RuWiki History (Doronina and Pinchuk)/English/Interview with ShinePhantom
1. Your handle on Wikipedia?
ShinePhantom
3. Where do you live (Moscow, St. Petersburg, a city with a million inhabitants, a small town, etc)?
the city of Tolyatti, 720 thousand residents
5. When and how did you first hear about the Russian Wikipedia, and why did you start editing?
in 2006, apparently because information from Wikipedia began to appear very often in the results of searches
6. How many years have you participated? If you ever took an extended wiki-vacation, please provide the reason (i.e., too much work offwiki, unpleasant atmosphere/events in the project itself, or something else).
from March 2007, I can't remember any lengthy wiki-vacations
7. What do you like most about participating in the project? Why do you think you and other users participate in this work?
The process itself. It's interesting when, out of the chaos, when at any moment you can edit anything you want, emerges the best encyclopedia in the world. And I just like to write, and this talent happens to be underused in my job. I think that others have similar reasons.
8. Which events do you consider to be the most important in the history of ru.wiki?
a) the creation of the [Russian-language] project, b) overtaking the BSE [Large Soviet Encyclopedia] in number of articles, c) rejecting voting and transitioning to discussion
9. Do your professional interests overlap with the areas in which you edit on ru.wiki? If not, how do you decide which articles to edit?
No, they don't overlap. It's interesting to edit articles that for some reason no one else has worked on before me, maybe because they're in an unsightly state. Well, and the topics usually coincide with my non-professional interests.
10. Do you participate in "metapedian" work, i.e., patrolling, discussions of nomination for deletion or renaming, templates? Do you follow the discussions that take place on the Forum, discussion pages of the ArbCom, etc.? Why/why not?
Yes, I do. I'm an administrator, so I have to, in order not to fall out of the social life of the community. In addition, the articles that get discussed are frequently ones that I have something to say about to my colleagues.
11. How do you feel about the administration of ru.wiki? (About the system in general, about certain admins, about the ArbCom?)
The system, judging by the results, works. I don't have any qualms with specific administrators or arbiters. I don't agree with all of the conclusions of debates. But this is not important for the project as a whole. And in general, we get along with our work.
12. How do you feel about the rules? Which rule (which "pillar") do you consider to be most important? Do you think that the atmosphere of the project is too strict?
Fine. Only there's a lot of them and they are unstructured. It's hard for newbies to figure them out, and even I, though I'm an administrator, haven't read and can't remember them all. That's why the most important rule is Ignore All Rules. The atmosphere is fine. There's a lot of commotion surrounding certain users and strictness toward them, but usually the complaints are justified. It's just that some people simply aren't suited to collective work, and here there's no other way.
13. Do you communicate with other users outside of Wikipedia? If yes, how: at wiki-meetups, by chat, or through other Internet communities (LiveJournal)?
Chat, LiveJournal, irc. Every day when I'm online.
14. How has working on Wikipedia helped/hindered you in real life?
It's helped to be critical toward non-credible sources. I've found out a lot of new and interesting things for myself in the process of working on articles. It's hindered -- not at all, everything's fine.
15. Has participating in the project affected you personally? How so?
Having a hard time answering.
16. Do you participate actively in other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation? If so, what are the main differences (positive or negative) from ru.wiki?
Wikisource. I uploaded a couple hundred photos. But then I don't communicate much in that community, because it's a little different and is less adapted to discussion than ru.wiki.
18. What other hobbies do you have?
These days, I barely have any free time for hobbies. But I can comfortably combine wiki with work, given the specifics of my profession.