Lily Starling, CMT Hi! Davis, I love ya.
My full name is Lilian Renee Starling, and with a name like that I'm sure I was born to be a movie star and/or write romance novels, but instead I ended up running a small business in Davis. Huh.
I grew up next door in Winters and went to St. James Catholic School K-8th grade from 1987-1996. I moved to Washington state for high school and college.
In 2001 after three years of bumping around the halls of academia at WWU, I flew the coop for Belize, Central America, where I lived in a small Garifuna fishing village called Hopkins. I spent the better part of three years living on my own, starting up my first business selling salve made from jungle plants to tourists with bug bites, and generally enjoying life on the beach. I felt like I had retired at the age of 20. No, I was not volunteering or doing Peace Corps.
I moved back to CA in 2005 to attend Heartwood Massage Institute in Garberville, CA, then it was back to the Caribbean, this time to St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. What can I say? I'm a fan of humidity. I lived and worked another 2 and half years in St. Thomas, bombing down mountains on the left hand side of the road, working at every big resort I could, and trying not to get shot.
Yes, it's a sad fact but the Virgin Islands are an increasingly violent place. Lots of gang warfare, drive by's, break ins, etc. Economic recessions tend to have that effect on places dependent on tourism. Less tourism money = more guns and drugs.
I say this because people ask why I moved back to Davis, such a safe little bubble out in the middle of nowhere. I've come to appreciate sooner than most people my age how incredibly nice and positive it is to live in a bubble. I'm close to my family again, and I can run a thriving business in a community I grew up in.
I try to be as active as I can in the Davis business community, and it's my plan to create programs that will provide massage to people who need it but otherwise cannot afford it. There's a lot of great research coming out about the benefits of massage therapy for PTSD, body image, stress conditions, etc. It's about time!
Please feel free to drop me a line anytime at lilystarling dot ncmt at gmail dot com!
2011-04-23 17:40:28 Hi LilyS! As a fellow wiki editor, let me offer you a belated Welcome to the wiki! I see you've created two pages for your business, one at Lily Starling Massage Therapy and one at St. Tropez Tan by Lily Starling, CMT. It looks like it is really one business, though — you have one website for both. So, there really should be the just one wiki page with the information for both aspects of your business combined. Also the pages are written from your point of view, rather than from the point of view of the community (you say "I" rather than "they," etc.). The wiki is written by the Davis community and for the Davis community, so all the pages should read that way as well. I recommend that you read Welcome to the wiki/Business Owner so you get a sense for how the business pages should look; another point to highlight is that business pages shouldn't be promotional, only informational. If you have any questions or need any help editing, I or one of the other editors who've been around a bit longer would be happy to help. Again, welcome to the wiki! —CovertProfessor
2011-04-23 18:49:43 Tan page deleted. Thanks for the feedback and the welcome! I don't want to run afoul of wiki culture/intent, so I'll keep promotional content off the page. However, in reviewing the pages of other massage practitioners, in particular sole proprietors like myself, it's obvious that most if not all are self-created even if they are written in the third person. Suggestions? —LilyS
- I haven't had a chance to look at those pages yet, but it sounds like those editors should be contacted as well. —CovertProfessor
2011-04-23 21:13:38 Let me know if you think the new edit is more in the wiki style. Do you mind if I ask, CovertProfessor, for clarification on the RealName anonymity issue? The justification on "Importance of using your real name" page that using "...a pseudonym to remain anonymous manage[s] to establish credibility through making a history of providing many valuable contributions to the wiki" is a non sequitur so far as I understand it. What makes anonymity more credible in building a history? Thanks for your input! —LilyS
Yes, that looks much better, thank you. I made some small fixes and added back the tanning info — I wasn't suggesting that you delete the tanning info entirely, only that it wasn't good to have a separate page. See what you think.
As for the "Real Name" issue — like many things on the wiki, there are a variety of opinions on anonymity. Some people support it, and some do not, and I think that explains the ambivalence you sense on the page that you read, which was written by many authors.
If you go to my user page, click on "Info", then click on "User's Info," you will see that, as of the time I am writing this, I had made 6519 edits, the large majority of them to the Davis Wiki. Some of these edits were to add links or reorganize, as I did to your page. Some were to add content. Some were to add opinion. Some were silly. Some I would probably regret were I to take a look at them again. I've edited pages on businesses, on parks, on university related matters, on politics, on things to do in Davis — on pretty much every subject the wiki covers. Throughout it all, I have tried to be constructive, to work collaboratively with other editors, and to build the Davis Wiki as a community resource, although I admit that things can get heated around here and I do not always live up to my own expectations for myself. You may feel free to look at these edits and decide if these activities provide me with credibility or not.
I certainly hope that you decide to contribute to the wiki as a community member, and not just as a business person seeking to inform the community about her business. —CovertProfessor
2011-04-27 17:15:06 Hi CovertProfessor! I really like the edit you did for tanning. Thank you! I have in fact been on Davis Wiki for more than a year and have used my account to review other businesses. I didn't sign up for the express purpose of adding my business. I have been employed at businesses in Davis that were extensively reviewed by the wiki, have friends who are business owners, and have been following the controversy and support for the wiki from the point of view of both a community member and a business owner/contractor/someone who's livelihood is heavily influenced by the power of wiki reviews. I have also refrained from posting some comments about negative experiences I've had in Davis with landlords and businesses, not because I don't want to hurt people's feelings, but because I recognize the power of 1 negative review over 1,000 positive. I have also given input directly to the fellows who were raising funds in the market last fall. The archiving old comments (which most of us don't readily know how to do) seems like a clunky answer to programming that should have been last comment first. So you see, I'm not new to Daviswiki or just falling prey to the lure of free advertising. I realize that's not what wiki is about.
Anonymity in the internet age is already so hotly debated on that I'm not going to add my two cents because it's in no way unique to what's already been said a thousand times, but I appreciate your POV. I wasn't questioning your credibility either. I've actually reviewed your profile before you popped up on my radar, so I just wanted to ask what you thought.
Thanks again for your input!
2011-04-27 18:57:00 Good — I am glad you like my edit, and glad to hear that you participate in the wiki as a member of the community. I look forward to seeing more of your edits! —CovertProfessor
2011-07-20 15:46:27 Glad to be of help! Saw your sign and thought I'd take a photo for the wiki. =) —EliseKane
2012-06-28 21:51:11 Hi Lily, links on the wiki are intact or 'solid' if they represent an existing page (such as edwins or cow fountain. Linking to a page that hasn't been made results in a link that looks like this page doesn't exist and fredflintstone. It's usually an indication of a low-level user, but you'd have to check their edit history to see if (or how much) they've contributed to the wiki. There have been some people that have left dozens of comments before they were made a page. I'd guess the bulk are one-time comment leavers. —EdWins
2013-01-24 20:41:29 Spin, spin, spin, up to your usual tricks I see. No need to defend your pals at the Laundry Lounge. They are innocents in this. They will reap the benefits, but more power to them; I certainly don't want to see Davis lose its last laundromat. —CovertProfessor
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