I'm Kyoko, a 20-something woman from Montréal who currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. My father's from Japan, and my mother's from Québec, and I am proud of my combined heritage. I speak English very fluently, French pretty fluently, and Japanese very badly. I also contribute (rarely) to the French and Simple English Wikpedias.
After receiving disturbing e-mails from people on Wikipedia over the past few months, I have decided to block e-mail access to all but a few people who have earned my trust and respect. The e-mails upset me for the following reasons:
1. I've been pretty open about admitting I have depression, but that doesn't mean that I should be willing to spill my heart out to every random stranger who comes along. Pressing me for details is hurtful, it's rude, and it's more than a bit creepy.
2. I try to be nice, but some people abuse that by using me as their dumping ground for every little thing that bothers them in their life, without listening in return. Please don't do that. Again, it's rude and it only adds to my stress.
3. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a dating service. Please don't bother asking.
I try to treat people with compassion and to do the right thing, but I have to protect myself too. I hope you understand. If you feel that I have hurt your feelings or made a mistake, please tell me. — Kyoko
Pulmonary hypertension or PH, something I had never even heard of until I was diagnosed with the idiopathic form of the disease. PH is a serious, progressive, and potentially life-threatening condition that affects the lungs and by extension, the heart. Among its symptoms are shortness of breath, dizziness, and fatigue, particularly during exertion. Just by looking at me when I'm at rest, you wouldn't be able to tell that I'm anything other than healthy. It helps that I'm otherwise pretty physically fit. I've contributed towards Wikipedia's article about PH, and written or contributed towards articles about some medicines used in its treatment, such as bosentan, treprostinil, epoprostenol, iloprost, sildenafil, and tadalafil. I try not to concentrate solely on health topics, though. I don't want to let PH define who I am, or in other words, I am a person and not a disease.
translating missing content from French Wikipédia to English Wikipedia and vice versa. Many of the medicine-related articles in particular need improvement and/or creation on French Wikipédia.
This last project is something I feel pretty strongly about. Many of the Wikipedia articles relating to medicine and science seem to be written towards a doctor's or scientist's point of view, rather than that of a patient or interested layperson. I do not want to "dumb down" the articles, just make them more understandable to everyone, without diluting their scientific content.
It's a hard task to accomplish, because as I've said on the Science reference desk, using scientfic jargon saves time for people who are already familiar with the field, while it confuses or frustrates others. You may have noticed in my own contributions to scientific and medical articles that I tend to lapse into more formal and jargon-filled language because it allows both precision and brevity, so I'm just as guilty as anyone of that. Even so, I truly feel that Wikipedia should be for everyone, both novices and experts, and I hope that there is some middle ground that will satisfy everybody.
Some thoughts
A number of people I care about have gone through hard times recently, and I'm sure they would appreciate your support. Please send a kind word to Editor at Large(speak), a dear friend who is under a lot of stress right now.
I'm also sad to see that ElaragirlTalk|Count has chosen to leave Wikipedia. While it seems that many people disagreed with her views on deletion and her choice of language, I thought that she was a valuable contributor to Wikipedia in her own way, and I'll miss her. I understand why she chose to leave, and I'm not going to beg her to stay. I don't think she should be pestered by pleas to return. It's her choice. As she once said, "there is fighting, hate, and discord on Wikipedia," and sometimes I'm tempted to leave myself. I also want to add that in my view, it was very insensitive to nominate her memorial page to departed friends for deletion.
Other people who need your support include Peter, and Hildan.
There are so many people who are hurting. Please God, help them all.
In earlier versions of this page, this section was called "Overall mood", where I talked about my clinical depression. I decided to change the section title in order to make this page a little more cheery. I think it's important for people to understand, but I don't want to dwell on it either. In memory of Anne and David; Sophie, Reena, Jennifer and Hannah; Jenna, Alfred, Matthew and Windy; Iris and all those we have loved and lost.
This is not an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user this page belongs to may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia itself. The original page is located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kyoko.
