User:Walton One
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I've been a Wikipedian since February 2006, and an administrator since April 2007; I resigned as an administrator in November 2007, standing successfully for reconfirmation the following month, hence I am now an administrator again. I am open to recall at the request of at least three editors in good standing; my recall criteria may be found here. My main article-writing contributions concern political science and history, especially British and American. As indicated by the userboxes to the right, I'm English and male. As of 30 September 2007, I'm a student at Hertford College, University of Oxford, reading Jurisprudence (Law). I've also recently been selected as an Officer Cadet in the Officers Training Corps, so the required training sessions will eat into my time even further. I have a page on Spanish Wikipedia, a page on the Meta-Wiki, a page on Simple English Wikipedia and a page on Wiktionary. However, I am currently substantially inactive on all Wikimedia projects except English Wikipedia, due to lack of time. I also have an account on Conservapedia as User:Walton One. I can also confirm that I have been posting as "Walton" on PZ Myers' blog Pharyngula. (Some people there doubted the truth of my identity.)
[edit] PoliticsI am a libertarian conservative. I believe in low taxation, small government, a free market competitive economy, and individual civil liberties. I oppose all political systems in which a strong state attempts to impose its will on the people, and subjugate individual interests to the community, in the aim of creating a "better" society - whether socialism, fascism or theocracy. It is not for governments to create forced equality, or to try and alter human nature; government should be the servant of the people. I also believe in a strong military and am a supporter of the UK National Defence Association, an organisation campaigning for higher military spending. We live in a dangerous world, and it is essential that the UK should be able to protect itself against threats, and should be able to support freedom and democracy around the world. I supported British and American military action in Afghanistan and believe that we should keep troops there until the job is done. According to the Political Compass Test I am Economic Right 8.13 and Social Libertarian -0.97, which is remarkably accurate. Public figures (past and present) I admire include Queen Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and former Australian prime minister John Howard. In terms of current UK politics, I am a big supporter of David Cameron and a strong opponent of Gordon Brown. I believe that Cameron, while formulating new policies on areas of policy (such as the environment and healthcare) where Conservatives have traditionally been weak, is upholding core Conservative values on areas such as immigration, crime and national sovereignty, and as such I have great confidence in him. I am also negative about Britain's membership in the European Union and support stronger assertion of British interests, particularly a referendum on the Reform Treaty. Internationally, in the forthcoming US presidential elections I am a supporter of John McCain. [edit] Wikipedia philosophyI am a wikidemocrat. I believe that there is no "right" or "wrong" way to write a free encyclopedia. Neither common sense nor good judgment are the sole preserve of an élite group of editors. As such, wherever there is a controversial decision, about which intelligent people can disagree in good faith and with good reasons, the route that should be followed is the will of the majority. This is inextricably linked to my real-world political beliefs. In the real world, I am a free market libertarian, and a strong advocate of democracy and referenda, because I believe in trusting individual citizens to decide how to run their own lives and how to govern the country. No élite, whether politicians, judges or academics, has an inherently superior knowledge of what is "best" for the people; and so government should be the servant of the people, not their master, and should do what the people want it to do. This is why I strongly oppose human rights legislation which takes decisions on human rights out of the hands of elected officials and allocates them to the unelected judiciary. It is also why I strongly oppose all forms of socialism (including democratic socialism as well as national socialism and Marxism), because they all involve taking power out of the hands of the ordinary citizen and transferring more power to a strong, centralised state. I recognise that Wikipedia is not a state, and it can't be run using real-world political concepts. But it is still a matter of fundamental beliefs and principles. Fundamentally, I trust the judgment of ordinary people. [edit] Articles and awards[edit] Articles I started
It may be significant that I've actually created more new articles on Spanish Wikipedia than on English Wikipedia. This is mostly because of the smaller size of Spanish Wikipedia (fewer than 300,000 pages) and because of its dearth of coverage of UK political topics, one of my main fields of interest. [edit] Articles I substantially rewrote
[edit] More minor contributions
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