User:Jimkloss

userboxes This user listens to Whole Wheat Radio This user lives in the U.S. State of Alaska. This user operates an installation of MediaWiki. This user uses Wikipedia as a primary point of reference. Personal enThis user is a native speaker of the English language. no adsThis user is against commercials in Wikipedia. This user thinks that Wikipedia is the best thing since sliced bread. ± This user has no cell phone. WebCastThis user is interested in webcasting. WWRThis user listens to Whole Wheat Radio WWR This user loves Gardening This user enjoys backpacking. This user admires all expressions of nature. This user enjoys folk music. This user has been on Wikipedia for 18 years, 9 months and 20 days. This user supports sustainable living. XDThis user is interested in comedy, and may enjoy writing or performing it. This user is a homebrewer. Java-4This user is an expert coffee drinker. This user likes the taste of coffee, not cream / sugar / hazelnut / what have you. This user loves sunny days This user wants to live a Beat lifestyle in Paris, France. This user has visited 50 of the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.50 Programming prog-4This user is an expert programmer. prog-NThis user thinks in bytecode and dreams of electric sheep. PHP-4This user is an expert PHP programmer. mysql-2This user is an intermediate MySQL programmer. {{Wiki}}This user can write in the MediaWiki language. asm-3This user is an advanced assembly language programmer. CThis user can program in C. bas-3This user is able to contribute with an advanced level of Basaa. This user can write Cascading Style Sheets. HTML-3This user is an advanced HTML user. XMLThis user can write XML. Java-0This user has some undisclosed problems with Java. IP addressThis user supports mandatory registration.

I think it's appropriate for me to just put in a short personal entry on this page. I'm Jim Kloss, living in Talkeetna, Alaska. I facilitate the running of the Whole Wheat Radio webcast along with the listener community. Together, we form an online community radio station.

I'm originally from Columbus, Ohio. My loves include organic gardening but I don't seem to get enough time to do it properly. (Note: Starting in 2008, I'm slowly reducing my day-to-day involvement with WWR so I can get back to my lovely gardens and so, hopefully, WWR can become a completely self-sustaining and independent community.) In 1991 I hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. It changed my life and was the catalyst for me leaving my fast-track computer career in Atlanta to move to the wilds of Alaska. Although I spend most of my time these days in the thriving metropolis of Talkeetna, my official residence is 20 miles north of town in a roadless area accessible only by train and foot. (Note: That officially changed in 2007 with the opening of The Wheat Palace to host, at no cost, local events, community meetings and events and house concerts.)

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If you are a Wikipedian looking for a small, warm, musically-oriented wiki playground to share your skills and time with while listening to some wonderful independent music, we really would like to invite you to stop by at Whole Wheat Radio and meet the community!

MY PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON WIKIPEDIA AND MY RECENT EXPERIENCES THERE

November, 17th 2008

I am no longer comfortable editing anything on Wikipedia having to do with independent music or webcasting.

I've spent the last 6+ years learning both in detail and have a certain degree of expertise in both. And although there are entire projects devoted to getting all artists / albums on Wikipedia, it seems that when I act to contribute something of value, I am accused of self-promotion or spamming. Not by the artists (who are genuinely appreciative) but by self-appointed jack-booted policemen who have the answers to questions they never asked as they beat my talk page with their template nightsticks.

I've spent the last 2+ years as a wiki evangelist - pioneering and freely encouraging all sorts of unique ways to make the model work in a non-commercial grassroots collaborative environment that includes not only a musical library, but a database of artists, albums and songs as well as a live 24/7/365 webcast controlled by the very wikipedians who are creating the content. I believe I have helped further the "free knowledge for free minds" mission of Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia by fostering a non-commercial targetted semi-encyclopedic reference site for independent musicians that appeal to adult musical tastes.

I have not collected a dime nor have I tried to parlay my many hours of work, dedication and personal financial outlay into anything that is commercially self-serving, spamlike or ugly.

Yet, if I open my mouth about areas I know best on Wikipedia, I am slapped down by template - generally by someone who did not bother to click a single link related to WWR.

I do not deserve that sort of abusive treatment and will not participate in a site which is unable to control it or does not care to control it. I will not continue to spend 1-2 hours of my time to research and craft a civil and logical written response to these attacks when I am not accorded the same courtesy at the outset.

Although I still strongly believe in the wiki model and Wikipedia as the finest example of worthy non-commercial volunteerism on the Internet, I am very close to being completely done as a Wikipedia contributor. I'm not nearly as angry as I am disappointed.

And, I am quite certain, that unless Wikipedia addresses issues such as this, editorship will eventually consist of nothing more than the same set of close-minded encyclopdia propogandists that Wikipedia originally set out to overcome.

I truly appreciate when people (Attu and Sparx as the primary examples) have joined the conversation on Wikipedia to help point out what WWR is. But there are not enough of us --- I am not allowed to speak even though I have the desire, the musicians themselves aren't involved and I question why I should spend more of my life trying to get them involved, and the majority of listeners are often more interested in chatting about the weather than contributing to the mission of furthering independent music in a non-commercial environment both on Wikipedia and WWR.

So be it. I have gardens to plant and skies to look at...”