User:Mindspillage/silly

Greetings! You've reached the user page of Mindspillage, otherwise known as Kat Walsh. Note: if you've ever encountered another "mindspillage", it's almost certainly me; a "Kat Walsh" encountered elsewhere may or may not be.

I'm a recent graduate of Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, with a B.A. in music and a minor in math, concentrating on discrete math and music theory. I am a bassoonist and contrabassoonist, libertarian, extropian transhumanist, INTP, quiz bowler, agnostic atheist, and geek. I want to be a freelance genius when I grow up, but I'm looking to be a career academic, playing bassoon on street corners and having people pay me to go away. (Don't ask me what I'm doing in the short term, though.) I love 20th century classical music, as you can tell from my contributions, and I am a stickler for correct spelling and punctuation; though sometimes I love commas and semicolons, not wisely, but too well. Other interests include cognitive science, logic, philosophy, science fiction, and categorization. Also, my significant other was sucked in, after getting tired of me paraphrasing "sofixit" all the time when he asked me to go change something.

Thoughts

Occasionally I like to blather on about Wikipedia rather than do anything constructive...

• Use common sense: a meta-rule that goes hand-in-hand with meta:Don't be a dick and Wikipedia:Ignore all rules, and supersedes all others. It should be in the Wikipedia namespace as policy, but it would just turn into something that made no sense and was overrun with rules.
• On the use of admin rights: why I am conservative about using them, and you should be too.
• The value of mergism: why I am a mergist, as posted to WikiEN-l.
• Disputes are never solved by escalating them: a few paragraphs I thought were nice until I reread Wikipedia:Civility and saw that Anthere had already said most of what I wanted to say already.
• How to win an argument, on meta, after long observation.
• meta:Polls are evil, after having been egged on by Kim Bruning to write something better than the sad stub that was there.

I follow the one-revert rule as well as the policy trifecta (shown neatly in a little box to the side, as arranged by its originator, Seth Ilys). I'm a strong believer in the simplified ruleset as a guide to almost any sticky situation. And I'm a strong believer in consensus and the supremacy and necessity of good judgment, over all.

I am an optimist about Wikipedia. But I don't stick my head in the sand, either. (Thanks, fvw, for the ostrich.)

Contact

You can email me by the sidebar link (which goes to mindspillage at gmail dot com), send an IM via AIM to LucidWaking, or leave me a message on my talk page. I am almost always in #wikipedia (as mindspillage when I'm around paying attention, and mind|wandering when I'm not). If you /msg me I'm likely to see it and return sooner. I am an administrator here and on meta; if you need admin assistance or just want the opinion of someone who ought to know what's going on, leave me a note. I also handle emails that come in to info-en@wikimedia.org, so you might see me doing strange things on behalf of people who've sent messages.

I have also been named to the Arbitration Committee as a temporary appointment until the elections. I have not yet decided if I will stand in December.

Kat in the hat, if you will...

"The cultivated person's first duty is to always be prepared to rewrite the encyclopedia." —Umberto Eco, stolen cheerfully from Antandrus

Articles I've started

Aaron Jay Kernis / Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do / Alvin Etler / Amanda Borden / Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov / Bassoon sonata / Cat and Girl / Closely related key / Daniel Dorff / Daniel Read / David Del Tredici / De Leon Springs State Park / Doctor Fun / Double reed / Extensional definition / Francisco Mignone / Frederick Fennell / Gordon Jacob / Intensional definition / Jan DeGaetani / Jean Françaix / John Barnes Chance / Jurriaan Andriessen / Keiko Abe / Lexical definition / Madeleine Dring / Metastasis / Michala Petri / Miller Puckette / Multiphonic / Ostensive definition / Persuasive definition / Stipulative definition / Theoretical definition / Ruth Gipps / Susan Nigro / Vampire number / Vittorio Giannini / Vocalise / William Bergsma / Willson Osborne / meta:How to win an argument

Articles I've rewritten or added significant content to

Albert Szirmai / André Jolivet / Alexandre Tansman / Bart Conner / Bassoon / Concert band / Contrabassoon / Daniel Gorenstein / Eugène Bozza / Gadsby / Handstand / Hugo Wolf / Iannis Xenakis / L. Neil Smith / Lili Boulanger / List of web comics / Luigi Dallapiccola / Modulation / National Institutes of Health / Old Folks at Home / Precising definition / Quintet / Rebecca Clarke / Robert M. Pirsig / Stetson University / The Mind's I / The Rite of Spring / Terry Riley / Theon of Smyrna / The Stone Guest / Thomas Hastings / Vincent Persichetti / Wind quintet / Zarzuela / meta:Polls are evil

Current tasks

Trying to figure out what to do now that I've graduated. Answering mail sent to Wikipedia. Chipping away at the ever-more-pressing to-do list (particularly, trying to make bassoon decent). Writing on meta-topics and blathering on about community and policy, on-wiki and on IRC. Arranging music for double reed ensembles. Collecting discussions about offensive content (still in sandbox stages, but help is welcome): m:User:Mindspillage/content issues. Watching recent changes on meta. Thinking of banging out some gymnast stubs just to make our coverage slightly less than appalling. Proofreading my old bassoon prof's doctoral thesis, and perhaps mining it for article content. Ignoring my to-do list.

This page is not protected

I award you this barnstar for all your vast help to the Wiki. Redwolf24 (24 yours?) (Complete with a signature spoof.)

You can edit it. Particularly if you want to fix typos and links, or if you feel inclined to exercise your mad layout skills, or maybe even give a testimonial. (Geogre asked for sonnets, which was a stroke of genius; alas, I am not so brazen as to steal the idea.) I don't own this page. (As it happens, there are pages elsewhere I do own, and I leave them dormant to work on Wikipedia instead.) I will exercise final judgment on which changes I keep, of course...

(If I protected this page, how could I get additions like the below?)

I hereby Ostrichcize you! ; - ) -- Essjay · Talk 00:43, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

My mind, spillage.

My mind, wandering.

Constance, Dale, Fern--

women I will never know.

Poetry, the art form I will never be good at.

func(talk) 19:09, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Mindspillage. The spillage of the mind.

This is the creed of the Wikipedian.

May our minds spring forth with our most cherished knowledge

And may I share the bounty of my wisdom to slake the thirst of curiosity among the people

Join our community, our world.

We are Wikipedians. May the mind of Wikipedia spill forth with bounty.

Welcome to Wikipedia. May you spring forth and prosper!

sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m ] 09:46, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

A haiku:

Mindspillage, admin.

Mindspillage, arbitrator.

A spill of a mind.

Ral315 W_S 08:35, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Mindspillage - a grand canonical ensemble of thoughts. May the partition functions unite! --HappyCamper 01:01, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Babel

enThis user is a native speaker of the English language.	meatThis user is mostly or entirely made of meat.	bsn-4This user is a professional bassoonist.
	Wikipedia:Babel

Licensing

I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

Notes to self

Because I never remember my IP address when I need it, it is here, for my own reference: 24.165.233.150

• To-do list, which I may or may not use as a guide to what I'll work on next
• Sandbox, so I don't actually have to remember said IP address quite so often