Users/JabberWokky

—— Somewhat out of date and out of state——

An older photo. It's a longer, grayer beard nowadays.

Evan Edwards, well known as JabberWokky (I get regular postal mail addressed to JabberWokky, I'm registered to vote with the ID JabberWokky, and my wife calls me Wokky). I can be identified thusly: A rather large fellow of Scot-Irish ancestry. Long red-brown hair (only visibly red in good sunlight), a very full beard. I always wear black jeans and either black sweaters (winter) or Hawaiian shirts (summer). Often you can see a bronze Hand of Eris pendant around my neck. In winter (and sometimes in summer), I wear a large black trench coat. My laptop, frank, is a Dell Inspiron 9300 and very tied to my home network. I'm friendly, meaning I only bite if you're cute and ask nicely. One easy identifier is my black hat, technically an outback hat, which is somewhat like a large fedora. It sometimes has my band of pinbacks on it.

Amazing Value! Wiki Classics Proposal for a Radical Change KDE and the Wiki Where to Hide a Dead Body on the Wiki Random Wiki Nonsense Ten Random Links Five Random People Non Random Cool Entries Deleted Talk Pages one minute of downtime Wiki Bulldada = Davis as an Image Davis Wiki as an Image (Not so) FAQs Wikispotting Neat WikiSpot Wikis Stuff to work on Stuff for You =

Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire


To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire!


Would not we shatter it to bits — and then


Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám, (trans: Edward Fitzgerald)

  | _nn
  {___">

Note that Sarah is in the Doctorate program at Penn State, and so I'm in exile from Davis. We next move at the end of August 2010. At that point, she's got a short stint somewhere as a post-doc, and then the permanent faculty position search starts. Between family and friends, we've been making back to visit every two years. Why am I so involved in the Wiki? Davis was our home, and we're hoping for it to be again. Sarah will be a professor of chemistry, we like small university towns and we already know we love Davis. In the meantime, if you manage to find yourself in State College, Pennsylvania, drop a line and we'll show you around. If you are looking to become a grad student here (or move here for any other reason), contact us with any questions you might have. Penn State is much larger than UC Davis, but it is an ag school, and you'll see similar traits but with greater resources (important for grad students) and with an East Coast flavor to the population (which is worth living among to get a feel for different viewpoints).

If you know of a good research University that has a chemistry program and is in a town similar in tenor and tone to Davis, let us know. We're looking now (we started our "where will we live the rest of our lives until Sarah is emeritus, and I'm playing Santa Claus at the Farmer's Market" quest on June 2009). Other than Davis, Chapel Hill and Berkeley are in the mix.

Alternate universe version. Note the lack of beard, indicating this is the 'Good Universe' JabberWokky. Likely a sockpuppet for David Poole, like most other users on the wiki. Of course, it is also documented fact that he is Jason Aller, so perhaps Jason is also a sockpuppet. Regardless, he prefers, being a Henson fan, to be referred to as a "sockmuppet". He is in full favor of, and thinks it would be "spiffy keen" to see some DavisWiki fanfic. His attention to detail is appreciated, as the wiki keeps informing him.

A note about the name: Yes, people call me Jabber, Wokky and JabberWokky in real life (including my SO, who tends to use the more popular "Wokky"). Yes, it started life as a reference before the web existed, and it started out intentionally misspelled. I camelCap it for ease of use. I get magazines sent to "Wokky, Jabber", and have gotten credit card offers to Mr. Jabber Wokky. Yes, people call me Evan as well. Note that as long as this account has existed, the redirect EvanEdwards has existed. In 2006 and 2008, I officially voted using it, having registered as a voter using the name. Cheap Thrills is more than a Big Brother album. Woo.

Yes, he can lose his patience on and with the wiki. ;-P One tip he's discovered is that if a controversial or pointed reply, comment or edit is worth making, it'll be fine to type it up, read through it, then copy and paste it into a text file to read, edit and choose to post (or not) the next day. If it's really worth saying, it's going to be perfectly okay if it waits a day. That's especially important if you've been woken up at 1:15am by an alarm, and are sitting reading through Recent Changes while you wait for a database check to finish, half asleep. This comment, on the other hand should be safe. Right?

Minor interesting facts:

• Is in the process (2008-06) of registering as a fancy mouse breeder for lineage registration.
  

• Last Macintosh was a II LC. Last used Windows in 1998.
  

• His first computer was in the days when building your own meant a bit more than simply ordering parts.
  

• Used to host a science fiction radio show, is perpetually thinking about starting again.
  

• Drinks iced coffee, having discovered that it is far more likely to be decent than tea. Prefers Kona.
  

• Has been looking for a good barbeque place ever since he moved to California.
  

• Has discovered waiters give him a blank look when asked "what kind of barbeque is it?"
  

• His favorite is Carolina style, but a good Georgian, South Carolina or St. Louis is good too. Texas BBQ is different.
  

• Has lots of interesting sites, a few servers, and five meese in a huge custom built mouse cage.
  

• Probably scored lower on the purity test than you.
  

• Knows that when somebody asks you if you are a god, you say "yes".
  

• Is likely not the political faction you think he is.
  

• Filks, but only occasionally in public.
  

• Knows about that Society thing with the people in armor who go camping, but again, not locally ("Vivat Trimaris!")
  

• Is in Trekkies II, but is much more happy about the pretty good scene with his SO in an Orion Slave costume that he made (and she so excellently filled out).
  

• Enjoys building stage props and furniture.
  

• Owns an original shooting script, Susan Sarandon's audition photos and the collectable card proof sheet for the Rocky Horror Picture Show. His office is full of Rocky collectables.
  

• Can be considered goth for values of goth that include Edward Gorey, Poppy Z., Souxie and gargoyles.
  

• Can also be considered goth for values of goth that include Ostro and Visi. "Ask me about my sack!"
  

• Is not generally considered goth.
  

• Has a near legendary stash of "stuff" in Pennsylvania, including:
  

• Full size MAME cabinet capable of taking four JAMMA boards (currently ripped apart again; it's being transformed into the "Rocky Horror Arcade Show")
  

• More books and movies than you can shake a stick at - or fit in a 10' truck.
  

• Original RHPS shooting script, as used on set, original Columbia doll used in the 10th Anniversary poster, original photos used to audition Susan Sarandon (yes, a wiki is forthcoming)
  

• Everything White Wolf put out for the World of Darkness up until 3rd edition started coming out.
  

• SubGenius devival gear.
  

• Knows many many languages of a code type, and has written a mail editor in Intercal, and won obsfucated C contests. Prefers PHP as an interpreted language and likes Python. Feels very much at home in C (and is suspicious of those Bjarne blasted concoctions that came after). Likes SPL and Lua.
  

• Likes Guinness, especially since other stouts are so rare.
  

• Has missed two (2) Whole Earth Festivals since he moved.
  

• Has written a few homebrew RPG systems, and likes Marvel, Storyteller, Palladium and many many more. Ranks AD&D in decending order as they have come out (First is 1st, etc). Was ST for a large, full WoD game.
  

• Can make babies cry when he merely opens his violin case.
  

• Enjoys learning to home build homes. Frame houses, wattle and daub and Mike Oehler turn him on.
  

• Can cook. Before Food Network made it trendy to deglaze.
  

• His home network consists of frank (Dell laptop), crim (Toshiba Libretto 110ct), riffraff (4U rackmount), magenta (MythTV install), scott (MAME), betty (Tosiba laptop), ralph (Apple TiBook) and janet (Celeron box in the corner). His work systems are tim-01 to tim-10, ramon, ritz, nell and the less than spectacularly named op03.
  

• Takes it as a personal failure and genuinely feels bad when somebody exits the Wiki in a huff. He feels bad and wonders what went wrong and if there was anything he could have done to make them happier or fix what had made them upset.
  

• Believes being blunt without being needlessly harsh is a tough thing to do, but is ultimately the right thing to do to be fair and open. If you run across a spot on the wiki where the phrase "blunt" is used by him, he agonized over the wording of that edit to keep it a positive and honest presentation of negative things.

...and lastly...

• Misses the hell out of Davis, and hopes to someday return with the woman he pursued (successfully).

---

Often plays around with stuff (like the Wiki!) to break it. Then drinks more iced coffee in triumph. THEN fixes it. — tar zxf

• Note that I now often drink iced Cafix as well.

• ¹ This means a picture that does not (unlike the ones posted here):
  

• Look like I'm choking someone.
  

• Occlude my face with a cameraphone.

---

Amazing Value!

Now you can purchase your own jabberwokky at amazon.com!

Wiki Classics

Remember...?


• JeromeJohnson
  

• The furor over papasan chairs on the wiki?
  

• Hitler and Nazis becomes a legitimate topic of conversation on the IKEA entry.
  

• Greatest. Edit. Ever. The fact that this just went multigenerational says more about the wiki being a real reflection of the community than anything else ever will. The very real line of human life that we are all stepping through and weaving together is laid clear and real here. Like an overheard comment while watering your lawn, or a chance chat with a neighbor while in line at the bank, this is the fingerprint of human experience — a moment of pure life — caught on the wiki.
  

• Graduate Tutorial Services — one guy posts the story of how he was annoyed during his interview, nothing happens for two weeks, and then a bunch of people start signing up and jumping all over him, mostly with new accounts, all within the span of a few hours. Flashmob a la wiki?
  

• Bistro 33 — A great example of how chaos became a useful entry.
  

• Real Computers — Not understanding the wiki.
  

• When SteveDavison not only tracked down a spammer, he found a webcam in their office!

Proposal for a Radical Change

Here's a new proposal for the home page:

---

KDE and the Wiki

Konqueror Web Shortcut for the Wiki Search:

http://daviswiki.org/FrontPage?text_new={@}&action=inlinesearch&button_new.x=0&context=40

Konqueror Web Shortcut for the Wiki:

http://daviswiki.org/{@}

Go to Settings, Configure Konqueror, Web Shortcuts and paste the above line and pick a shortcut. I use dw. Then you can use URLs like dw:JabberWokky to either jump directly to an entry or to search for the term.

Where to Hide a Dead Body on the Wiki

The Wiki provides a rich and cluttered environment ideal for the surreptitious disposal of formerly living entities. These FLEs can be placed in a wide variety of entries including, but not limited to:

• One of AlphaDog's many botany oriented entries
  

• Woven into one of ArlenAbraham's theories about the wiki
  

• Inside the Mystery Picture of the moment
  

• Note that this has nothing to do with Pluto's Mushrooms of the Moment and cannot be considered a claim or attack on any trademarks held by PlutosCorps.
  

• Brought to a Wiki Gathering, preferably set to some Oingo Boingo music.
  

• Dumped in the trunk of TarZxf's dusty "Wiki Dude" diesel Jetta
  

• Somewhere in the Friends Urging Campus Kindness Platform, between the staplers and the countback amendment. No one will ever read something that ridiculously long.

---

Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach,


Or what's a heaven for?


— Robert Browning, "Andrea del Sarto"

Random Wiki Nonsense

Ten Random Links

Five Random People

• BenjaminMiller
  

• MoTorres
  

• AnaluciaCordova
  

• NotTires
  

• DebWestergaard

Non Random Cool Entries

• European White Birch
  

• I was expecting something completely different. I thought it said "European White Bitch" —jimstewart
  

• I Hate Davis — in which the "campus landscapers" are called in utter and delicious ironic humor, the gender specific "sexist bastards".

JabberWokky's Statistics

Edits	Pages Created	Files Contributed	First Edit Date	Last Edit	Last Page Edited
13187	793	562	2004-12-07 13:55:08	2010-03-21 09:30:30	Users/JonLi

---

Someone who keeps aloof from suffering
is not a lover. I choose your love
above all else. As for wealth
if that comes, or goes, so be it.
Wealth and love inhabit separate worlds.

But as long as you live here inside me,
I cannot say that I'm suffering.

— Hakim Abul-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanā'ī, trans. Coleman Barks

Deleted Talk Pages

On 8.24.05 I cleaned out some Talk pages for entries that had become stable. Since the format for Talk pages has changed, here are the "missing entries":

• Talk:Traditions
  

• Talk:Ben & Jerry's
  

• Talk:Ari Kalfayan
  

• Talk:Gender and Sexuality Commission
  

• Talk:Davis Players Society.
  

Brent pointed out Talk:Cost Plus World Market and Wiki Court.

I left a few that were newish or active.

Deleted by ES on 2005-12-5

• Zachary's Pizza/Talk

one minute of downtime

Describe that minute of downtime here.

it just occurred, and it was *terrible*

I wanted the wiki now, but I had to wait

sometimes i have to rip the band-aid off really quickly. it hurts, but it's for your own good. —PhilipNeustrom

The excitement was hard to take! What would the new thing be? Would it be award-winning?? —CovertProfessor

Wiki Bulldada

Did you know Mike and Philip's ancestors worked together as innovators?

Jason uses high technology while maintaining his simian roots. Or branches, as the case may be.

Don't know what bulldada is? Ask Google.

Davis as an Image

Davis Wiki as an Image

(Not so) FAQs

• Why do you sometimes make lots of tiny edits on a single entry, seconds apart?
  

• When I'm doing massive reformatting or rewrites about something I'm confident about, I'll make them in one big chunk. When I'm editing a controversial entry or something with finely grained points, I will make them sequentially as small edits, adding a comment about each. That allows somebody to go back through each edit individually. It makes it harder to hide an minor edit inside a major edit... and if it's controversial or has many specific facets, it should be as open and fully disclosed as possible. Basically, I'm allowing people to dispute a specific part of the edit without feeling like they have to revert all the parts of the edit. You can see each specific edit laid out, commented upon, in the history. I'll also add comments for the reason behind the edit, strike out text and then follow it with an edit that deletes the comment and stuck out text. Atomic editing.
  

(and because I'm trying to increase my edit count —bl)


(hey, if I wanted that, I'd do it every time rather than once every several months. Besides, I have little problem making a half dozen edits on different entries every morning, and that satisfies my "I've done something for the wiki" itch. —JabberWokky)

• It's midnight and you haven't changed the wiki logo back from (or to) the holiday logo.
  

• Yup. Look for them to be changed between 3am and 4am. Note that they might show up longer on your computer until you refresh.

• How do you follow all the changes? Even on other wikis?
  

• Wiki Spot has a ton of really nice tools. Figuring out how to use them is easy, and they tend to adapt well. I hit the Interwiki Recent Changes at least once a day. If I am spinning through them just checking, I can usually handle a whole days worth of changes across Wiki Spot in about 45 minutes. Usually I zip through at the beginning and end of the day and then hit the RC randomly throughout the work day. When I'm really busy, the wiki drops out of my life... I like it and all, but family and work come first. Usually it can get squeezed in. I open each change in a new tab (I use Konqueror, coming soon to Mac and Windows), usually in blocks of about a dozen, and then read through them all. I bookmark ones that need heavy work (phone calls, research, etc) for when I have time.

• Why do you welcome people to the wiki?
  

• I try to do it for people's first edits. That way they feel there is somebody on the other end who noticed and appreciated their contribution. This has absolutely nothing to do with the wiki; if somebody shows up at any of the hobby or volunteer groups I'm involved in, I walk up to the new people, shake their hands and welcome them to the group. Everybody who steps into a new group of people does so with some amount of trepidation and uncertainty, and it's just the polite thing to do to welcome them. I encourage everybody active on the wiki to do the same: encouraging people to use the wiki should not end when they sign up.

• Why do you say entry sometimes and page other times?
  

• It's actually logical, believe it or not. It's also subtle enough so it doesn't matter at all, but for those following along with the home game, here's the terminology I use: The entry is the actual part of the wiki the editors edit. You edit an entry, which is the content of the box when you're editing, and the content when you save it. The page is the entry plus the rest of the visible items: the tabs, the wiki logo, the Copyrights and Donate links at the bottom of the page and your account information in the upper right hand corner of the page. On the other hand, in the upper right hand corner of the entry there might be a photo of a puppy. It really doesn't matter much in communication, but I've found that defining precise terms is a handy way to help frame your thoughts.

• Why do you give people your phone number (or email)?
  

• There are two reasons: first, learning to communicate on the wiki is tricky, and sometimes people assume too much of a new editor, either by assuming that they "get" the wiki, or that they are able to respond. (Every so often I get emails from people who were left messages at their user entry that they clearly did not get). The second reason is that there are people who are just poor communicators in a written forum, especially when it comes to tone, something that tends to get worse when everybody starts getting frustrated. Being able to hear a person's emotional affect is quite important to actual communication. I will tell you that after years of leaving my number all over the place, I have never gotten anything but constructive calls from people who were either upbeat or were frustrated and scared, but quite grateful for my reaching out to them and honestly looking for help. I've placed a couple calls to some angry people, but all my inbound calls have been positive in nature. I have a feeling that if somebody actually wants real resolution and answers, they will call, and if they are just angry jackasses playing a game, they don't want to escalate it past the internet — where they feel powerful — into the real world full of actual people. The first thing I always explain is that I am a volunteer editor, just like they are, and I have no special control over content, just lots of experience with what tends to work and what doesn't. If you're in a situation where you can receive calls and talk for a few minutes with somebody, you can do the same thing, too. We're all volunteers here.

• I always try to use a tone and word usage appropriate to the person I'm writing to. It's neither pandering nor being condescending... I try to communicate as best I can. It's the same thing as using different terms at a formal setting (office, funeral) versus a casual setting (picnic, orgy). People view the wiki in radically different ways and have wildly varying background and perceptions of the written word. To some, it's a casual, lighthearted "who cares" setting, while others see it as a cooperative project no different than a barn-raising, everybody working as teammates.

---

Wikispotting

Davis Wiki and Wiki Spot on the internet, grassroots style:

• A Yelp review noting that "Reviewing anything in Davis is basicly redundent since nearly everything in or near Davis is listed in the comprehensive Davis Wiki".

Neat WikiSpot Wikis

• splitter — Niche work.

Stuff to work on

• Davis Visitor's Guide
  

• NacSki

Stuff for You

• But soft, what shirt on yonder bicyclist sits? — Bike? Like the Bard? Ta da!
  

• May this never happen here.
  

• An interesting Edwardian take on Alice in Wonderland is The Westminster Alice, by Hector Hugh Munro, who wrote an eerily prescient story of Germany invading England and a wonderful short story entitled Sredni Vashtar.
  

---

Comments:

Note: You must be logged in to add comments

• For old comments, visit the archive
  

---

2010-03-20 10:17:58   Ooh, a clean slate! Time to muddy it a bit! —TomGarberson

---

2010-03-20 14:22:01   I did look at the changes somewhat and I've looked again. I saw that you used "Town History"; that was a good fix for the "History" link. And you edited the "People" page for keeping it as the link. I was expecting that there would be a link that would be more about the people of Davis. The Wiki Users aren't very forthcoming with information about us. You are more of an exception. —BruceHansen

---

2010-03-20 21:14:04   There's something to be developed "for sure".

I don't know about this procedure where a comment goes on one user's page and then that user reciprocates. One doesn't see the dialog in one place. —BruceHansen