin: 1px; padding: 7px; background: #F9F9F9; border: 1px solid #999999; width: 200px;">[[Image:Tribute in Light Memorial September 9 2004.jpg|200px|New York City, N.Y. (Sept. 9, 2004) - As the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack approaches, a test of the Tribute in Light Memorial illuminates a passing cloud above lower Manhattan. The twin towers of light, made-up of 44 searchlights near “Ground Zero,” are meant to represent the fallen twin towers of the World Trade Center. Depending on weather conditions, the columns of light can be seen for at least 20 miles around the trade center complex. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Public Affairs 2nd Class Mike Hvozda]]</div>
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"<i>For the families of the seven, we cannot bear, as you do, the full impact of this tragedy. But we feel the loss, and we're thinking about you so very much. Your loved ones were daring and brave, and they had that special grace, that special spirit that says, 'Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy.'</i>

<i>...We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God'.</i>"

&mdash; <small>Speech Delivered to the Nation by [[President of the United States|President]] [[Ronald Reagan]] following the explosion of the {{OV|099}}.</small>
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|[[File:Triplechevron gold.png|30x30px|link=Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history|This user is a member of the Military history WikiProject.]]
|[[File:US-O11 insignia.svg|30x30px|link=Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators|This user is a Coordinator for the Military history WikiProject.]]
|[[File:Admin mop.PNG|30px|link=Wikipedia:Administrator|This user is an administrator]]
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<span style="font-size:large">Text and Picture Licenses</span><br>
I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below: 
{{MultiLicenseWithCC-BySA-Any}} 
For More Information, Please see [[User:TomStar81/Copyrights]].

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<span style="font-size:large">Disclaimers</span>
{{userpage}} 
{{User committed identity|b2ec33596ba5436eb4fd82441a2acb7232bb820771874088fc25a02f62189a5126b2012ee23e91ef64ae1981056d7a3f1e4907bc04910f6516b5ea940dd662f9|hash function used|background=#FFFFFF|border=#000000|article=grammatical article for the hash function}}

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|[[File:Triplechevron gold.png|30x30px|link=Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history|This user is a member of the Military history WikiProject.]]
|[[File:Milhist coordinator emeritus.svg|30x30px|link=Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Coordinators|This user is a Coordinator Emeritus for the Military history WikiProject.]]
|[[File:Admin logo.gif|30x30px|link=Wikipedia:Administrator|This user is an Administrator.]]
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[[Category:Wikipedians in the United States|TomStar81]]
[[Category:Wikipedians in Texas|{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Wikipedia administrators willing to grant rollback requests]]
[[Category:Wikipedia administrators open to recall|TomStar81]]
[[Category:Wikipedia administrators|TomStar81]]
[[Category:WikiProject Military history coordinators|TomStar81]]