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JFletcher

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+'''Due to disaffection with wiki management in recent times combined with loss of interest in GTA, I have made the difficult decision to leave Grand Theft Wiki. Any questions should be forwarded to another member of [[staff]]. Thanks to Gerard, A-Dust, and the other staff.'''
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+Hi fellow GTA fans and wiki editors!
+My name is James Fletcher, and I live close to Liverpool (near Sydney), New South Wales, [[Australia]].
+I am a long-time user of the [[PlayStation|PlayStation series of consoles]], and one of my favourite video game series' is the [[Grand Theft Auto|Grand Theft Auto series]].
+When I was a kid, I wanted a game where I was given a city and a protagonist to do whatever I wanted. I found this in [[Grand Theft Auto III|GTA III]].
+Since then, I have owned and played many other GTA games. While I still love the sandbox aspect of gameplay, I now enjoy the storylines just as much.
+The GTA games that I have played most extensively are [[Grand Theft Auto: Vice City|GTA Vice City]] and [[Grand Theft Auto IV|GTA IV]]. I have also played all of the other [[GTA III Era|GTA III era]] games that were released on [[PlayStation 2]].
+I have also played [[Grand Theft Auto 1|GTA 1]] and [[Grand Theft Auto 2|GTA 2]] for PC. I am yet to play [[Grand Theft Auto Advance|GTA Advance]], or any of the [[GTA London|London expansion packs for GTA 1]].
+I have completed both the ''Deal'' and ''Revenge'' [[Endings in GTA IV|endings]] of the [[Plot in GTA IV|storyline]] of GTA IV twice, the second time without [[Cheats in GTA IV|cheats]]. I primarily chose the Revenge ending and just played the Deal ending to see what happened. I preferred the Revenge ending. After completing the Revenge ending I simply saved on another file so that I could go back and complete the Deal ending without replaying the entire game. I have also received [[Completion in GTA IV|100% completion]] in my no cheats save game. This makes GTA IV the only GTA game in which I have achieved 100%.
+I have also played [[Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars|GTA Chinatown Wars]] once through the storyline on my [[iPhone]]. I have not played either of the [[GTA IV Episodes|episodes of GTA IV]], and at this point, it seems unlikely that I will. I had wanted to, in order to fill in the missing pieces of the storyline - But the long-term exclusivity for the [[Xbox 360]], coupled with personal circumstances, prevented me from playing them when they were new. Now these games simply aren't my priority.
+I was, a while back, eagerly awaiting GTA V. However, I started to lose interest several months before release. GTA V releases only about two months before the [[PlayStation 4]], which I intend to be an early adopter of. I see the new generation as a chance to start fresh, as I have missed so many key games this generation due to personal circumstances. Now that has changed, so I want this new generation to be completely different, right from the start. Once I have my PS4, I don't want to be swapping consoles in and out. I would also feel pretty weird playing my PS3 after spending so much money on the PS4, not to mention having to use the old controller... =P With work and other commitments, I don't think I can experience an entire Grand Theft Auto game in two months, especially considering the scale of GTA V, and that's why I started to lose interest. There will be other games to play. I will consider buying GTA V if there is a PS4 port later, but any true next-gen game that I want to play will always take priority over a port.
+My favourite GTA [[protagonist]] is [[Niko Bellic]], followed by [[Huang Lee]] (despite not even having a voice, I like his personality]]). Some of my other favourite characters include [[Roman Bellic]], [[Francis McReary]] and [[Wade Heston]].
+I discovered [[Main Page|Grand Theft Wiki]] in July 2008, when I was searching the Internet for a source of information on the [[Wanted Level in GTA IV|wanted level system of GTA IV]], as I noticed that it was very different to that of the past. I then decided to help make this wiki the largest GTA resource on the web. I have used this wiki to get a lot of information, and have added a lot as well. I initially had no intention to stay a part of this wiki, but was convinced by the friendly users here that this wiki was a fun environment. The fact that I initially had no intention to stay explained my original username, ''Biggest gta fan ever''. I just put in the first thing that came to my head, giving no consideration for the future. I had since tried to have my username changed to something more personal, but Wikia staff wouldn't change it, saying that only specific circumstances qualify for a username change. I eventually got my username changed after Grand Theft Wiki [[Grand Theft Wiki:Move from Wikia|moved away from Wikia]].
+I used to help [[wp:Main Page|Wikipedia]], but don't any more. When I first started on GTW, I noticed that the people here were much friendlier, and I enjoyed it here. The general idea on this wiki is to encourage the placement of information into pages, so then we can fix it up later - Something is better than nothing. This is always my approach with new users, but in more recent times, however, I have realised that not all experienced users and [[staff]] agree with this notion.
+My first GTW friend was [[User:Eganio|Eganio]]. Ironically that friendship started with him correcting my edits. He explained what I did wrong and we became friends (like I said earlier, the people here were much friendlier than Wikipedia). He taught me the power of actually reading and adding to talk pages.
+I became an [[Administrator]] of Grand Theft Wiki in October 2008. When I got the email that [[User:Gboyers|Gboyers]] had edited my [[User talk:JFletcher|talk page]], I had no idea what he was going to say, and the last thing that I thought he was going to say was that I had been promoted. In fact, I was busy and hadn't been on the wiki for three days when I read that email. I however ''did'' know that it was something good, as he had also added me as a friend. Confusing me further was the fact that someone had edited my userpage (I didn't yet know who it was). I later found out that it was Gboyers, adding the {{template|Admin}} template. When I reached my talk page, before I knew that it was about a promotion, my Internet was acting slow, so the extra tools at the top of the page didn't show up straight away, meaning that I didn't notice anything until ''after'' I read the message. Sometimes I wonder if Gboyers regretted the decision to promote me, purely because of the amount of time that I spent asking him stupid questions after that =P.
+In April 2010, I along with all of the other Administrators, was given the opportunity to be promoted to [[Manager]]. This surprised me, as I was at the time on a very long wiki break, and assumed that I had been forgotten. I was [[Community:Promotion/Biggest gta fan ever|promoted]] to Manager in October 2010, soon after GTW left Wikia.
+I used to think that Wikia was an excellent wiki hosting service, the best there was. This was because they provided excellent community support, and had a number of installed extensions. The service was second only to self-hosting, but came with the advantage of not needing to maintain the wiki software or extensions. However, over the years, Wikia's new ''features'' began to become pure advertising, and they began to harm the wiki experience. I contemplated leaving Wikia, and thus, Grand Theft Wiki.
+Wikia's new skin, [[Oasis]], was what finally ''forced'' me to leave Wikia, as it looks awful, gives advertising precedence over content, and made each individual wiki seem like just a few pages of the larger Wikia site. In addition, Wikia staff completely disrespected the community, who strongly opposed the new skin. I was very happy to be a part of moving GTW away from Wikia.
+I was (and still am) a huge fan of Wikia's former skin, Monaco. I find Monaco to be the most user friendly MediaWiki skin that I have ever used. I can't stand Monobook (Wikipedia's former skin), and while Vector (GTW's current skin) is an improvement over Monobook, it still has its issues in my opinion. I also feel that Monaco was designed with customisability in mind, so that every wiki on Wikia could look different. Oasis, on the other hand, was quite the opposite, designed to make every wiki look the ''same''.
+I left GTW in September 2013. I still love this wiki's content and community, but loss of interest in GTA combined with continuing disagreement with policy changes have made editing here less enjoyable in recent times. There was a time when I seemed to agree with ''every'' policy of GTW, and actually couldn't join in at other communities because of the the differing policies, but those days are slowly drifting away. It doesn't feel like the community has a voice anymore - Rather, a couple of the staff members ''pretend'' to hold communities discussion, but the discussion pages are biased, and these staff just end up doing whatever they want anyway, regardless of what the community consensus is. I also feel that some of the staff that used to be our best editors, are now too busy performing meaningless edits like bypassing redirects in all links, which I think is absolute rubbish. It's an utter waste of time, which doesn't improve the wiki in any way, unnecessarily fills up [[Special:Recent Changes|the list of recent edits]], and makes the wiki MORE difficult to use because of the piped links everywhere. I believe that redirects exist to make pages easier to link to, and that there is no point in avoiding them. I certainly don't believe in the excuse that it makes the wiki more "professional". Additionally, the wiki software seems to always be broken in one place or another, which makes some tasks annoying or even impossible. Leaving GTW was a difficult decision, because I have definitely enjoyed my time here, and I was sort of hoping for a future more similar to the wiki's past.
+{{todo}}