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User:Mackensen

This user helped "Turboliner" become a featured article on October 29, 2016.
This user helped "Superliner (railcar)" become a featured article on June 15, 2017.
This user helped "Hi-Level" become a featured article on April 21, 2018.
This user helped "Mountaineer (train)" become a good article on January 7, 2013.
This user helped "Pennsylvanian (train)" become a good article on July 31, 2013.
This user helped "North Coast Hiawatha" become a good article on November 24, 2013.
This user helped "Neifi Pérez" become a good article on December 7, 2013.
This user helped "1996 Silver Spring, Maryland, train collision" become a good article on November 9, 2014.
This user helped "Broadway Limited" become a good article on January 21, 2015.
This user helped "EMD F40PH" become a good article on March 7, 2017.
This user helped "Amfleet" become a good article on July 9, 2017.
This user helped "GE E60" become a good article on July 12, 2017.
This user helped "EMD SDP40F" become a good article on July 12, 2017.
This user helped "City of Denver (train)" become a good article on July 13, 2017.
This user helped "EMD AEM-7" become a good article on December 20, 2017.
This user helped "Elizabeth Peer" become a good article on December 21, 2017.
This user helped "Highland Branch" become a good article on January 13, 2019.
This user has been editing Wikipedia for at least ten years.

User:Mackensen

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This is a Wikipedia user page.

This is not an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user this page belongs to may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia itself. The original page is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mackensen.

Wikimedia Foundation
This user is the Lord High Marshal of the Counter-Counter Vandalism Unit
So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. --James Madison, Federalist No. 10
In good government, the object of voting is not to enable every man to express his ego, but to represent his interest, whether or not he casts his vote personally and directly. --Russell Kirk, commenting on Edmund Burke
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. --Nikita Khruschev
I'd like to die in a rocking chair, not a hydrogen fire. --Lee Scoresby
Holy zoinks. That's one delete every 7.3 seconds. --Interiot
This user's judgement has been fatally compromised by social networking
I have been a Wikipedian since August 24, 2003, and a sysop since September 30, 2004. I have served as a CheckUser and Oversighter and have twice served on the Arbitration Committee. I served one term on the Wikimedia Foundation's Ombudsman commission (2007–2009). I was also a founding member of the Audit Subcommittee.

My primary areas of interest are the British peerage, mid-nineteenth century British politics, railway networks, and the intellectual history of the Kaiserreich army. These days I mainly edit articles relating to railroads, professional baseball and college football. Sometimes I upload pictures that I've taken while travelling abroad; I've included a few at right. I've also been known to clear up the random Star Wars-related article that floats my way.

I have an abiding love for the idea of open encyclopedia edited by everyone. To me, it aims at the heights envisioned by Hegel and John Stuart Mill; total knowledge based upon the foundation of as many voices as possible. If that is your goal then you are my ally in this endeavour.

My real name is Charles and I graduated from Kalamazoo College in 2005. I'm married, employed, and a loyal fan of the Detroit Tigers (next year!) Further details are not forthcoming because my private existence is utterly boring and unimportant (really, it is, and I defy anyone to prove otherwise).


Editing milestones:


With five years of editing approaching things seem to have come full circle--I'm back to straight article editing and taking no share in the administration of the project. That aspect stopped being fun a long time ago; eventually I decided that I didn't owe anyone. Four years as a sysop, two years doing checkuser, a year as an arbitrator--ought to be enough for anyone. In five years you see a lot of people come and go. I've lost count of the people I considered friends (perhaps colleague is a better word) who left and did not return, whether they were fed up with vandalism, sick of arguing with people, tired of the incessant trivial bickering, disillusioned with the project's purpose or management, or simply no longer able to devote the time that this project demands (if you've drunk the Kool-Aid).

I suspect many editors have a come-to-Jesus moment in which they ask just why they spend their off-hours plugging away at this Sisyphean task. By my count I've had three. Each time I changed the way I interact with the project; usually this meant withdrawing from administration and focusing on good works editing. I can look at my contributions and see periods of intense administrative activity; there are websites proffering statistics which prove I've been a major contributor on various noticeboards. There's also a malicious (and true) rumor that I used to read wikien-l, and at times send mail to that list. This all seems very alien now. Does this mean that in six months I'll recover my fighting spirit and throw my hat in the ring for Arbcom, or run for bureaucrat again, or push some major policy change?

I hope not. It always ends in tears.


Greetsiel landscape 2003 05.jpg
Bonn university night.jpg
Edinburgh gardens 1990 11.jpg
Kalamazoo arcadiacreek.jpg
Sandbox         The Peerage Project         UK constituencies         The talk page         Noted         Morning jog         Did You Know?

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