This user is currently experiencing significant real world stress that may affect their ability to work on Wikimedia. This user may choose to work in quieter areas and avoid complicated tasks or areas prone to conflict. This user may also respond to talk page messages or e-mails more slowly than usual, and your patience is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
SHB2000 is taking a short wikibreak and will be back on Meta-Wiki soon.
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Hello there, I'm SHB. I am available to assist you. Please feel free to reach out to me through my talk page or via email (for autoconfirmed users).
Hello there. I'm SHB, a steward and Mesomedian from the English Wikivoyage, where I am a sysop, bureaucrat and checkuser. I'm also active on Wikimedia Commons, the English Wikibooks and here on Meta (the latter two of which I'm also a sysop on). I am significantly involved in the sphere of cross-wiki anti-vandalism, anti-spam and maintenance, particularly on small wikis that lack sysops (primarily handling speedy deletion requests).
I do many things, but I'm very passionate about travel: specifically nature (particularly cold places), rail travel and any other means of overland travel. Most cities also interest me (and directly relates to my real-life profession), particularly those with old and charming historic cores – and those designed to support a good festive market, sign me up immediately. I won't say no to amazing cold places, such as Austria, New Zealand or the Canadian Rockies, and never no to a good fjord or snow-cappedmountain (hiking in these places never gets old). Nonetheless, I do enjoy visiting all types of places (even warm tropical places or hot deserts): over 20 countries visited so far, plenty more of the world to explore, and life is too short not to experience many of the world's wonderful places.
Perhaps most notably so far, I've created 10 per cent of park articles on the English Wikivoyage and a little over 1 per cent of total articles over there.
Contact
You can contact me via my talk page or email (for autoconfirmed users). Those who know how to contact me via Discord may also contact me there. I don't usually use IRC as I find it too dated; however, if you need me, my nick is SHB2000.
Quick travel trivia
Record
Place
Northernmost
Tromsø
Southernmost
Lumsden
Easternmost
Auckland
Westernmost
Point Reyes National Seashore
Highest point
Tioga Pass, Yosemite National Park or Westland Tai Poutini National Park (>3000 m)
Lowest point (excluding undersea tunnels)
Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park (-87 m / -285 ft)
I should make it clear that my personal opinions will not interfere with significant decision-making; despite how much I may disagree with some policies, I will always act in accordance with policy.
Anti-vandalism
Opposing effective proven measures to help with anti-vandalism because "it will make it harder for newbies" comes out as another indirect way of saying "I don't really get involved with anti-vandalism work, but I will get in the way of people who do know what they're talking about."
I don't exactly agree with not mentioning the usernames of LTAs, nor do I agree with completely avoiding discussions on what to do with them – it makes things needlessly complicated.
Admin/global matters
Abuse filters should not be a place to have admins-only discussions. If this does happen, I will not participate in them.
Logs should rarely be revision-deleted. Admins should be held accountable for their actions; revision deleting logs will create a system open to abuse.
Admins should not be allowed to furtively get away with misusing their tools. Unfortunately, on smaller WMF projects, the lack of oversight means this is very common.
If you're an admin and semi-protect your talk page indefinitely, you need to have at least one way for anons to contact you. Otherwise, it is an attempt to cut off communication.
I will not shy away from controversial opinions (related to the project side of things) if I think it is a net benefit for the wider community – even if it means garnering oppose votes or dissatisfaction by a few.
It's fine for bureaucrats to close sysop nominations they participated in – your personal opinion should not stand in the way of your ability to determine consensus.
Behavioural/blocks
Minor, simple issues can be resolved without the need to request comments on a high-profile page.
A wiki that doesn't accept standard globally-accepted norms cannot expect to significantly grow without pissing off its editors.
No gratitude should be given to serial copyright violators. I'm all for a "one warning, then you're out" policy for copyright violators (outside Commons). If someone has been given a harshly worded warning for copyright violations and then still does it again, then why should we trust them not to make another one yet?
Block evasion shouldn't be allowed – no excuses whatever. Period.
I'm all for using Wikipedia's duck test to identify IP sockpuppets as CUs cannot publicly connect IPs with accounts. Maybe this wouldn't be an issue had the WMF never allowed anons to edit.
Hat collectors and single-purpose accounts often don't have the intention to genuinely improve Wikimedia. What you will see more or less is the permission in question being used in the single digits and maybe enough uses of the permission to avoid removal, but never a genuine use.
User talk pages are not "private talk pages". Use emails or some off-wiki chat for that.
Local username blocks should never be a thing – either a username is egregious enough that it warrants a global lock, some other reason comes up that warrants a block, or you leave the username be. You lose perfectly fine contributors, and in an era where accounts are global and connected via SUL, having different username policies on different wikis will only make things more confusing.
Using AI as a substitute for human-written text (not including minor copyedits and translations) is plain lazy and is an insult to the community. If you use AI to generate a nomination statement, it will be an automatic oppose from me unless a very compelling explanation is provided.
That doesn't necessarily mean your English skills need to be good (and it'd be a bit rich coming from a native English speaker) – but it is hundred-fold better to write a response in a language you're proficient in and use DeepL (or Google Translate) over an LLM.
One of the worst reasons for opposing a global ban is "they aren't disruptive on my wiki". This is an extremely narrow-minded take and ignores the bigger picture (read my essay for more of my thoughts on this).
Content matters
Copying content word-for-word from one project to another should generally be avoided. It hampers a wiki's potential to grow due to a SEO penalty.
I'm all for requesting comments on high-profile pages, but if you are going to do that, don't make it sound like canvassing, or worse yet, canvass.
Don't make edits that have the potential to break links or files if you're on a lousy Wi-Fi network.
Never think about using Wikitravel. It's the inferior, for-profit, out-of-date predecessor version of Wikivoyage (edit: hi Internet Brands). See en:voy:Wikivoyage:Wikivoyage and Wikitravel for some context.
Using bright yellow text does nothing more than hurt my eyes. Unless it's being used with a black background, please, for the love of those with visual impairments (myself included), don't use yellow text.
I didn't want to have identical text on several wikis, so here it is. As an admin, here are a few things that I will and won't do:
I have no authority to unilaterally change or use IAR to bypass most policies that are not out-of-date or relevant.
I will not use my admin tools in an edit war or interwiki dispute (even if it is with another administrator who uses their tools against me) unless it's an egregious case of vandalism, POV pushing, obvious trolling or some other policy violation that would warrant a block.
For blocked users, I am not your proxy. Any request on my talk page regarding your block should only be about your block. If you're looking to use me as a proxy, no matter how hard you try and convince me, the answer will always be no.
I tend to avoid deleting pages in RfD discussions that I initiated, but there is a clear consensus, or if the discussion has gone stale even after a request for another user to handle the request for a certain period (usually 4–7 days).
For touts on the English Wikivoyage, if your edit was reverted, I will not rewrite your reverted edit unless it's a very mild case of touting.
I can come out as harsh on users with blocks on other WMF projects due to en.voy's one-strike policy (en.wb does not have one, but my stance is still the same with users continuing their disruption).
I will use the DUCK test at my discretion, provided that it's appropriate.
If you cast aspersions at me just to get a permission, chances are, you're not because of your incivility.
Tromsø
Lumsden
Point Reyes National Seashore
Berlin or
Poznan (-9°C / 15°F)
Between Lleida and Zaragoza (321 km/h / 199 mph)
Brisbane XPT (Roma St–Sydney Central) (15 hours, with delays)