Please do not confuse me with user:Renata. Note digit 3 in my username.

[edit] Vital info

Wikipedia:Babel
lt Šio vartotojo gimtoji kalba yra lietuvių. en-3 This user is able to contribute with an advanced level of English. ... This user would like to be able to speak many more languages.
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Some quick facts about me:

1. I am a helpless recovering relapsed Wikiholic
2. I joined in July 2005 (user ID 320236)
3. I am a Wikipedia administrator since Aug 2006
4. I am a member of the Audit Committee since July 2009
5. I made some 18k edits to English Wikipedia
6. I helped to create WikiProject Lithuania
7. I am rather a deletionist as I value quality far more than quantity

   I realized deleting stuff is not the best way to write & improve encyclopedia, but old ways are hard to change.

8. I am from Lithuania, but live in New York City
9. I have degrees in accounting and taxation
10. I am a proud "Person of the Year" (2006)

[edit] Contributions

House of Gediminas History of Lithuania (1219–1295) Act of Independence of Lithuania (1/3 credit) Flag of Lithuania (WP:RB) Counties of Lithuania Municipalities of Lithuania Image:Minard.png (upload)

1940 Soviet ultimatum to Lithuania Lithuanian Civil War (1389–1392) 1938 Polish ultimatum to Lithuania 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania 1926 Lithuanian coup d'état Council of Lithuania Great Seimas of Vilnius Prussian uprisings House of Mindaugas Mindaugas (1/3 credit) Tautiška giesmė (WP:RB)

DYKs & other trinkets

[edit] Databases

I have access to various research databases through my college library. Those include JSTOR, Factiva, New York Times archives since 1880s, and a bunch of other goodies. If you need something – let me know and I will look it up (provided it won't take the whole day).

[edit] Quote

Great minds discuss ideas.

Mediocre minds discuss events.

Small minds discuss other people. --Eleanor Roosevelt

[edit] How I write new articles

I don't like minor edits. I keep thinking they waste bandwidth and there is always something else to fix than that one typo, wikilink, or category. I like to make each edit as good and as complete as it can be. If I write a new article, I usually write it in one big massive edit. That one edit might take me days to write. I spend enormous amounts of time reading before I write new articles. I like to double-check all facts (even basic ones as dates and names), understand the background, get different opinions. Once in a while I will spend hours chasing after some minor fact that might or might not end up in an article. When I am writing something, I have about a dozen open books laying around me and another two dozen browser tabs on my screen. If I add something to an article, I am pretty sure it is correct, it makes sense, and it can be relied upon.

I don't like creating stubs. If I leave a stub I feel like I did a bad job because it is obviously flawed and not as good and not as complete as it can be. In other words, I always attempt to write GA-quality articles in one massive edit. As you can imagine such editing takes time – a lot of time and even more brain power. That should explain why I extremely rarely write and edit articles with large scope, like Lithuania, Vilnius, or History of Lithuania (even though I keep promising to myself). If an article with such limited scope as Lithuanian Civil War (1431–1435) takes me something like 8 hours to write, just imagine how long it would take me to write such a large-scope article as Lithuania...

I am very upset and disappointed when someone edits an article that I wrote and does not adhere to the quality standard I set. Sometimes they would take a statement from a shady or unknown source, add it without context to a place where it makes no sense, and disrupt the flow and idea of the entire paragraph. It is even sadder when such edits are motivated by nothing else but some kind of agenda. Then I have to go after them like a good babysitter and clean up. My quality standards are very high, especially for GA and FA. Much higher than official GA or FA standards. That's why I would vote oppose 90% of the time. But I am trying to be nice and avoid those places. I am still deeply disappointed when some obviously flawed and deficient articles make it through.

[edit] Learning from Wikipedia

The greatest thing I learned from Wikipedia is awareness of POVs, application of {{fact}} to everything I read, and appreciation of academic works. Image credit: xkcd

[edit] Ads on Wikipedia

Wikipedia Ads	file info – show another – #195

These are the only ads I want to see on Wikipedia.

[edit] Best template ever

This article may be written from neutral point of view and as such may not be compatible with one or several historic propaganda campaigns. If you feel you are biased by any such propaganda campaign, please refrain from editing this article.

To see how it got watered down, or deleted, go to {{notpropaganda}}

[edit] Just how accurate Britannica is?

I learned that I can access online Britannica for free through my college's library. So I decided to check out what it had to say about Vilnius, capital of Lithuania and my hometown.

And here is what I found:

1. A settlement existed on the site in the 10th century, and the first documentary reference to it dates from 1128.

   Umh... Where are they getting 10th century from? Archaeological data shows people lived in the area from at least 3rd millennium BC. 1128 is equally mysterious. First mention of Vilnius is in Letters of Gediminas, written in 1323. That's why he is considered to the founder of the city.

2. ... it [Vilnius] was destroyed in 1377 by the Teutonic Knights

   Huh? What happened in 1377? Nothing really special. The Teutonic Knights made an ordinary attack on the city. The Knights launched a full-scale crusade against pagan Lithuania in 1283 and it ended in 1410 in Battle of Grunwald. So during 130 years of warfare Vilnius was attacked in 1365, 1375, 1377, 1383, 1390, 1392, 1394 and 1402. The most damaging of them was in 1390 when the Crooked Castle was destroyed.

3. ... in 1525 a printing press was set up ...

   Actually, the printing press closed in 1525. It was opened in 1522.

4. The ruins of the Castle of Gediminas on Castle Hill dominate the old town, with its narrow, winding streets that climb the wooded slopes surrounding the confluence of the rivers.

   Not a clue where they got this description... Old town is dominated by the Vilnius Cathedral. Castle of Gediminas is up on a steep hill and overgrown with trees. The old town itself lies on a flat land and does not even try to climb the really steep hills that are on the other bank of Vilnia River.

5. The cathedral dates originally from 1387...

   Actually it was built by Mindaugas after he was baptized in 1251 to satisfy the terms of agreement with the pope.

6. Around the old town are the newer sectors of the city, with a rectangular street plan...'

   The only neighborhood with rectangular street plan is Žvėrynas and it can hardly be called "newer."

7. Present-day Vilnius is an important industrial centre, producing machine tools, agricultural machinery, electronic calculators and other electrical and electronic apparatus, textiles, clothing, and foodstuffs.

   Large majority of these factories went bankrupt after Lithuania declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. My mom worked for one of them.

8. The V. Kapsukas State University is the successor to the Jesuit academy of 1579,...

   It's Vilnius University since 1990.

9. ... and the Vilnius Civil Engineering Institute was founded in 1969.

   It's Vilnius Gediminas Technical University since 1990.

10. The art gallery occupies the former town hall...

    It's back to being a town hall since 1995.

So that's ten mistakes in an article of 450 words (I did not count/check a 191-word paragraph about Jewish life, because embarrassingly I know nothing about it). I submitted these comments to Britannica via their feedback system on August 4, 2007. I will let you know when/if they fix these mistakes. Renata 20:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Update: one month, no changes. Renata 04:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Update #2: two months, no changes. Renata 03:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Update #3: four months, no changes. Renata (talk) 17:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Update #4: six months, no changes. Renata (talk) 18:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Update #5: eleven months, no changes. They promised to launch new Wikipedia-like comment system. Will test it then. Renata (talk) 04:19, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Just how useful is Wikipedia?

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