User:Al Begamut

I love language and logic, and proofing English-language documents I read is something my brain does automatically. I've been an admiring user of Wikipedia since the early 2000s, and finally, after making a small donation, decided to "make it official" by henceforth conducting my occasional minor edits via a single identity.

en

This user is a native speaker of the English language.

That being said, I remain effectively an amateur Wikipedia editor, as the vast majority of modifications I make tend to be minor grammatical fixes and relatively small-scope copyediting. I would like to become more involved, but I presently lack knowledge of the mechanics and protocols sufficient to confidently tackle larger projects. I mention this here because I welcome any input, advice, or direction someone reading this might be willing to offer.

This user is a paralegal.

My "worldly" occupations involve information technology (computer hardware and programming) and law (paralegal work, e.g., document preparation and research, primarily in U.S. criminal defense and related fields of civil litigation). These engagements are, certainly, tangential to the interests and motivations stated above, but what I really want to do is to find a more immersive and engaging role; I'm frankly not satisfied with my current position.

tyop
typo

This user is a member of the
Wikipedia Typo Team.

Participating in the Wikipedia project, helping to maintain such a valuable public resource, gives me a sense of purpose. And the very active community of editors makes me feel I'm part of something intelligent, meaningful, and living. I have more than once been awed by the amount of energy and dedication some editors have applied to this project, and I wish I knew enough to be able to contribute in similar ways.

This editor is an
**Apprentice Editor**
and is entitled to display this **Service Badge**.

Credits:

June 2024: Identified longest-undetected^{[note 1]} vandalism on a featured article (Halley's Comet)

^ Though hyphens are typically used in compound modifiers before a noun when the meaning might be unclear without them (e.g., "small-business owner" vs. "small business owner"), my hyper-analytical approach to language bucks at the almost subjective nature of that grammatical rule. Although context makes it unlikely that "longest" modifies "vandalism" directly, I prefer a stricter logic; and as it's not technically incorrect, as a stylistic choice, I feel that use of a hyphen in "longest-undetected vandalism" — undetected modifying vandalism, longest modifying undetected — simplifies the interpretation, removing a (small) step in the reader's subconscious evaluation process by acting as a kind of signpost to guide the parsing of the sentence. Similarly, I prefer commas for each element in a list ("this, that, and the other" as opposed to "this, that and the other"), explicit prepositions and conjunctions ("she thinks that he is strange" as opposed to "she thinks he is strange"), perfect enclosure of subordinate clauses, justified use of semicolons and colons, consistency and agreement of tense, etc., etc. I have, relatively recently, been persuaded to begin placing my commas, to the extent they are not part of the quotation per se, outside the quote marks ("like this", rather than, "for example," like that).