Hi, you can call me Madeline, Maddy, or Laura. I'm mainly interested in trans- and WP:WIRED-related areas, but I also do a lot of non-text-writing work when I'm feeling down, see for example the collapsed list below. I'm active in closing requested moves, having the page mover user right, and currently gaining experience with closing RfCs and other discussions. I'm also trying my hand at GA reviews. I can often be found on Libera Chat with the nickname lav. (I am currently not that much on IRC; check my away status if in doubt.) Download my PGP public key here.
thank you so much for your help Tdshe/her 17:38, 7 October 2022 (UTC)
The LGBT Barnstar
In recognition of your work generally, but especially helping clean up LGBT articles, including the ones I created/edited but left full of careless errors or formatted poorly (my bad lol). Thank you!
For your continued work on highly visible controversial topics, namely Andrew Tate and Libs of TikTok, and for collaborating with other editors there. Many thanks! — Askarion✉ 12:41, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
welcoming contentious topics
Thank you for quality articles such as Cisnormativity, Lucile Abreu and Transgender history in Finland, for welcoming new users and dealing with move requests, for not only bravely closing the umptieth Mozart RfC but even following through afterwards, for a clever April Fool and a section "Things to do when demotivated" - Madeline, you are an awesome Wikipedian!
You are recipient no. 2839 of Precious, a prize of QAI. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:17, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
In the case of marginally notable topics, consider how we best serve the reader – if we cannot say much of substance without becoming a carbon copy of the subject's website or of a tabloid news article, it is kinder to our lectrice to say nothing at all. But if we can tell a little, enough for the future casually interested surfer, who stumbled upon a nomen out of context, to satisfy their curiosity, we must by all means do so. In particular, articles on organizations and contemporary people often fall in the former group, where our writings are not only redundant but may for the lack of a true NPOV pass off promotion as balance, whereas bygone events and persons rarely have promotional materials to plagiarize, and even a short stub may be a helpful summary.
When discussing the already painful topic of editor behaviour, the last thing anyone needs is to think of hangings. Please just use WP:LASTCHANCE instead.
AGF and experience
Occasionally the question comes up, whether experienced editors should be afforded more or less assumption of good faith than newcomers. I think there is a distinction to be drawn between good-faith goals and good-faith methods, and that that distinction is relevant here.
Working towards good-faith goals means wanting to make a better Wikipedia. This encompasses all behaviour that isn't vandalism. A significant proportion of new editors are here to vandalize, while editors who put in any significant amount of effort into Wikipedia rarely vandalize.
Someone who is trying to improve Wikipedia might still resort to methods that consciously contradict the editing policy. An editor might be so convinced they are right on some matter that they resort to domination techniques or sockpuppetry to achieve their goals. Such techniques may be used by editors of any level of experience, but newcomers cannot be assumed to be familiar with our editing procedures; as such, it can be reasonable to allow inexperienced editors some leeway under circumstances where a more experienced editor may be seen as acting unambiguously maliciously, if the situation could instead be explained by a fundamental misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works.
Limited width is good, actually
Uncontrollably long lines are uncontrollably hard to read. Typographic wisdom has it that 10 to 15 words per line is a good number. I use monobook, but I have amended my CSS to that effect.