User:Robert Brockway

Professionally I'm a systems administrator and systems architect with a strong commitment to the ideals of open source software. In 2014 I resigned from the board of Software in the Public Interest. I did this as my primary focus outside of work and family has been Men's Rights Activism for the last few years.

I've been the owner and publisher of A Voice for Men since January 2022. As of 19 September 2024 the wiki page hasn't been updated yet. Let's see how long it takes for other editors to figure this out. Many other statements on the page are out-of-date, aside from the ones that are outright wrong of course.

My preferred OS for personal use is Linux and has been for nearly 30 years. Having said that, I dream of the day when many of today's theoretical concepts in OS design can be rolled out into production. The OSes we have available today are good, but we can do better. In 1995 I founded the Home Unix Machine - Brisbane User Group (HUMBUG). HUMBUG continues to this day.

For a while I was in the Queensland Police Service as a sworn officer. My time in the police has left me with an interest in, and appreciation of, common law based legal systems and their subtleties.

I hold Australian and Canadian citizenship.

For fun I love playing board games, in particular german games. I used to do quite a bit of role-playing and play quite a few war games but not so much these days.

I've had a long interest in the Middle East. In the region I have visited Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Israel. While in Israel I spent time on kibbutz Kfar Blum.

I have a smart and beautiful daughter, Amelie.

I have eclectic music tastes, even listening to Time and Glass.

No, I'm not this Robert Brockway. We don't see eye to eye.

I'm related to Fenner Brockway and Shane Heal.

Recent Changes

Recent Changes Patrolling

Recentism

My position on recentism is that Wikipedia is a living document. At any moment it should be relevant to the people who are reading it at that time. As a result I have no problem with including information without an historical perspective, even if it is later removed since it is no longer of interest. This occurs with Wikipedia articles anyway, which undergo constant revision even in cases when they could arguably be considered complete.

Problems with Wikipedia

I think Wikipedia is great. I caught the open source bug a long time go so as soon as I saw it I realised the value. Having said this I do feel there are problems:

1. Anonymous edits

Anonymous edits cause far more harm than good as far as I'm concerned. People who care about Wikipedia will create accounts so they can edit articles. Just like crime most vandalism on WP is opportunistic. A minimal physical barrier will prevent most crime and similarly a minimal barrier to editing (creating an account) will prevent most vandalism. From now on I will comment on the problems with anonymous editing in the edit summary whenever I revert anonymous vandalism.

Some liken anonymous editing to the open source philosophy of allowing anyone to modify source code but this turns out to be a false analogy. All but the smallest open source projects restrict "commit" privileges on the source tree to trusted coders - open source is very much a meritocracy. The ability for anyone to edit the source tree comes from the ability to create a code fork. Those that do not agree with the privileged coders for the project may make their own project. To maintain the same level of openness WP does not need to allow everyone to edit the encyclopedia but rather it need only allow others to create a fork of the encyclopedia if they wish.

This very page was anonymously vandalised recently. The vandal made a series of anti-semitic and hateful statements against me (see the page history for details). I'm not actually Jewish so the anti-semitic statements were a bit odd, while still being offensive.

2. Lack of Consensus

I fear there is a rise of some who do not seek consensus. I have recently seen a concerning instance of this:

A memorial to Steve Irwin (http://www.ripsteve.com) was repeatedly removed from the page despite a consensus that it should stay from among those discussing the matter on the talk page. As each argument to remove the page was shot down another would take its place. So much for consensus.

3. Votes for Deletion

It is far too easy to nominate an article for VfD IMHO. Too many articles are being nominated. My position is that deletion should only be used in extreme circumstances.

Maui Cluster Scheduler was actually nominated for deletion and the result was "no consensus". Many of the comments claimed the article was spam (for an open source project?) or made comments that since the software was not used on a home PC it did not warrant inclusion in WP. At the very least this is parochialism.

Maui is a specialised piece of software. It has as much right to an article as any specialised subject. Much of the encyclopedia is taken up by specialised articles.

Donkey vote was once nominated for Speedy deletion. People need to stop nominating articles for Speedy deletion just because they don't know anything about the topic.

4. Accessibility

The English Wikipedia has become increasingly dense and inaccessible. Larger articles, especially those on technical topics, increasingly resemble treatises rather than encyclopedia articles. I suspect this is due to the preference for experts to contribute to articles within their area of expertise. While this is laudable one should always consider one's target audience when writing.

5. Bias

All humans have biases. Wikipedia is supposed to take a neutral point of view however when too many active editors take one position over another bias begins to creep in to the project. This is widely occurring within the English Wikipedia today and will ultimately weaken the project.

Articles

I tend to edit all over the place. I have a wide range of interests. Outside of computing I'm not a specialist in any area although I am well read in many areas of science and the arts. I have a strong interest in the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

A list of articles that I created can be seen here.

Other Articles I've largely rewritten

Articles Saved from Speedy Deletion

Delaware Capitol Police - Rewritten
Weatherfield Arms - Some info added, eventually merged

Interesting Lists

That time 12 Years a Slave cribbed a line from Wikipedia and didn't tell anyone

I added the line the date, location and circumstances of his death are unknown to the Solomon Northup article on the English Wikipedia in 2004. This same line is shown on screen at the end of 12 Years a Slave but Wikipedia is uncredited as the source. I always preferred Solomon Northup's Odyssey anyway.

SlimVirgin

In 2011 I had an extended exchange with SlimVirgin. My interaction with SlimVirgin was one of a series of negative interactions that contributed to a significant reduction in my participation in the project. The website Wikipedia Review voted SlimVirgin the most abusive Wikipedia admin of 2006. SlimVirgin is reported to have passed away in May 2021.^[1]^[2]