Redfarmer

Retired

This user is no longer active on Wikipedia as of December 28, 2012.

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This user helped promote Last of the Summer Wine to featured article status. A fact from the article Brian Cassidy, which this user created or significantly contributed to, has been featured in the Did you know... section on the Main Page. This user is male. This user is a citizen of the United States of America. This user identifies as gay. IUSThis user is a Grenadier. KENTThis user attends or attended the University of Kent. This user is or was a student at the University of Sheffield. BAThis user has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy and English. MAThis user has a Master of Arts degree. This user is a Unitarian Universalist. This user is a mystic. This user is interested in issues related to religious pluralism. This user believes in the separation of church and state. This male user supports feminism. X This user does not believe in the existence of human races, except as a social construct. X This user supports Amnesty International. This user supports a free Tibet.‡

I had some negative experiences here back in the day and was just never able to justify getting back into the project. I wish things had been different, but it truly is like the wild west on here: you'll post a perfectly valid edit, justify it with tons of written policy, and people will fight you anyway and accuse you of not being civil. I don't have time any longer for that. I didn't last very long after I tried to come back, and the idea of trying again fills me with dread.

Even if I do come back, I think this account is done. I'm never going to do the substantial sort of editing I did with articles like Last of the Summer Wine again.

My Old Retirement Notice

I didn't want it to come this far. It has, though. I stared feeling this way a couple of years ago when I was nominated for admin and it did not succeed in part because of a userbox suggesting that I was an atheist. Though there was no evidence to suggest I had any anti-religious bias, a horde of editors came around to decry me as an anti-religious bigot, which all who know me in real life will tell is furthest from the truth. I stood my ground on principal because I do not like being bullied into what I can or cannot express, and I am grateful to those users who came to my defense on this occasion. I turn 30 in a few months and don't like being treated like I'm a child.

I'm no longer convinced this is a collaborative project as I have seen too many users edit war in an effort to own the page and then blame it on the other guy. I've also seen too many blocked users return using sockpuppets. I'm just tired: tired of endless trolls, tired of endless fights, and tired of doing a thankless job editing articles on Wikipedia. I'm tired of being labeled a deletionist when I new page patrol. I'm tired of being told I have ownership issues because I revert a lot of original research and vandalism. This has been a long time coming; the last straw was simply an incident today that left me speechless. I'm not fully retiring because I'm too proud of my work on Last of the Summer Wine to let it go to the wayside. However, after that show ends in August, I may fully retire. We'll have to see. In the meantime, good wishes to all those who have helped me over the years. Redfarmer (talk) 12:59, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

And good luck to you. You will be very missed by those of us also frustrated by trolls and people trying to turn Wikipedia into a fan site. I hope you will return someday...but if you choose not to (and I do understand), I wish you the best. Cheers, Trista TristaBella (talk) 20:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Retired

I have decided to retire. I no longer get satisfaction out of editing Wikipedia and I've found other worthwhile endeavors to fill my time. Thanks to everyone who's helped or been kind to me over the years. Redfarmer (talk) 13:33, 23 January 2011 (UTC)