Tomtom9041
 | This user is busy in real life and may not respond swiftly to queries. |
In abstentsia lucii, tenebrae vinctumn.
— In the absence of light, darkness prevails.
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Welcome
Hello, my name is Thomas (Tomtom to my friends, et al) Fuller. I was Tombombadil until the network I was on was comprised from the inside. I am a 43 year old male living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
I served in the United States Army.
I have a Rat terrier
Where I was stationed
Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Huachuca, Fort Bragg, Hunter Army Airfield, Yongsan Army Garrison, Camp Jackson, Fort Jackson, Fort Hood, in that order.
Countries I've visited
Mexico, England, Germany, Netherlands, Ireland, El Salvador, Honduras, Egypt, Grenada, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Israel.
Interests
This section was unabashed stolen from Ford, and taken almost verbatim from his user page, without consultation.
Generalist in world studies, particular interest in history, geography, language and symbols, and the nature and practice of dominion. Proponent of transcendent rationalism, and its corollary, stewardship.
Leading frustrations
This section was also unabashedly stolen from Ford, and taken verbatim from his user page, without consultation. ‘I’ below refers to Ford, not to Tomtom9041.
Administrator abuse. — This frustration trumps all others. There is little if any point in editing here when self-important editors with special powers violate written policies that are meant to govern the use of these special powers. Perhaps worse than that is that such abuse receives from the community. This is incredibly shortsighted; those who cheer abuse when it happens to those they do not like have no defense when they are the victims of abuse themselves.
Biased edits. — I agree with the sentiments of some that calling a thing by its proper name is important — dictatorship, rule, oppression, murder. That is much of the point of the above pages, particularly Earth as it is. I am happy to deal in controversy elsewhere; but Wikipedia, with its open format, is not the place. We have all agreed to produce something that is dry and factual; we should do only that. Of course, this bias is most frustrating when it involves calling a thing what it is not, and is accompanied by accusations that a neutral position is biased.
"Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled."
“Settled” matters. — Policies which are subject to change are taken as divine fiat; agreements reached between a handful of editors at some indeterminate time in the past are taken as constitutional law. While I am called upon to justify my editing practices, other editors are allowed to resist any change with reference to a discussion with a few or even one other editor a year or two in the past as the last word on any given issue. And such “settled” or “established” policies are held to trump even the policy of neutrality.
Adulation of “superiors”. — Religious figures, royalty and nobility, and other holdovers of pre-modern times are subjects that some editors are clearly incapable of treating . Styles and titles that are assumed by self-important individuals, or disingenuously “granted” them by their supporters, or bestowed by presumptuous governments, are perhaps matters of fact that can be noted; but they cannot be used if the encyclopedia is to remain neutral. John Paul II and Tenzin Gyatso are not “holy”, Elizabeth Windsor is not “majestic”, and those who insist that to call them so is not an endorsement of these claims are dupes. Naturally, there is a lingering fascination with the pre-modern culture of nobility, and there is no shortage of fanboys here who treat the persistence of the nobility as a terrific game; but between such neo-romantics, fame-addled celebrity worshippers, and the pious devotees of religions and patriotisms of various kinds, the encyclopedia is a testament to inequality, where the egalitarian idea is treated as unacceptable bias.
Page ownership. — Some rather-important pages are treated like personal property by single editors. The most significant instance of this I have seen involved an editor who resisted any change not of its own doing on conservative grounds (id est, “this wording has stood the test of time”), and then summarily substituted a radically-different version while we were still discussing a new version that I had placed on the talk page for consideration.
Gratifying vanity or commercial interest of subjects. — While self-identification is worth taking into account, when self-identification becomes self-promotion we are not in any way obligated to follow suit. If we do so, we abandon the policies of neutrality and common usage and actually engage in advertising. This includes the practice of writing brand names in all caps, which companies support because it calls attention to their brands. This also includes the non-standard and utterly-ridiculous practice of considering the definite article as part of the name of something to the extent that it should be included in an article’s title and capitalized in the middle of a sentence. All the arguments for this practice would likewise support silliness like “graduated from the presitigious The George Washington University”, and will lead to this eventually, if they have not already.
Various things I believe
- Wikipedia-related:
- Wikipedia is the future.
- When in doubt, delete.
- United States is always better than American. US should be U.S.
- The Wiki, and its various applications, has done more to further peace and prosperity in the world than have any confused political notions or armies of bureaucrats and meddlers.
- It won't kill you to be nice to other Wikipedians. Defend your honor and mark your territory elsewhere.
- Others:
- All government lie. Big time.
- Conspiracies abound. Also big time.
- The northern United States is too cold.
- Global warming is a lie.
- The Austrian School of Economics is the only one that has a clue.
- Political boundaries, citizenship, and other such notions are asinine.
- All skin is some shade of tan; everybody is born somewhere. The fact that your epidermis is of a lighter or darker shade, and that your parents lived within a certain political entity, entitles you to nothing.
- Ayn Rand was wacky, brilliant, but wacky.
- And so is Anne Coulter
- Dogs are beautiful and noble animals.
- France has had its less than glorious times; as we have had ours.
- War is big business.
- "Nazi" means National Socialist; let's not forget that.
- Socialism, in all its forms, to include Fascism, Nazism, and Communism (et al), has killed more people than any other belief system including religion.
- The biggest Mass murderer in history were all socialists: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc
World's biggest user box
This user is a member of the Association of Wikipedians Who Dislike Making Broad Judgements About the Worthiness of a General Category of Article, and Who Are In Favor of the Deletion of Some Particularly Bad Articles, but That Doesn't Mean They are Deletionist
 The motto of the AWWDMBJAWGCAWAIFDSPBATDMTD is Est omnino difficile iudicare inclusionis meritum cuiusdam rei in encyclopædia cum ratio sciendi quid populi referat incerta sit, sed nihilominus aliquid encyclopædiam dedecet, which translates to "it is generally difficult to judge the worthiness of a particular topic for inclusion in an encyclopedia considering that there is no certain way to know what interests people, but some topics nevertheless are not fit for an encyclopedia." This motto reflects the desire of these Wikipedians to be reluctant, but not entirely unwilling, to remove articles from Wikipedia. |
Communist state imitations
I was born in 1963, and remember that the Soviet Union and Communist China were once, and some would say still are, "the" Evil empires of the world. I remember seeing the Berlin Wall on TV. The cold war fascinates me, what if we still had the Soviet Union, what would the world be like today? Would Soviet citizens be allowed on the Internet? Would they write blogs? I like how they were always trying to copy the west. Here is a table with a list of examples:
WikiLicense
I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:
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Multi-licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License versions 1.0 and 2.0 | 
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| I agree to multi-license my contributions under the GFDL and the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license version 1.0 and version 2.0. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my contributions under the Creative Commons terms, please check the CC dual-license and Multi-licensing guides. | ||
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