Users/JabberWokky/Observations

The Desiderwikia

incomplete (as always)

For good content, argue with passion from your heart:
 find the vision of what you know to be right.
 Then carefully vote with your head:
 compromise to meet other people's view of what is right.

For good community, forgive wholeheartedly every single day
 and freely apologize whenever you might need to be forgiven.
 Let fools be fools, and let people you respect be fools.
 Soon it will be your time to be foolish, despite your care.

Find your own contentment; nobody else can do that for you.
 Something here caught your whimsy.  Either hold fast to it
 or learn to continually find new points of wonder in the whole.

Reading is not movement, and argument is jumping in place.
 It is finding something new, polishing it into a beautiful gift
 and placing it carefully into the shared treasure room
 that moves any -- and all! -- of us forward.

"You know, people always talk about how the internet dulls humanity. It doesn't. It amplifies the lowest common denomenator. The good people are still out there doing good things. It's just gotten easier for stupidity to not toil in obscurity."

— The lovely Mrs. Wokky

In the old days, the Internet used to amplify good things — people helping other people without expecting compensation in return. At least, that's how I remember it. —CovertProfessor

How to read Reviews

The subject is generally Good: People who are complaining have nothing specific, people who are lauding have specifics.

The subject is generally Bad: People who are lauding have nothing specific, people who are complaining have specifics.

Exception: One person has the same very specific complaint that they obsess over (possibly including some other items, but there is one thing they are ticked about). Remove everything they say from the equation and reapply the above.

Wikispotting

Davis Wiki and Wiki Spot on the internet, grassroots style:

• A Yelp review noting that "Reviewing anything in Davis is basicly redundent since nearly everything in or near Davis is listed in the comprehensive Davis Wiki".

Neat WikiSpot Wikis

• splitter — Niche work.

Stuff to work on

• Davis Visitor's Guide
• NacSki

Stuff for You

• But soft, what shirt on yonder bicyclist sits? — Bike? Like the Bard? Ta da!
• May this never happen here.
• An interesting Edwardian take on Alice in Wonderland is The Westminster Alice, by Hector Hugh Munro, who wrote an eerily prescient story of Germany invading England and a wonderful short story entitled Sredni Vashtar.
• Davis in a commercial product.

California vs. The World

I found the Huell Howser of Tennessee! Instead of California's Gold, there is Tennessee Crossroads. The show is a bit different, with different hosts doing segments, but the TN version of Huell is Rob Wilds, who can summon the same strange slow-burning hypnotic enthusiasm about the mundane as Huell. Check out the video on The Pfunky Griddle's website by clicking "Experience The Griddle". I'm still looking for his most Huell like video (the chainsaw lady segment comes close). As an aside, Huell is from Tennessee originally (thus the accent), went to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and got his television start in Nashville before moving to and falling in love with California.

Joe's Editing Theory

During April Fool's 2011, there was the typical growing insanity on the wiki, including rapid edits to the Front Page. Joe made this observation which is a pretty amusing and dead on critique of the last year, especially the last six months:

I feel like the edit war on the front page is out of hand. We should lock it down, have an extended and tedious conversation, maybe alienate a longtimer or two, and just generally get bogged down in tangents both technical and philosophical. In four days or so, when everyone's sick to death of it, let's compromise, and leave this page up as a remembrance of the good ol' times. At some indeterminate point in the future, we can have another tedious and frustrating conversation about whether or not to delete the first talk page. ;]—JoePomidor

Orchids

This is a great opening paragraph. Informative, interesting, uplifting and celebrating a part of Davis.

Need to add the Tandem Property point here.