User:Paleorthid/Vanity
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I am Paleorthid, a consulting soil scientist. Most of my effort at Wikipedia and its sister projects has been to expand natural science topics. I live in a 120 year old Victorian neighborhood which accounts for my interest in historic preservation. I live in a part of a medium-sized city that has big city problems. This accounts for my fascination with practical aspects of criminology. My interest in biochar, and terra preta started in 2005, on reading Charles Mann's book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. On reading "1491" I realized that my soil science education had left me ignorant of the workings of charcoal in soil. Accordingly I have sought to better understand charcoal in a soil context. I now teach others how to understand, test, make, and use charcoal for addition to compost, soil, water filtration. I brush my teeth with charcoal. Along with a multidisciplinary group of locals, I have developed a fairly refined understanding of charcoal as a material. Our group co-authored an article on biochar from this perspective: [Campfire Lessons - breaking down the combustion process to understand biochar production] the Biochar Journal 2014, Arbaz, Switzerland. ISSN 2297-1114
In 2004, my best article creations were agrology and Crime prevention through environmental design. Agrology is a term related to agriculture that is limited in usage, but which changes meaning dramatically by region. Crime prevention through environmental design (or CPTED), is a concept which originated in 1971. I found it fascinating that the founder of the CPTED concept, an academic criminologist who is still teaching at the University of Florida, has been all but forgotten by the CPTED movement. The commonly understood concept of CPTED developed along practical lines. Thus the material I contributed to the article may seem to go against accepted Wikipedia principle to write from the viewpoint of what is commonly understood on a subject. I often felt I was breaking the rules in order to improve the Wikipedia content.
Preparing and maintaining the agrology and CPTED articles affected my attitude about Wikipedia content. I believe more strongly than ever that all common views can and should be represented in Wikipedia articles and that addressing origins of concepts is important. I am particularly interested in describing origins when those concepts or terms have changed meaning dramatically over time.
In 2006, I worked on various soil articles. Article structure and content are being improved per guidance at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Science. I dealt with vandals using VandalProof and contributed to various other projects. Especially WikiProject Soil.
Despite my standing as a national leader in my profession, I found it essentially impossible to recruit soil scientists from among my peers in the SSSA. I ended up writing a lot of soil content on my own. This is very unfortunate for Wikipedia, because I am a terrible writer. I have skills: I RTFM. I can organize directory structures. I can correct factual error. I can track down WP:BESTSOURCES and WP:SOURCES. In discussions, I can politely support the concept of soil science as a stand-alone science (not a subsidiary of engineering, geology, biology, agronomy, geography, or ecology). but I FAIL utterly as a good writer. I needed help from among my tribe but I was certainly going to the wrong place in seeking it among the academicians of soil science. It's a cultural thing, I get it. The exception was user:PBarak, much appreciated. Also I appreciate the help that came in from among the NRCS field soil science folks.
In 2007 I started an extended wikibreak.
In 2010 I participated in an extensive AfD after wikibreaking through an AfD on the same article in 2009.