Wikipedia

IFaqeer

Joined 25 August 2004

It is 6:18 AM where this user lives. (Purge)

Why I believe in the Wikipedia:

"...as for taking Britannica or the OED's word for it; well, if we are to just take the OED's or any other mainstream, establishment encyclopedia's word on things ... why are we wasting our time working on the Wikipedia? ... the main reason I associate myself with the Wikipedia is that I consider it a chance to receive and present a more complete picture of the world than I grew up having to read."

And this is what makes me both what I have come to learn is called an inclusionist and what is called an incrementalist. More below at Thoughts on Wiki-tude…

Feel free to send me e-mail.
This user is a member of the Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians.

The motto of the AIW is conservata veritate, which translates to "with the preserved truth".
This motto reflects the inclusionist desire to change Wikipedia only when no knowledge would be lost as a result.

AIW


Babel user information
en-N This user has a native understanding of English.
ur-N اردو اس صارف کی مادری زبان ہے۔
ha-N Wannan edita cikakken Bahaushe ne.
de-1 Dieser Benutzer beherrscht Deutsch auf grundlegendem Niveau.
fa-1 این کاربر فارسی را در حد مقدماتی می‌فهمد.
BS-NThis user is a native speaker of Bullshit.
Users by language
This user has been on Wikipedia for 20 years, 3 months and 18 days.
Unified login: IFaqeer is the unique unified login of this user for all public Wikimedia projects.
Wikimedia Commons logoThis user contributes to Wikimedia Commons.
inclThis user is an inclusionist.
incrThis editor is an incrementalist.
WikiProject ScreencastThis user is a participant in
WikiProject Screencast
Community Affiliations
This user is a Citizen of the World (Terra, ⊕).
This user is a
Pakistani Wikipedian.
This user is a participant in WikiProject Pakistan.
This user was born in Nigeria.
This user is a former resident interested in Nigeria.
This user participates in
WikiProject Nigeria.

Current: Working on

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If you need me to chime in or help on any of the topics I mention here, or related ones, please drop me a line.
  • Tactical fixes where I can help. See my contributions.
  • Contributions to the WikiCommons of graphics and pictures of South Asian personalities in particular. You can see my Wiki|Commons page here.

Articles of Concern: Watching

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1/05/22

Previously

To Do List

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If you need me to chime in or help on any of these topics or related ones, please drop me a line.

Protest: Pages I think need to be restored

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The following pages, I believe, should be restored, not just because they deserve it, but because if the Wikipedia is going to be live up to its promise of much less institutional bias towards Western issues and topics (which is why I choose to engage with and believe in this encyclopedia), it needs to help people learn about topics that help them understand the world they live in.

Material I disagree should have been removed/changed

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Thoughts on Wiki-tude

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I am working on organizing my thoughts on Wiki(pedia) policy. The link below gives you and idea of where I am headed.

Most importantly, as I said above:

"...as for taking the OED's word for it; well, if we are to just take the OED's or any other mainstream, establishment encyclopedia's word on things ... why are we wasting our time working on the Wikipedia? ... the main reason I associate myself with the Wikipedia is that I consider it a chance to receive and present a more complete picture of the world than I grew up having to read."

And, in the discussion on the deletion request for Yasser Latif Hamdani:

The job of an encyclopedia is to provide the context and background on topics that people might, conceivably want to know about. At a time when Pakistan and what's happening in it is regularly headline news everywhere in the world, we need to document the people, the voices, and events related to it properly. Rather than arguing what NOT to document, we should we trying to cover the Pakistani experience better. Does it make any sense that there is no Wikipedia article on Beena Sarwar, that the article on Ardeshir Cowasjee is rudimentary? [1]

The same applies to Nigeria and other issues.

Me, I, ... er ...

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My current self-description—the one I use on social media—runs as follows:

Communicator—Citizen—Fakir // Pakistani-American. Californian. Karachiite. Awadhi by culture. Nigerian by birth. // @BayContent for technical/business enquiries

Starting out on the journey of self-discovery, (when I was young, and, well, cornier--cornier than this, you might ask ;)), I came up with the following characterization for myself:

I am a 2nd generation Pakistani of Arab extraction, Indian origin, and Nigerian birth.
or maybe I should say
I am a 2nd generation Pakistani of Arab extraction, Indian origin, and Nigerian birth.

That might give you an idea of how it is that I butt in on the things that I do.

A writer whose day job is as a technical writer in the Silicon Valley/San Francisco Bay Area, I blog at iFaqeer and WadiWallah and a few other places (see http://www.iFaqeer.com). I have recently also started paying attention to a blog I started a while back: Rickshaw!, which captures the inscriptions on the back of Rickshaws (jinrickshaws, cycle rickshaws and auto rickshaws). It's part of what drew me into the Wikipedia; looking for places with information on rickshaws.

I recently had reason to say the following in a discussion on an article:

...the main reason I associate myself with the Wikipedia is that I consider it a chance to receive and present a more complete picture of the world than I grew up having to read. (Source; for the curious.)

...and in another discussion:

Let me say the following up front by way of disclaimer: I am a Muslim and sympathise with Islam. And I also am not sympathetic to inflexible and/or extreme rationalist "devotees" of any ideology—be it Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Communism, Capitalism, Progressive philosophies or any other.
And I am also a strong believer in the importance of strict NPOV policies for an encyclopedia to really live up to its name. See, for example, what I am trying to do at Template talk:Timeline of Islamist militancy.

Which is why I spend time on Wikipedia.

Updates

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Wiki Pakistan!

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6/18/05
See: #Pakistan

Urdu Language Users

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5/15/05 We are actually breaking some very interesting ground here on the Internet as the Urdu language starts to mature in its use on this medium. And Wikipedia is on the cutting edge. See: http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/05/urdu-speaking-wikipedia-users.html and http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com/2005/05/on-being-saahib-e-zubaan.html

I have just finally got to publishing my thoughts and translations on Urdu poetry, Sufism and related topics. For now, it will be mainly on the following page:

http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com

See #Net sites I own/contribute to below for more details.

Just posted the following at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countering systemic bias#Can_we_measure_Wikipedian.27s_Bias.3F

My personal bias (excuse the pun) is that bias is something that exists in every person—it's basically a function of our being human and being shaped by our own experiences and background. The High Road, IMHO, is to understand what one's own bias is and work from there—identify opinion as opinion and try to work with others to achieve objectivity and completeness is a priority, as it is for projects like Wikipedia. (And yes, I have worked as a journalist and do have a blog.) The way I do this on Wikipedia is to place an honest statement of my background and an attempt at describing my own bias on my user page. I know this will make me an easy target for people that want to discredit me or my contributions based on their perception of "people like me". So be it; it is the price of honesty.

—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 20:53, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Starting to take interest in Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias.—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 20:55, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Just discovered something while reading User:DigiBullet). As that user puts it, "Im among the Top 1000 users of Wikipedia by edits or something, despite me reducing my usage of the site. I dont know if this is an honor or an indicator of something else. The List".—iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 02:21, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Just started engaging with the Wiktionary Project, too--iFaqeer 08:47, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

September 20, 2004: Wikipedia passed 1 million articles in over 100 languages.
Articles I created on September 20, 2004:

WikiWikiMe

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The very nature of the medium makes it difficult to list things like pages I have made a significant contribution to. And of course, on Wikipedia and in the wider Wikiworld, there is no such thing as owning a page, let alone a whole Wiki. Even pages one starts are communal property and contributed to by others, often extensively. And often that's the desired result. And things happen fast. The lists below are provided only to give you a small sampling and an idea of what I am interested and engaged in. They are, by definition, rather sketchy and out-of-date. You can check a list of my contributions to see what I have been up to lately.

Wikis

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Genealogy

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The Wikipedia re-ignited the hope in my heart and mind to try and work on a dream project of mine; to collect and overlay genealogies, sufi initiation chains and other information, starting in South Asia and work outwards to document people and other topics around the world. After discussions on Wikipedia:Help, I was able to make a case for its being hosted at Wikia, then WikiCities. Of course, like all Wikia projects and all true Wikis, it is a community resource that I just have the honour being the founder of:

http://genealogy.wikia.com

Pakistan

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I have the honor of being the founder of Wiki Pakistan! Or "The Pakistan Wiki", PakWiki, or WikiPak, call it what you will.(You may want to avoid "Paki Wiki", since in some parts of the world, that first word is seldom used in affection.) It is at:

http://pakistan.wikia.com/

The basic idea is a national project. A "Pakistan Information" database to which everybody can and does contribute...You can read more at that wiki's About page.

WikiProjects and Boards

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Those I started

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Those I am subscribed to

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  • Boards and lists of Wikipedia users related to Pakistan, (West) Africa, Urdu, etc.

Categories

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Pages I Started

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Entries

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Redirects

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The (usually pre-existing) articles are in brackets. I have just added another way of people might be looking for the same information.

Projects, Notice Boards, etc.

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Pages I have Butted In To

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Entries

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Pages I have Edited A Wee

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Entries

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WikiPedia Content I Recommend Highly

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The usual reason a page is listed here is that reading it will provides an insight that, in my humble opinion, is important in helping us all better understand (and be more understanding of) the universe around us.

Entries

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Christian Denominations and their "lineage"
Just like the charts available off:
http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/index.html

WikiHumor?

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WikiContent I like to browse

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To Do list

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Please free to help—and let me know if you want to/are working on one.
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Net sites I own/contribute to

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http://urdu-ke-naam.blogspot.com
The blog is not really "mine", but a collaboration with some folks (among them Manzoorkhan (talk · contribs)) who are mainly in Hyderabad (Deccan) (see Hyderabad, India and Hyderabad state), one of the homes of Urdu.

Other places you can catch up with me

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Stash

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< nowiki >< /nowiki >]]—[[User:IFaqeer|iFaqeer]] [[User talk:IFaqeer|(Talk to me!)

Awards

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I present this Barnstar to you for your excellent contributions to articles related to South Asia. -- utcursch | talk 08:04, May 17, 2005 (UTC)

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