I generally try to be helpful on this wiki, usually by fixing random grammar and spelling mistakes as I encounter them, and reverting vandalism. I occasionally get more involved in certain diverse subjects, depending on my interest in them.
My edits do not necessarily indicate I have a vested interest in the subject matter — in all probability, I simply saw an obvious error, and made a necessary fix.
I object to the erasure of entire articles filled with content, or turning them into redirects, just because a random wikipedian thinks the subject matter is "not notable enough". This is an online encyclopedia, and a lot of people probably put a lot of time and effort into creating these articles. Arbitrary removal of their work for trivial reasons is against the spirit of this website.
I revert egregious examples of such edits that I come across, even if I don't care about the subject (it's the principle of these sorts of destructive edits, and how they harm the wiki). The bigger and more complete Wikipedia is, the better — Wikipedia is not limited by size constraints, so any merging intended to shrink the topic at the expense of valuable information can only be harmful to the spread of knowledge.
I do not engage in edit wars, and I follow the three-revert rule. If I reverted your attempt to blank/redirect/merge an article, I did it because you failed to justify the edit, your edit eliminated a significant body of information that others may find useful, and/or you failed to seek community consensus before making such a major edit. Do it properly, or I'll undo the damage you caused.
I admit to disregarding copyright on numerous occasions. Not maliciously; just quietly, in the background. I give attribution where it is due, and do not plagerize or claim the rights to anything... but I do treat anything I find online as being potentially valuable information to save and use as inspiration & reference material for my own hobbies & interests. I see zero harm in using proprietary & secret information & media for my private non-commercial & non-distribution activities.
I contend that copyright and patent laws have been corrupted and weaponized as a tool of big corporations, to stifle creativity and innovation & create a read-only society. This is absolutely not at all the purpose for what these laws were originally written, so these corrupted laws may rightfully be opposed and ignored. The law should be revised to roll back the length of copyright protection to what it originally began as, expand protection for fair use, and penalties created for abusing the system.
I therefore, respectfully, DECLINE to follow Wikipedia's policy on copyrights, and have no intention of complying with demands for conformity. Feel free to edit my offending contribution, if it matters that much.
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