User:RobLa/Welcome

 From: Rob Lanphier (User:RobLa)
 To: you! whoever you are reading this webpage
 Date: 03:39, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 Subject: Welcome! (and a few words of wisdom stubborn "way it's always been done here" from a longtime admin)

Hi editors of electowiki!

If you're reading this page, there's a reasonable chance that I pointed you to this page. Assuming you are a new editor: welcome! Here's a few tips, and things to keep in mind as you contribute to electowiki:

We're watching you.... - You may have been pointed here because I was watching Special:RecentChanges, and noticed that you made a change to one of the pages. I'm kind of obsessive about doing that, and many other editors here are too. Don't worry about it, it's pretty standard on a wiki like this one. It's how we make sure that new editors aren't actually vandals coming to trash this wiki. If I sent you a welcome message, I'm probably not too worried about you. (yet...don't push your luck :-))
User pages - You can read all about me on my user page (User:RobLa). You may have been pointed to this page because you're new here, and hadn't put anything on your user page. If that's you, then when visiting Special:RecentChanges, you will probably see a red hyperlink associated with your username. I would appreciate it if you filled a little something in there, even if it's "I'm new here, please help me even though I want to remain anonymous." Or "I'm new here, and here's a webpage you can use to learn more about me: https://www.example.com ". I get a little fussy about pseudoanonymity, but other users here don't, and have elected not to reveal their real identity.
Timestamps - I'm writing this in the early evening of 2020-05-26 in the Pacific timezone. However, you'll see from the date above that it's "03:39, 27 May 2020 (UTC)" in UTC, which is the international standard timezone. Since we have editors from all over the United States and in other parts of the world, we just use "UTC" rather than Eastern time
Conflict of interest - as of today (2020-05-26), I'm a bit cranky about conflict of interest editing. My fear (probably not justified) is that staff members and board members of various electoral reform organizations (like FairVote and C4ES) could start editing electowiki, and talk about how great their electoral reform organization is. I don't mind it when editors pseudo-anonymously make typo fixes or grammar fixes to articles, but I get a little upset when they start making changes that I can't review, and other reviewers aren't keeping up.

Please feel free to edit anything you like to edit (even the Main Page). Don't feel bad if one of us (including me) reverts your change almost immediately. These things happen. We use English Wikipedia's "BOLD, revert, discuss cycle" as our standard practice here too. Or at least, I should. I need to start reverting people more....

Sincerely,

Rob Lanphier (User:RobLa)