I am a New Orleanian who started contributing to Wikipedia in September of 2002 and became an Administrator in February of 2003. (A year later I became Wikipedia's 7th Bureaucrat, which I since let lapse as my Wikimedia activity switched to other things).
I am more active over on Wikimedia Commons now, but I'm still around here a good deal.
Opinions
In the early stages of the project, I thought Wikipedia a good idea, sort of a "half-assed encyclopedia", but hey, it was free and online. Wikipedia and Wikimedia gradually developed into something greater and more important.
While the general quality of Wikipedia articles continues to rise, I note that there is still a tendency towards a certain mediocrity. Crowdsourced editing tends to take very poor articles and make them better - but on the other hand unusually well researched, well organized, and well written articles tend to degrade by many small not particularly useful changes.
I think the "anyone can edit" without logging in was great for getting things going in the early years of the project, but that should have long ago been phased out and logging in to edit should now be required.
I also think that first image uploads by new users on Commons should be required to be reviewed before they become publicly accessible - too many new user's first uploads are copyright violations or have false information. I think too many people don't bother to read the basic requirements first - I blame it on corporate websites with long terms & conditions that people have gotten in the habit of "agreeing" to without reading. New users' first activity on Commons should not be to commit copyright fraud.
Me
Cheers! - Not quite as old guy with a beverage, back in 2010
For years from my tweens to early 20s I bounced around where I was living from New Orleans and Broward County, Florida USA, and S.E. Mexico/Northern Central America - mostly Mérida, Yucatán, Antigua Guatemala, and Belize City. I wish I took lots more photos back in the day, especially in Yucatán - and of course in New Orleans places before the Federal Flood of 2005.
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