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Old comments/discussions follow:

Holy crap, is this the Graham Freeman I use to know and love? —[davis]Users/JimSchwab

Yep. We should grab a beer or go vote or something. —Graham.Freeman

2005-11-19 15:17:17   Oh cool, thanks for letting me know that place's name. I went to [davis]Steady Eddy's about a month back and enjoyed some new type of soda and a yummy dessert. —[davis]Users/CraigBrozinsky

2005-11-22 12:24:48   Wait a minute... heh, I never knew your last name :-) Good to see you on the Wiki! —[davis]Users/CraigBrozinsky

2006-01-15 20:41:29   Davis is by it's very nature UCD-centric. Compared to the 60,308 people who live in Davis, 47,286 are either students, academians, or full-time staff of the University. Although not all of these people live in Davis, a majority of people in this city are associated with Davis. If you really feel that strongly about removing the wiki's major association, try renaming [davis]Campus on every page which links to it. —[davis]Users/BrentLaabs

2006-01-15 21:29:09   1) What could possibly be wrong with making clear that a page is UCD-related? I'm going to revert your reverts of my changes. 2) Please cite your numbers - I'm skeptical of them. For example, since most on-campus housing is not in the City limits, those residents aren't counted in the City population count. 3) UCD is not the only college [davis]in or [sacramento]near Davis, and it shouldn't be considered as such. —Graham.Freeman

2006-01-15 21:45:22   1) I'm going to go ahead and revert your reversions. 2) [WWW]Census data from the demographics page. [WWW]http://facts.ucdavis.edu/, the university's site. 3) There is only one thing that people think of when they say Campus when they are in Davis. —[davis]Users/BrentLaabs

2006-01-16 01:31:05   Arlen: Thanks for keeping it friendly. :) —Graham.Freeman

2006-01-16 01:39:00   Brent: Your citations aren't very specific, and thus not very useful. For example, they don't address the sizable population of on-campus residents who aren't counted in Davis population counts, nor do they directly address the huge number of UCD staff and faculty who do not live in Davis. And, with regard to "campus"="UCD", I disagree. Some friends of mine live in UCD family student housing, but the husband is a UC Berkeley PhD student. When he says "campus", he might mean either UCD or UCB. An ex-girlfriend used to visit me frequently in Davis, but when she said "campus" she always meant her campus at CSUS. When another friend spoke of "campus", she usually mean Sac City's Davis Extension. (Admittedly it's not much of a campus.) When a colleague of mine at UCD refers to "campus" when discussing her daughter, she means UCSC's campus. Bottom line: Generalizations are always false. :) —Graham.Freeman

2006-01-16 01:58:55   We'd better stop referring to [davis]Russell Boulevard in such a general way, too. When I say Russell Boulevard, I usually mean the one near where I grew up. Just because I live in Davis now, and this is the Davis Wiki, and the vast majority of people mean Davis's Russell Blvd., doesn't mean they can be so cavalier as to assume that it's what I mean. I'd better go make the necessary changes. —[davis]Users/RoyWright

2006-01-16 02:07:22   Your sarcasm detracts from the respectful tone of the discussion and therefore blunts the effectiveness of your argument, but I'll respond anyway: The difference is that CSUS, UCB, and UCSC are fairly close by, and have quite a large number of connections with Davis residents. That's not true of Russell Blvds outside of Davis, with the exception of the part of Russell that extends into Winters city limits. (See Google Maps) —Graham.Freeman

2006-01-16 02:15:22   Whatever. I'll let the Wiki decide. (Sounds like a quote from Star Wars, doesn't it?) I don't see sarcasm as disrespectful, either, so I didn't mean it to be. You generalize too much. (Hurr hurr). —[davis]Users/RoyWright

2006-01-16 09:49:01   It doesn't have to be UCDWiki. Just the fact that it's Davis-centric should be enough. The main focus is on things in Davis. If it's in Davis, and this is the Davis-centric Wiki, you shouldn't have to add "this is in Davis" to every page. Cause why stop at Campus pages? Same rationale could work for everypage. There's a ton of McDonald's in the state. But if we're talking about something not in Davis, you'll notice it always says "this is in woodland" or "in sacramento" or something. While if something it's in Davis, it gives an address, like on 3rd street. But it never needs to say 3rd Street, Davis...because it's Davis wiki. Likewise, there's only 1 campus here that's the vastly normally referred to one, and adding "the UCD campus" seems wrong to me too. Now if you want to talk about another campus, then you should (and this is what's done) add "the UCB campus" or "UCLA campus" - to make the distinction that they're not Davis's. —[davis]ES

2006-01-16 16:23:52   I agree with RW and ES. Putting in "UCD campus" or some other form on each UCD related page is really wordy. And as for the slant of pages towards the students, well it is the students who are editing the page. Tell me, what other place IN Davis is referred to as "the campus"? It's a Davis wiki, the campus = UCD and I know of no other colleges in Davis. —[davis]Users/JoAnnaRich

2006-01-20 20:39:00   I agree with you that the wiki is too slanted towards the university right now. —[davis]Users/KenjiYamada

2006-01-28 09:07:56   I agree with your sentiments about insular small-town political detritus. I think that info about campus reflects the greater involvement of students in creating the wiki. More regular citizens need to be involved. —[davis]Users/SharlaDaly

2006-02-19 14:11:25   Some people delete redirects with no links to them (see today's recent changes). Killing all the links to that article will probably kill it, and there's probably a good deal of external links to it. While deleting redirects is [davis]usually not a good idea, it sometimes happens. Also, it's more work for you to fix the links; the redirect's made for a reason?—PhilipNeustrom

2006-03-04 03:05:11   Graham, thanks for taking the time to edit my page. —[davis]Users/WayneSchiller

2006-04-11 18:11:35   You let slanderous comments remain on this site without the business being able to comment on or remove them. One of those bad comments was made by a guy who was a jerk that GZ wouldn't hire a couple of years ago. I remember him, I used to work there. I'm sure if I put some poor comments about you they would be removed without asking me. —[davis]Users/DanSheckler

2006-04-11 21:43:29   The thing is, when you look up Ground Zero Boardshop on google, this is the first page that comes up. It looks like the official page for the shop. I am not affiliated with this business. I am a former employee. I do know the staff pretty well and the owners, though. The things some people have written are completley false. Every guy that works there partake in boardsports. Then claiming they are posers would be false and "libel." Plus, anyone with any agenda can make up anything about a business, including their competition. Look I'm not here to upset you, it's hard to get someone's tone from writing. I originally tried to remove the comment. They were then put back on. That's what I mean by letting the comments stay on. I asked one of the owners about this site. He didn't even know it existed, but his concerns were similar to mine. I care this much to comment because there seems to be no control over what is careless or not. I did not mean to offend you by my actions, for that, I'm sorry. —[davis]Users/DanSheckler

Dan, I appreciate your conciliatory tone.

Re: Google: If Ground Zero doesn't have a web site of its own, it follows that a third-party page would be listed first - there's nothing else to choose from. So, if the owner of Ground Zero wants that to change, he should establish a web site of his own. Google's listing & ranking criteria is a closely-guarded trade secret, and is probably best summed so: The most relevant pages to a search term are listed first, as are any paid ads that are triggered on the search terms. If one has trouble constructing and publicizing a page that is considered by Google to be relevant, one can always use Google's AdWords to insert a paid listing.

I absolutely disagree that the DavisWiki page for Ground Zero looks like the official page for the shop. A cursory glance shows that it's in the daviswiki.org domain, has the phrase "Davis Wiki" in the title, and has the Davis Wiki logo at the top. Also, clicking on pretty much any link on the Davis Wiki page for Ground Zero leads to a page that has nothing to do with Ground Zero. Of the more than 10,000 pages on the Davis Wiki, no more than ten or so have anything to do with Ground Zero.

Whether or not someone writes something true is of little relevance when they're expressing an opinion. If it's demonstrably false, and you can show that they're just trying to harm someone else's reputation, then that's a problem. I don't think the comments in question meet that standard. Removing comments is generally not OK around here, unless the comments in question are your own, are outdated/irrelevant, and/or are otherwise clearly inappropriate - which, in this case, they weren't. See Wiki Ethics for more info.

—Graham Freeman

2006-04-18 10:06:49   Hey Graham, when is the batch of wiki hoodies going to be ready/made? Thanks! —JulienBiewerElstob

2006-05-11 03:47:06   WHOA you're Graham from Yelp, aren't you? —[davis]Users/AlyssaOlenberg

2006-05-16 04:03:04   Did you use sonic for dialup or their cable/dsl? Because I definitely disliked their dialup when I was in Sebastopol. —[davis]Users/MaxMikalonis

2006-05-19 01:36:38   All things that looked like thumbnails were removed to make way for the new thumbnail system. Because your image ended in .thumb.x.y it was removed :-0 —PhilipNeustrom

2006-05-26 17:34:53   What happened to you salons? Sounds like something I'd love to be a part of —[davis]Users/JamesSchwab

2006-05-27 16:58:36   Thanks for the fix. How could I not notice that? =) —[davis]Users/MatthewLow

2006-06-16 18:31:18   Why'd you bring back Christian Slate talk that was already integrated? —[davis]Users/JosephBleckman

2006-08-17 02:54:18   I wanted to see who noticed first, so I didn't edit the wiki :) I was going to tell more about the bee results on my show, but I got scooped by the Enterprise - when they interviewed me, heh. —[davis]Users/KarlMogel

2006-09-04 01:50:45   [davis]Slate is defined as relating to ASUCD. Therefore, no further clarification is needed. ktxbye —[davis]Users/BrentLaabs

Brent, that's your opinion. I don't share it. Your opinion doesn't override mine, so don't use brute-force attacks to try to assert otherwise.

re: "slate". Where in "Christian Democratic Party" does it say "slate"?

re: "official name": If the "official name" is what counts, then why have page names that coincide with DBAs? Why not have the official corporate name for a given business, no matter what the general public knows the business as? "UC Davis" is not the "official name" - should we use the long-form "University of California at Davis" for each reference, because it's "official"?

You appear to be uncomfortable with the fact that ASUCD is not the center of everyone's lives. You need to acknowledge the fact that this wiki is also for members of the Davis community who do not have a UCD affiliation. —Graham.Freeman

2006-09-04 02:10:19   UC Davis is an official name for the University of California, Davis, according to the [WWW]University Communications Style Guide. You appear to be uncomfortable with the fact that more than half of the town has a UC Davis affiliation. —[davis]Users/BrentLaabs

2006-09-04 02:12:35   Brent, why don't you engage in an honest debate and actually address the substance of my argument? —Graham.Freeman

re: opinions about "slate" and lack of need for further clarification:

re: where in "Christian Democractic Party" it says "slate":

re: "official name":

2006-09-04 02:48:30   Brent, when referring to opinions, I was talking about your assertion that no further clarification was needed - not the definition of a political slate. Clearly I feel that further clarification is needed, otherwise we wouldn't be having this debate.

When talking about where it says "slate" in "Christian Democratic Party", I thought I was being quite clear. Apparently not. Since you apparently think that a reference to a slate (presumably the political kind, not the granite kind with which I'm personally more familiar) makes the nature of a page immediately obvious, I wanted to know how that was relevant to a page whose title does not include the word "slate". My thinking on this is that it should be relatively obvious just from looking at the title of a page what that page is about. Isn't that the point of a page title, after all? Should I really have to read a page before determining whether or not I want to read that page?

With regard to official names, I don't see how your comment addresses my point. From my perspective, all you've done is illustrate the fact that "official" doesn't really mean much.

—Graham.Freeman

2006-09-05 09:15:59   Graham, even though my current life is UCD centric, I definitely agree with your renamings. —[davis]Users/JamesSchwab

2006-09-06 00:19:12   Thanks, Jimmy :). I still stand by my argument on this issue, but Jason Aller, Jabber Wokky, and Philip Neustrom made convincing, rational, and respectful arguments for the status quo with regard to naming. I'm not going to put much more energy into this right now. My main beef the other night was with the substance and terms of the debate. —Graham.Freeman

2006-09-06 10:20:17   Yeah, some stuff on campus is unique to all of Davis, so adding UCD or ASUCD maybe unnecessary, but many of these pages do need clarification like the ASUCD commissions as one example. —[davis]Users/JamesSchwab

2006-10-14 22:40:57   Thanks for the heads up, Graham...I have made changes reflecting your comments. —[davis]Users/AdamFlowers

2006-10-26 17:38:18   I just wanted to make sure you all received my donation. —[davis]Users/AdamFlowers

2006-11-25 01:16:37   A fair amount of the chatter on Webb's public page should probably be intergated, if not deleted. —[davis]Users/JosephBleckman

2006-11-25 01:58:23   Why? Looks very relevant to me. —Graham.Freeman

2006-12-18 15:38:13   thanks for the spell check, I really suck....especially after 3 cups of coffee... —[davis]Users/JamesSchwab

2007-02-12 01:55:37   Thanks. —[davis]Users/BrentLaabs

2007-02-12 01:58:57   Following up to your first question — please show me a piece of his work that has value. He does nothing but stir up trouble for the wiki, and I won't stand for it any more. —[davis]Users/BrentLaabs

2007-02-12 18:22:29   Thanks for the spelling correction. —[davis]Users/JasonAller

2007-02-13 09:17:40   I doubt she would care if it weren't the very first google hit. That's got to be frustrating. —[davis]Users/JeffSpeckles

2007-02-15 02:15:29   Did you live on Ipanema? —[davis]Users/StevenDaubert

2007-02-25 23:58:51   Graham, I don't think you understand. I'm actually not upset. I know when I'm angry, and this is not one of those time. This is a calm, collected proposal that the world would be far, far better of had Steve Ostrowski not been born, and it would be nice if the issue was rectified. He spreads hate, fear, and lies. I mean, I have my share of problems, but at least I strive to give something back to the community. He is nothing but evil, and gives nothing. —[davis]Users/BrentLaabs

2007-02-27 17:53:21   Awesome... my IP: Your IP Address: 71.58.60.115

2007-03-03 21:07:25   I go by my last, and my 5 semesters of CISCO taught me nothing at all. Thanks —[davis]Users/StevenDaubert

2007-03-03 21:32:03   Graham, you, Daubert and I know that there all sorts of ways that ip registration info can not accurately give somebodies physical location, but as you noted it often does (Omsoft addresses are to DCN so it says Davis, except for their dialup which is outsourced as you described). Level3, on the other hand, is an international company, so it is particularly ambiguous. Daubert was simply trying to find out more information that could indicate why MarieGruca's ip had a reverse hostname that said San Jose. Furthermore, people like SteveOstrowski are going to use the information if it helps them no matter what its accuracy unless the matter is cleared up, so simply disregarding it because it might be wrong won't work. So I think what Daubert was saying was worthwhile. —[davis]Users/NickSchmalenberger

2007-04-03 23:33:28   Testing timezone. —Graham.Freeman

2007-07-17 12:30:33   Graham, I see your point about user pages being under the user/s control — although I myself would only delete a comment on my page if it was a personal attack or otherwise offensive. But now Elizabeth has asked that all comments be directed to her and not to her business page. (Understandably, perhaps, given what she has done — she doesn't want that revealed). She can't have it both ways, though — i.e., that we're supposed to leave comments for her on her page, but then she is free to delete them! So maybe the answer is to continue to try to educate her that "her" business page is not her page? —[davis]Users/CovertProfessor

2007-07-19 18:07:24   I've been meaning to write the summary for a long time anyway. This will give me an excuse to do so. —[davis]Users/WilliamLewis

You think that war room is rad? Wait until you see the bolt cutters we used to restore net access here at the [davis]Turtle House! —PhilipNeustrom

2007-04-04 04:07:18   Hilarious! Was that an Omsoft installation or something? —Graham.Freeman

2007-04-04 07:33:52   Testing timezone (US/Pacific). —Graham.Freeman

2007-04-04 07:34:59   Testing timezone (America/Vancouver) —Graham.Freeman

2007-07-11 21:56:24   Renaming your user page to a different name won't have the effect of changing your user name. In fact, it's liable to confuse things for people: User pages have certain special properties — for instance, if the page corresponds to an actual account then links to it simply appear without the "Users" prefix — and that won't happen if it doesn't "line up" with an actual user name. The best thing to do would be to create a new account by the name "Graham.Freeman" and then rename the page again — if you wanted that to be your account name. —PhilipNeustrom

2007-07-28 07:33:32   Hey Graham, could you send me those links to those incorporation books again please? I can't find them no matter how many times I search my computer —StevenDaubert

2007-07-30 04:35:35   Hey, Daubert, I'll track them down and get them to you. FYI, leaving comments on my wiki page is one of the least efficient ways to get in touch with me. :) —Graham.Freeman

2007-07-30 04:37:47   Hey, Philip, I appreciate the explanation but your revert was unnecessary. Redirects are commonly used, and some small amount of confusion is inevitable in a relatively new medium such as the wiki. Please don't revert such changes of mine without first giving me the opportunity to engage in a dialogue about it. —Graham.Freeman

2007-08-11 19:15:02   How often do you go out sailing? —JamesSchwab

2007-09-22 21:51:27   Hey if Quakers catch your attention, you should query "shakers" on wikipedia... —168.150.253.55

2007-09-23 23:53:23   Hi, Stacie or Lucas,

Thanks for the pointer! It's an interesting read, but I still think religion is silly. :)

2007-09-24 06:59:54   hey there, i'd def love to visit copenhagen. i might just have too... by the way, i would be very curious to hear your opinion on santa cruz...how it differs than Davis? maybe i'll explore your page to find that answer... thanks again man. —DavidCrow

2007-09-29 04:22:26   In the future if you wish to criticize something i post, just email me, or post a comment on my profile. There's no need to clutter the comment section with a flame reply. I went ahead and removed my post & your flame. Best wishes. —Alexander1975

2007-09-30 08:44:19   The Shoppers Corner page got garbled when you edited, but I don't know how to fix it. Maybe you know a good formatting solution. —MaryLieth

2007-10-07 03:25:33   Hey, thanks for being there when I called. I hope I caught you with my second call (or you got the email) before the issue affected your evening too much. —JabberWokky

2007-10-09 10:26:38   Every time you say "friggin' spammers" I read that literally (as something you are doing with that edit), and think "Ewww!". —JabberWokky

2007-10-09 17:24:22   Hey I didn't know that the wiki wasn't registered as a 501(c) yet. Do you guys plan to register Wikispot as the nonprofit with all the wikis under the umbrella, or just Davis? If you need any help or impetus with incorporating, I'm willing to be a part of the process. —KarlMogel

2007-10-22 17:05:07   Added you as an admin on the hub (so you can ban IPs now). I'd do it myself but I'm having comp issues. —PhilipNeustrom

2007-10-25 08:26:54   I'll refrain from killing the spam in the future besides garden variety reversion and IP bans. I do think we need to come up with some best practices for dealing with spam, however. I'll start a discussion this weekend when I have more free time. The reason why I prefer memory-holing spam is that it just clutters up the edit history. Look at the FAQ on the hub, for example. The spam continues to make the wiki less useful if we let it remain in the edit histories, even after it is no longer live. —WilliamLewis

2007-10-26 09:01:34   Hi Graham, I've really been enjoying your work on the SC Wiki lately, your photo energy is great....and thanks for all the hard work in general! I've also been thinking about the questions you asked me and I am still undecided....—AlexDarocy

2007-11-02 16:22:21   Out of curiosity, hat laptop are you getting? I'm sliding up toward an upgrade, and I'm just starting to poke around. I'm looking at smaller laptops, having a nice 17" WUXGA monster right now that I love the screen on, but is just slightly too big for normal bags. Kubuntu here. —JabberWokky

2007-11-02 20:21:31   Hey, JW,

I ordered a Lenovo/ThinkPad X61 tablet laptop. After the upgrades, I'll end up with 2GB RAM, 120GB hard drive (5400rpm, unfortunately), an extended runtime battery (6 hours, baby!), a GoldTouch ergonomic USB keyboard, and an external USB DVD-ROM. I chose to skip the docking station for now, though I may pick up a used one later.

It's a fairly small screen and I'm a little worried about the contrast, but I'll hook it up to a 20" LCD when I'm at home.

I plan to use the [WWW]ThinkWiki and other helpful resources to get all the doohickeys working. I've been playing with Ubuntu on a Fujitsu tablet, and while it's not perfect it's good enough to make me feel confident about switching.

2008-03-11 04:10:10   Hey, Graham... are you a wiki admin on the Santa Cruz Wiki? If so, I need a brief admin action. Otherwise, if you know who is, let me know. Thanks. —JabberWokky

2008-05-25 03:45:26   Hi Graham. I just noticed that someone who claims to be your dad posted a comment refuting yours on the page for Bill Kopper ([WWW]http://daviswiki.org/William_D_Kopper_Attorney_At_Law). I was just wondering if that is real or if it's someone using a fictitious account to make false statements. —JeremyOgul

2009-01-16 05:01:04   One of the wiki admins for that community will have to install it. It is installed in the Wiki Settings, under "Image Settings", "Small logo of the wiki". —JabberWokky

2009-01-20 05:39:30   Graham, just wanted to let you know that there are other Wiki Spot wikis for people's weddings. They were not asked to go elsewhere. A good way to send that same message is to add the code from the Abuse page about suggesting that they check the community guidelines. Abuse has a pretty good history of which wikis are being watched. For people that are just creating pages on the Wiki Spot wiki we generally have been directing them to Create a Wiki.

2009-02-26 23:05:40   Sorry for being an ass about the Berkeley thing, I've now done what I should have before instead of putting my foot in my mouth which is just make [berkeley]the page. It would be nice if you could add some more to it when you have time. Thanks! —NickSchmalenberger

September 2007

Hi, folks,

[davis]Geoff Johnson of the [davis]Aggie newspaper asked me a few questions about the Davis Wiki in preparation for an article targeted at incoming first-year UCD undergrads. Here's the Q&A I had with him - do you have anything to add? If so, use the comment bar to contribute your thoughts.

(Geoff: Sorry, I mistakenly sent this before I finished. Here's the finished version.)

On 24 Sep 07, at 09:49, Geoff Johnson wrote:

All right, Graham, here's what I have for you:

-How, and why, did you become involved with the DavisWiki?

My friend Troy Arnold told me about it in 2004, and I made my first edit in March of 2005.

-Why do you remain involved with the wiki, even though you have moved to Oakland?

Actually, I just moved from Oakland to Santa Cruz a couple of weeks ago. :)

I remain involved because the Davis Wiki is about the community of Davis, to which I maintain strong connections. I still visit at least once per month. After all, I lived there for a total of more than a decade. Specifically, Davis is where:

* I went to junior high and high school
* I voted for the first time
* I lost my virginity
* I met my first girlfriend
* I broke up with my former fiancé
* I met my last girlfriend (before getting married)
* I met my wife
* one of my best friends came out as gay
* my mother went to law school and later ran for and won a seat on the City Council
* my wife got her PhD (in Nutrition at UCD)
* I learned about the cooperative business model, which forms the basis of my present-day career
* I met one of my role models, Kevin Wolf

And through the Davis Wiki, I met and/or re-established contact with a number of excellent people, including a friend who got his MBA at UCD and is now in Ensenada Mexico, Philip Neustrom (one of the Davis Wiki co-founders), Jason Aller, Arlen Abraham, James Schwab (whom I knew from high school but didn't keep in touch with), and others.

-Can the wiki be useful to people who don't edit?

Absolutely!

Want know about the Davis Food Co-op? Visit the Davis Food Co-op page on the wiki to learn about their excellent customer service, their occasional screw-ups in food storage, and how you can buy a share in and get involved as a co-owner of the store.

Do you want to know where to take a date? Check out the page on the Arboretum.

Not familiar with the local plant life? Take a look at the page on Town Flora.

Do you want to know whether a particular landlord or property manager has a history of screwing over renters on the security deposit? Take a look at the Security Deposit Survey page, and proceed to the Small Claims Court page if things get ugly.

These sections of the wiki are all very helpful, regardless of whether you remain a spectator or a participant.

-Would you encourage incoming students to use the wiki? Why or why not?

Definitely. Incoming students are joining the community of Davis, and the more they know about it the more likely it is that they'll enjoy their time in school and in Davis.

-If so, do you have advice for first-time wiki users? How about first-time wiki editors?

First-time wiki users:

Spend 30 minutes browsing the wiki. Whatever the most interesting thing about Davis is that you found in that 30 minutes, go visit it in person. Rinse, lather, and repeat the next day.

If you look at the "Recent Changes" page, you'll see the wiki growing and changing in almost real-time. Some of that is a beautiful process, and some of it involves arguments and insults. It's just real life, represented online. Don't sweat the bad stuff - focus on the good.

First-time wiki editors:

First and foremost, please use your real name! Don't use an alias, don't use your IM handle, and definitely don't steal someone else's identity. Use the name that you respond to in real life. Why? The Davis Wiki is a representation of and extension of the community, and an essential part of a healthy community is getting to know your neighbors. Trust and respect them, and they'll trust and respect you. When someone calls you on the phone, don't you want to know who they are before you'll speak to them? Wouldn't you get angry if you found out that they misrepresented their identity?

Remember that bad stuff you saw on "Recent Changes"? Don't get caught up in it.

Instead, go take a picture of one of the things you like best about Davis and add it to the Davis Wiki. If there isn't already a page about it, create one! If there is, go ahead and add to or change it! You don't need to have lived in Davis for a certain period of time before you can contribute to the wiki. Any constructive edit is welcome.

Worried that you'll screw up somehow? Don't sweat it. People love to help, and if you goof up just post a question on the wiki and someone is bound to help within a few hours - sometimes even within a few minutes.

-What are some of the problems having a website anyone can edit?

Sometimes people develop myopia about their particular pet project or cause, and they end up "shouting down" other peoplein the process of trying to promote or protect that project or cause. Sometimes they do this by repeatedly trying to remove another person's contributions - which can result in a "revert war". (Look it up on the wiki. :) ) As with any war, revert wars are bad for everyone.

A good analogy that I heard from another wiki user goes like this: If you're standing in the farmer's market shouting at the top of your lungs, it doesn't matter what your project or cause is - you're disrupting the community and preventing others from enjoying public resources.

Fortunately, there are enough reasonable people keeping an eye on the Davis Wiki that destructive activity never gets very far.

Another problem arises when people are dishonest and try to disguise their identities so that they can say things they wouldn't say under their own real name. If you're living in a repressive political climate and cannot publicly express your nonviolent thoughts without going to jail, it's sensible and just to be able to express yourself anonymously. However this isn't China and Bush/Cheney have not yet completely turned the USA into a police state - no member of the Davis community is going to go to jail for expressing a nonviolent opinion on the Davis Wiki. Nevertheless, it can be tempting to post a one-sided rant about a person or organization under an assumed name - just be aware that this harms the community and reflects poorly on the person who didn't feel that their opinion was valid enough to put their real name behind it.

-Is there anything else you would like to add?

I've been fairly verbose already. :)

[portion elided for the sake of privacy]

I realize some of these may be obvious questions, but as a rule of journalism, I can't offer my own insight - just those of others. Thanks again for your help!

No problem. Thanks for getting in touch!

Graham
+1 415 462 2991

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