User:Darkstar8799

I am a middle-aged Male living near Washington, DC, USA.

I'm originally from New Jersey.

My education is in international relations, with a focus on international security, European affairs, and Russia and the Soviet Union.

I have worked as a history teacher, U.S. Army Reserve officer, and management and technology consultant. Currently I work as an information security consultant.

My Wikipedia interests focus on making it the best possible encyclopedia. What this means to me is that it be a reliable first place for people to learn about significant topics. It also means being disciplined about things that Wikipedia is not: a place for debate (except as necessary to develop the encyclopedia), personal agendas, promotion of self or others, retelling of media works (e.g. books, film, games) or catalogs of trivia. I find that I'm more sensitive than usual to biases inherent in the demographics of the Wikipedia user community -- for example, the fact that video games get more attention than 17th-century Italian operas, and not necessarily because they are more significant.

My edits so far have been mostly to history or military-related pages, but there a few others I'm watching too.