View source for User:AlisonW

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;<big>Este læti. Et mirabiles. Bibite coffeam!</big>

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Hi, I'm AlisonW and though I worked in IT for most of my life I'm now retired. In the past I also worked in the entertainment world as a [[sound engineer]], [[lighting designer]], and [[tour manager]]. I used to be very active in and around the [[Westminster Bubble]] for the [[Liberal Democrats (UK)|LibDems]], for remaining in the EU, and in [[LGBT]] politics since the early [[1980s]], being one of the founders of the UK Chapter of the [[Lesbian Avengers]] and of the [[London Lesbian and Gay Centre]] (LLGC).
[[File:Car driving through a ford.jpg|thumb|My Hippo going through a ford]]
I live in [[Markyate]], have an [[MBA]] from the [[Open University Business School]], drink a lot of strong black [[coffee (drink)|coffee]], am [[polyamorous]], and drive a [[Land Rover]] [[Land Rover Freelander|Freelander 2]] car. I love [[Off-roading]], especially on [[Byway (road)#BOAT|BOAT]]s. Since I retired I even bought a [[Swift Leisure|Swift]] [[Caravan (trailer)|caravan]]!

I was present at the first ever [[meta:WikiMeet|WikiMeet]], in London on [[5th June]] 2004, and some others since.
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==My Wish for Wikipedia==
Is that people would spend less time on seeking to delete articles or useful information on pages, and actually spend their time here *adding* to "the sum of all human knowledge". The Wikimedia Foundation and its allied Chapters fund this operation through thousands of individual donations, and editing the content in order to increase that record of knowledge is and will always be far more important than getting hung up on 'process' and 'policy'. The only policy that matters is to *add useful stuff*, so yes, I'm definitely an '[[Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia|Inclusionist]]'.

I can do no better than to quote someone who wrote a comment on one of my blogs:
:"Deleting stuff is really stupid, there´s been a few times I've looked things up on wp, and it´s had ´marked for deletion´ pasted over it, I've felt lucky to get there and find the info I wanted before the vandals who run lurk there wiped it. Often I don´t need to know a lot of in depth detail so ''even a stub is enough'' to be really useful.

:"Probably a good many people who actually *use* the site find things out just want as much info as possible, so long as it´s accurate it doesn't matter if it´s not complete so long as the gaps are marked. Most people won´t have an account and don´t have time to get into a long argument with some troll who spends their life being negative rather than actually contributing content and filling in the gaps."

Another commenter had noted:
:"Then again, it may just be naivety on my part in assuming that an encyclopædia is about amassing as much knowledge as possible."

Indeed.

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==A note on editing==
Because my account was one of those hacked in late 2016 I switched to the two-factor authentication on this account. Thing is, I don't always have the authenticator to hand when I want to do a quick one-off edit via my phone or tablet, so you'll often see them as IP-only edits instead. As I have fixed IP addresses I can verify that any edits associated with 84.45.170.208/28 (prior to November 2022) or by [[User:90.155.48.18]] (since December 2022) are by me.

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{{Userpage}}

===Categories===
[[:m:List of WikiWomen|WikiWomen]], [[m:Queer Wikimedians|Queer Wikimedians]]
[[Category:LGBTQ Wikipedians|AlisonW]]
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