Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/20131003/Interview

Featured editor: Salvidrim!

Interviewed by Thibbs

This issue we interview Salvidrim!, who has been editing at Wikipedia in some form or another since June 2010. Salvidrim is one of WP:VG's admin-editors, and you will often encounter him performing critical WikiGnome activities throughout the project. Read on to learn how he got started, what motivates him, and which is the best Mario game.

1. What drew you to Wikipedia, and what prompted you to begin editing?

   As is the case with many editors, my initial motivation to start editing was to make a page about myself, shortly after my Urban Dictionary definition was created. Ultimately I didn't; I only made a handful of user space edits. I came back a year or so later and made a few very small corrections to articles I happened to read, and slowly started to get more involved. One of the first "hubs" I found was Book:Mario franchise video games, and these articles are the first I cleaned up a bit. Naturally, I then orbited towards WP:VG and WP:NIN and you guys have been stuck with me ever since.

2. What's the significance of your username? How did you select it?

   That's a story much, much larger than Wikipedia. Salvidrim has been my alias for years now. I have jewelry, clothing and a tattoo with the name, as well as my own eponymous website; I've also filed paperwork to legally change my name to include Salvidrim into it. The origin itself dates from nearly 13 years ago; I had to come up with a name for some forgotten MMORPG and picked "Sylvadrim", a mix of "Sylvan" and -drim, which I felt were typically Elven. I used the same character name when I signed up to Tibia in 2001, and then made other characters using variations such as Salvidrim, Selvodrim, Salvudrim, and others. Of these characters, I ended up mainly playing the one named "Salvidrim", and also started using the name elsewhere...

3. How did you become actively involved with WikiProject Video Games?

   I think one of the first users to engage in discussion with me after I slowly started editing was User:Masem; I clicked-through his user page and found WP:VG, which is a hub that enables me to help with topics I am interested in. I simply became involved by engaging in discussion on the WikiProject's talk page and reading various related guidelines.

4. How much of a gamer are you and toward what types of game do you gravitate?

   I'm a pretty damn passionate gamer. It's my main interest, and my gaming and my day job make up the principal reason I have so little time to do much else. And my game preferences are pretty broad. The last few games I thoroughly enjoyed: DKCR 3D, Fire Emblem: Awakening, AC3, Smite, Darksiders 2, Battlefield 3, and Puzzle Pirates.

5. What do you think exemplifies your best work on Wikipedia?

   I'll paraphrase most of my RfA: the work of a gnomish editor, by definition, doesn't lend itself to examples of "best work" or outstanding achievements. The obvious answer would be Dr. Mario, the only GA I participated on, although I would admit to being quite proud of my "boring" work on some Database Reports. And pretty much the only article I wrote from scratch that's more than a mere stub, Falsion, definitely fills a hole, and I'm quite happy with how it turned out, although I'm kinda sad I barely missed making it a DYK.

6. In which areas of Wikipedia have you involved yourself beyond WikiProject Video Games?

   Outside of the project itself and topic articles, surprisingly little. As mentioned above I patrol various project-wide database reports and sometimes pitch in on noticeboards. I'm actually not a very active editor, as some may have noticed, so I don't get involved in much.

7. What do you consider the most difficult part of editing at Wikipedia?

   I find it odd that some people find it difficult to take part in an entirely volunteer project. I mean, if you're having trouble, nobody's forcing you to keep trying, right? Whatever I may find difficult, I avoid, and stick to things I can achieve. Some may call me a coward, but I find it generally more efficient to avoid potential failure and stick to certain success. For this reason, I stay well away from all things BLP, culture, race, religion, politics, you name it.

8. What advice would you give a new editor interested in working on video game articles?

   Whatever you do, you're probably wrong. Listen to the people trying to help you by explaining how things work.

9. Apart from your involvement with WP:VG's Sources subpage and our Assessment department, one of your major roles here has been your work with the Nintendo Taskforce articles—in particular the articles related to Mario. Why Mario? Why Nintendo? And if you'll indulge us with a bit of original research: which is the best Mario game?

   I'm not even that big a fan of Mario. Sure, I've been sold to Nintendo all the way up to the disappointing Wii. I've owned every Nintendo console except for the WiiU, and exclusively those until the PS3. I still consider SNES/GBA-era titles to be the best games ever made, and I've played every GBA game released in North America (some through emulation). Mario's just the first topic I got involved in, and I guess I just picked a well-defined topic and stayed with it. As for the best Mario game... *drumroll*: Super Mario World!

10. Two issues ago (Q1-2013) the Newsletter noted that you'd been given The Mop™ and joined the ranks of our administrators. How has this new responsibility affected your activities within the project? Was the RfA process as unpleasant as its reputation suggests? Do you have any interesting admin stories you could share with us?

    First of all, my RfA was perhaps specifically difficult for known reasons (just read it and the ensuing 'crat chat!), but I enjoyed it. Guess I'm a tad masochistic. Specifically towards WP:VG, it didn't change much. Mostly it allows me to continue the work I'd normally do anyways, but while ignoring barriers imposed on non-admin editors, like editing FPP'ed templates, viewing deleted revisions, history merging, etc. As for interesting stories, I will say one thing... page moves: deceptively simple in appearance, surprisingly easy to mess up, and hellishly hard to fix. I still wake up at night screaming about some of them.

11. What are your plans for the immediate future? Are there any projects with which you are currently involved or which you are thinking about starting?

    As I said above, I hardly consider myself a very active editor. It's difficult to get involved in any specific project when you know you aren't going to be able to devote much time to it. I have a barely maintained "To Do" list on my user page, and eventually I'll find time and motivation to actually get to work on a few of them, hopefully. I'm as lazy as I am busy, so it might be a while yet!

12. Anything else you want to say to our readers?

    Nothing is true, everything is permitted.