From Mass Effect Wiki

[edit] About Me

My name is William, I am 25, and I am a Staff Sergeant (SSgt) in the US Air Force Reserve. I live in Santa Clara, California, and I LOVE Mass Effect (and can't wait for #2)!!! I aim to do whatever I can to improve this site, as I feel it's a great resource. Also, I am an admin, so if anyone has any questions or needs help with anything, please just let me know!

Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but I have no patience whatsoever with crybabies, whiners, speculators, and boors. If you are going to be rude to someone else, plant purely speculative info, or insult others but then start crying when someone calls you on it, you WILL be hearing from me.

Now that the seriousness is taken care of, it's my goal to make this the most informative site possible, while also keeping it a nice, friendly environment for users. Any assistance in furthering that goal is, of course, greatly appreciated, and I try to acknowledge people for their efforts as much as possible. So I hope you all enjoy the site, and hopefully you'll be hearing from me (for something good, of course!)

[edit] Projects

• Work on cleaning up/beefing up Port Hanshan
• Keeping an eye on anything military related. (As a servicemember I take a great deal of interest in all things military, so it's kind of my pet project!)
• Keeping an eye on Mass Effect 2 and all related pages. Word to the wise- Speculators beware! If new tidbits aren't sourced, I WILL remove them! If they reappear, still not sourced, they're gone again! It's a waiting game, and I've got nothing but time! :)
• After much debate it was decided that, as commander is used as a proper noun when used to refer to a particular commander, ie Shepard, working on capitalizing all relevant uses of commander as I happen upon them. Not really a concerted effort, it's more along the lines of a few at a time, as pages needing it pop up through the wonderful 'random page' function.

[edit] Tongue-in cheek thought of the, ah, who am I kidding? I'm not gonna change this daily...

• Please realize people that you can't make judgment calls about the way a Mass Effect race/culture does things based on how you do things. So what if their system of naming their people seems odd to you? Your method probably seems weird to them, too. Even if you don't like the method the writers at BioWare came up with for the race to name their people, this is an encyclopedia which is based off of precisely that, and not your own personal preferences. SpartHawg948 03:10, December 1, 2009 (UTC)
• Please people, don't call someone else WRONG for expressing an opinion. That's just rude. Oh, and it can also get you blocked, too!
• If you make lots of mistakes, I'm going to correct you a lot. Don't get all bitchy about it. Maybe work on making less mistakes, instead. If you don't make mistakes, or do douchey things like calling other people wrong for expressing their opinions, or make lots of typos and factual errors, I won't have to correct you. And if I don't have to correct you, you won't have to get all butt-hurt and whiney and start using bold words to express your annoyance and try to make me look like a jerk! (In point of fact, I do quite well making myself look like a jerk, I don't require assistance) :P SpartHawg948 00:58, December 7, 2009 (UTC)
• Also, the official SpartHawg948 word of the month for December- VINLIFYING. Please don't ask me what it means, as I have no clue. I suspect it was intended to be "vilifying" but it would appear an N crept in there too, which brings me to my next point- SPELLCHECK. Use it people, it's here for you! (In much the same way I am, actually!) SpartHawg948 01:58, December 7, 2009 (UTC)
• Also, not to sound preachy or anything, but the best way to keep a resolved, but still somewhat contentious, dispute from becoming an issue again is to just move on. Simple as that. Of course, it's pretty hard to move on when uninvolved parties keep bringing it up after it's already been resolved. Just saying... SpartHawg948 21:27, December 7, 2009 (UTC)
• Really people? Really? When I ask if we can just let an issue go and not re-hash unpleasantness, it is NOT an invitation to go over all the details again! I don't care if you want to tell me what you thought about it! You have a talk page too, you know! Please, if someone asks to have an issue like that dropped, respect their wishes! Is that really so much to ask? SpartHawg948 23:25, December 7, 2009 (UTC)
• Also, in an aside that by it's very nature may sound rude and jerky (even though that is not my intent). If you wish to interject points about an argument between two people, and want them to be taken seriously and impartially, it helps to not say, "oh, and I'm ___'s cousin" (blank being one of the parties in the hypothetical dispute). The reason for this is, no matter how many times you protest that you are not just sticking up for family or fighting their battles for them, the doubt will always be there. It will pretty much always be viewed as you fighting family battles, and not speaking as a neutral observer. Just saying... SpartHawg948 23:28, December 7, 2009 (UTC)
• One more thing to tack onto that last point. It also looks rather fishy if you state openly that you have no intention of making edits to this wiki, but just happen to pop over from another wiki to re-open old debates and throw in your two cents. I was a little confused by that at first, till it became known that the individual in question was a relative of the other party to the dispute. That, combined with the familial relationship, makes it pretty hard to not see it as someone come to fight his cousin's battles. Also, if you aren't at this wiki to edit and improve the site, is it too much to ask that you don't leave rants/messages/whatever on my talk page? SpartHawg948 23:38, December 7, 2009 (UTC)
• All right people, I realize that some of my comments lately may have been a bit more pointed and belligerent lately, as well as being less thinly veiled than usual lately (you pretty much know who I'm referring to rather than my usual, where you aren't that sure), I apologize. (See, I was gonna do the cop-out and apologize if anyone took offense, but then I realized how much I hate it when other people do that instead of just apologizing for real.) That being said, I do have a policy of changing this every month, and I'm gonna stay with that. And while the tone and language may be over the top, the messages are still valid, so... long story short, while I apologize for the mean streak I may have shown lately, this will be staying through the end of the month. Thanks! SpartHawg948 22:11, December 8, 2009 (UTC)
• If a race is specifically listed as a distinct offshoot of another race, and is also listed as not being a Citadel race, it's probably not accurate to just tack them onto the race they are an offshoot of on the Races page, especially if that original race is a Citadel race. Does this make good, common sense to anyone else, or is it just me? SpartHawg948 03:43, December 10, 2009 (UTC)
• Please people, don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. It is really easy to check a page history and see what you did and didn't say. If you try claiming that you said something in a post, but you really didn't, it's not hard at all to disprove you. SpartHawg948 08:03, December 12, 2009 (UTC)
• Treaties don't change the meanings of words. Just because a treaty sets down a legal definition of a word to allow for prosecution doesn't change the underlying meaning of the word. After all, remember United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, the one that said that Zionism equaled racism? It didn't change the definition of the word Zionism at all, it just meant that for a number of disgraceful years, until it was revoked by UN General Assembly Resolution 46/86, an international organization determined that all Israeli Jews were racists. Scraps of legalese paper signed by dignitaries don't change the meanings of words people! Another good example: A Convention on genocide that declares that causing "serious mental harm" on people can constitute genocide. Right... SpartHawg948 06:42, December 17, 2009 (UTC)
• Another one, and this hearkens back to an old entry from a previous month... Please make sure that when you attempt to alter the wording of an article, you A) Understand the definition of the word and B) The definition fits with the situation you are using the word to describe. Last time the word was "irony", this time it's "genocide". Genocide is a deliberate and systematic attempt to eradicate a group of people based on religious, racial, ethnic, etc. lines. It's not genocide if only one planet in a multi-planet government is targeted, any more than it would be genocide against, say, the Iranian people if the perpetrators only hit Tehran. Please people, proper word usage is key. SpartHawg948 08:46, December 17, 2009 (UTC)
• Some people's kids! If I ask you to knock off some bad behavior, it isn't to be mean, it's me telling you that you are getting dangerously close to being blocked. I don't like banning people, so I offer them ample chance to shape up (I'm starting to think too many chances). Also, if you want to be a punk and insert something into the middle of one of my comments to make it look like I said it, here's a tip: IT NEEDS TO LOOK LIKE SOMETHING I WOULD ACTUALLY WRITE. I know, it seems like that would go without saying, but some people can't seem to grasp simple concepts like that. For example, I always use proper spelling and grammar, so starting it with "i'm" is a dead give-away it wasn't me, as I always will use "I'm". If you want to defame someone, do the prerequisite homework! SpartHawg948 03:18, December 19, 2009 (UTC)
• This has nothing to do with anything on this site, but I think a little irrelevant irreverence every now and then is a good thing. Just saw some whackjob on TV who is a PhD, and claims he will "never ever ever die" because he doesn't believe in death. Apparently, "If you choose to be alive,and you choose life, you get rid of all the death urges from your body, you'll never die! Nobody can die unless he believes in death." Neat-O! And yes, that was a direct quote. Don't believe me? Watch Penn and Teller: Bullshit!, the season two episode entitled "Death, Inc". You can not make this stuff up! SpartHawg948 01:23, December 20, 2009 (UTC)
• Aren't hypocrites funny? You gotta love the kids who accuse others of having no life and call editors here losers with no lives... and then sit around and vandalize the site repeatedly. Talk about having no life! I pray I'll never become a pathetic sap who has nothing better to do than sit around and vandalize a site about a video game. Poor dumb bastards. SpartHawg948 00:19, December 22, 2009 (UTC)
• Whenever someone who hasn't been around here that long and/or hasn't really contributed anything meaningful to the wiki proposes a change to the way things are done, they need to realize: This wiki has been up and running for over two years. TWO YEARS. We have a pretty good handle on things. Don't take it personally if nobody else seems to take your big push for change seriously, because you need to remember, we operate on the principle of "If it's not broke, don't fix it", and if it's worked well for over two years, it'll take more than one new and inexperienced editor saying "well it IS broke and it annoys me and I don't like it" to convince people that it needs to change. NOTE- On rare occasions it will turn out to be a technical problem with the site, but this entry was actually in reference to a number of incidents, not just one, so the point still stands. SpartHawg948 01:19, December 23, 2009 (UTC)
• Is it too much to ask that people read the Style Guide and Community Guidelines before editing? It makes the jobs of the admins a lot easier if people know how things work around here. I don't know how many times I have had to inform people of the spelling policy (both American and British spellings are used and acceptable!), the policy on gender-specific references to Shepard, the policy on images of Shepard, the speculation policy... on and on! The spelling one is the real annoyance though. Please, just read the guides people!!! SpartHawg948 07:09, December 25, 2009 (UTC)