User:Wrp103

My name is Bill Pringle. I was laid off by Unisys as a software engineer, and I used to teach part time at Penn State Great Valley.

I have a personal web site^[1] that has various things about me, and sample programs that were used by my students and others.

I also run a web site for singer/songwriter Cheryl Wheeler^[2].

I have interests in computers, music, video games (mostly console-based RPGs), math, and religion (I started Catholic, went to agnostic, and then Mormon). My web site has more information about all of these areas.

I started reading science fiction, mostly from Baen Books. I recently read the Honor Harrington series, and have done some minor editing of that page. I also have started watching Doctor Who episodes, as well as Murdoch Mysteries.

Major Areas of Contributions

My contributions to Wikipedia have touched on all of the above topics, including:

Music:

Cheryl Wheeler - most of the content
Johnny Clegg (musician) - added reasonable content
Bruce Cockburn - various contributions
Music of Bulgaria - section on folk dances
Folk dancing - I created this page.
José Pereira (scholar) - I created this page about the father of a friend.

Programming:

C programming language - Dynamic arrays and arrays of structures instead of multi-dimensional arrays
Malloc (C Programming Language) - example of dynamic arrays in C
Linked list - example of generic linked list & variations
Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing/Pseudocode - added my two cents several places
Debugging - I created the Basic Steps section

Religion:

Edits of several pages regarding various topics about the Mormon Church

Video Games:

Misc.
I monitor changes to various topics of interest to me, including:

Vandalism

While monitoring pages on my watchlist, I keep an eye out for vandalism. I really don't understand why people would choose to spend time defacing something, but there seem to be a lot of them out there. :-(

In general, if I see somebody that vandalizes one of the pages on my watchlist, I will add a template to their talk page, and usually watch their talk page. If they vandalize too much, then I request that they be blocked. If anyone contributes to a page on my watchlist that doesn't have a talk page (yet), then I will add a welcome message to their talk page as well.

On those rare cases when I have some extra time, I will check the recent changes page.

Useful links

Here are some useful links:

User warning templates

There are a number of templates that can be used when dealing with new users and/or vandals.

This "User talk page" section identifies what should be added to the talk page to create a section for warnings. Warnings should be grouped by months, and the messages should be placed in a numbered list.

The "Common templates" section contain the templates I normally use for welcoming and vandalism warnings. You can copy and paste them into a page. Replace PAGE with the page name that they edited, and N (if present) with a number between 1 and 4, depending on how many times they have vandalized recently.

In general, this is how I deal with vandalism:

Copy the article name that was vandalized
Click on the user contributions link to examine past history
Click on the User Talk page and edit
At the bottom of the User Talk page, hit ENTER a few times, and then paste the article name for later
If the page was blank, copy and paste the "User Talk Page" section at the top
Copy the appropriate template from "Welcome", "Warning" or "Blocking" Templates and paste it into the page
Cut the article name at the bottom of the page, double-click on the "PAGE" part of the template and paste the page name over top
If a number is appropriate, change "N" to the appropriate number (based on past history and/or blatant vandalism)
If I want to add a personal note, then I click before the signature tag, hit ENTER, and then type the message.
Copy the template line and paste it into the Edit Summary box
Click on "Show preview" button and check it
Click on "Save page" when done

Since the templates are stored in a table, I can copy the template by triple-clicking inside the cell.

User talk page

==Warnings==

===October 2009===

Welcome templates

WP:WARN

{{subst:welcome\|art=PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:anon\|art=PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:welcomenpov\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~
	{{subst:uw-editsummary\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~

Warnings templates

{{subst:uw-testN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-vandalN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-deleteN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~
{{subst:uw-errorN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-unsourcedN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-spamN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~
{{subst:uw-jokeN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-biogN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-mosN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~
{{subst:uw-npovN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-defamatoryN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-chatN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~

Blocking templates

Generic	Anonymous	Spam
{{subst:uw-block1\|time=TIME}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-ablock\|time=TIME}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-sblock}} -- ~~~~
Vandal	Delete	3RR
{{subst:uw-vblock\|time=TIME}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-dblock\|time=TIME}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-3block\|time=TIME}} -- ~~~~
31 hours	48 hours	1 week
indefinite	1 month	6 months
:* Researching complaint against [[User:USER]] -- ~~~~
{{subst:uw-aiv\|USER\|MESSAGE}} -- ~~~~
:* No vandalism by [[User:USER]] after final warning -- ~~~~

References

^ Personal web site: BillPringle.com[1]
^ CherylWheeler.com[2]

[1] Personal web site: BillPringle.com[1]

[2] CherylWheeler.com[2]

[1]

[2]

{{subst:welcome\|art=PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:anon\|art=PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:welcomenpov\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~
	{{subst:uw-editsummary\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~

{{subst:uw-testN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-vandalN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-deleteN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~
{{subst:uw-errorN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-unsourcedN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-spamN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~
{{subst:uw-jokeN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-biogN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-mosN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~
{{subst:uw-npovN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-defamatoryN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~	{{subst:uw-chatN\|PAGE}} -- ~~~~