User:CaseyPenk

Hello.

My name is Casey; sometimes I go by other names. I have edited Wikipedia at various times over the years.

I believe strongly in the mission of disseminating the world's information, in a coherent and thorough way. However, I believe the editing culture at Wikipedia is broken—too focused on rules, unfriendly and sometimes spiteful, and overwhelmingly bureaucratic. I also find the encyclopedia excessively pedantic in coverage and style, with an excess of details but little effective summary. These trends hamper change and burn out editors, threatening the continued success of the encyclopedia.

I focus on editing, and strive to spend 90+% of my time writing content. In the time you spend discussing something on a talk page you could already have done it several times over. For my part I stay out of the administrative wars (which are personally taxing and unproductive). Instead, I focus on making articles more cohesive—with logical organization, well-rounded summaries (which generalize the content of the article), and higher priority on the most important information. I believe strongly in the art of the summary, which should succinctly the describe the topic and is all many people will read. I prefer the general over the specific and like to write about concepts and trends rather than particular details.

My studies in information science have taught me to appreciate usability and human concerns. An encyclopedia is about much more than imparting facts. It should inspire with eloquent, poetic prose and it should enliven the content with humor and wit. It should convey information crisply, with mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive sections.

I hope to see editors collaborate in good faith, communicate in a friendly way, and keep always an eye toward compromise. Appreciative and fun messages go a long way. I hope editors will chip away at the cultural dysfunction here and bring Wikipedia back to its founding promise: to provide information.