User:Duae Quartunciae

Duae Quartunciae is actually the name of my blog, and so people who want to learn more about me can use that as a start for searching. I joined to fix up a problem in an article I saw on wikipedia. I am a long time and very satisfied reader of Wikipedia.

Since I have joined, however, I've become better aware of the nature of the beast. The encyclopedia presents itself to most readers as a general information resource; but just below the surface there is continuous froth and bubble and turbulence, with lots of personal dynamic and conflict and collaboration. The emergent result is not stable or reliable, though it is undoubtedly fascinating and useful. Here be dragons &mdash; wise and ancient, also inscrutable, capricious, dangerous.

I currently live in Australia. I have a long time interest in science and mathematics. I have a BSc(Hons) (Melbourne, 1980) and a PhD in formal logic and automata theory (Monash, 1990); but in the topics I pursue in my own time I am basically an amateur. I have a long history of involvement with the talk.origins Usenet group, and the talkorigins website. I am not active there at present. In recent years I have been active on a couple of web forums, and I have just recently started a blog, though it is a bit inactive at present. I have an interest in astronomy and cosmology, and a bit of amateur background in physics.

Convenient links
Wikipedia subculture

Wikipedia subculture
I'm fascinated by the kinds of subculture that spring up when people interact on line. One aspect of Wikipedia culture, common to all sites that act as a venue for discussion, is a tendency for bad feeling over content to escalate into open animosity. I sometimes hop into contentious topics as well, and will be aiming for that balance between making a firm stand on appropriate content in line with Wikipedia guidelines, and respect for persons who disagree with me on what appropriate content entails.

The other side of Wikipedia subculture is that there is a carefully worked out set of principles intended to guide people in how they manage interactions and content. This has a level of official standing, and contributes a lot to keeping interactions positive.

Another positive thing, less formally organized, is that there is a lot of mutual encouragement that goes on, with random acts of recognition and appreciation. I got an award fairly early in the peace, and it gave me a real buzz of good feeling.

Wikipedia and quality control

Wikipedia and quality control
I am working on a suggestion for maintaining some level of quality control in wikipedia, without losing the ability for new users to appear out of nowhere and make immediate corrections to problems they see.

Basically, I am thinking of a system of designated reviewers who can check for problems relating to No Original Research, Verifiability, and Neutral Point of View, and flag them in such a way that general readers have some basic level of assurance that what they are reading is unlikely to be badly out of line with those principles.

I'm trying to manage this in such a way nothing much changes for editors; while readers are (by default) given a simple level of filtering that is limited to problem circumstances.

Will it work? I don't know. Feel free to join in and improve or tweak it, or leave a comment. After a while, I may take it up with the appropriate cabal...

See my subpage: /QualityReview.

Wikipedia activity

Wikipedia activity
I have contributed to the following articles:
 * Fritz Zwicky; significant contributions to the biography of an irascible genius in modern astronomy.
 * morphogenetic field; added the historical development of an idea in developmental biology. In the process also a fix to Alexander Gurvich.
 * morphic field; a fringe (pseudoscientific?) idea by Rupert Sheldrake, and a merge with a page on Sheldrake's conception of morphogenetic fields.
 * Paul Alfred Weiss; a new article; but fairly short. In the process, an addition to Roger Wolcott Sperry.
 * Alexis Carrel; corrected the background to his claims for a long living culture of cells from a chicken.
 * Pran Nath; a few additions to the biography.
 * Robert Sungenis; details surrounding his PhD. In the process, addition to List of unrecognized accreditation associations of higher learning and List of unaccredited institutions of higher learning.
 * Answers in Genesis; some detail in relation to the dispute with CMI.

I have contributed minor maintenance, mostly by formatting, or giving citations, or reverting inappropriate additions, to the following articles:
 * Anti-gravity
 * Baraminology
 * Big Bang
 * Dorothy L. Sayers

I sometimes archive old material in long discussion pages. When I notice it, I remove inappropriate religious additions, especially in articles related to Islam, in line with Manual of Style (Islam-related articles).

I contribute to these dispute resolution boards from time to time, and sometimes try to help out with issue itself. WP:ANI, WP:EAR, and WP:WQA. Here are the links to the recent history of those pages:
 * Administrator noticeboards: Incidents (and recent history).
 * Editor assistance requests (and recent history).
 * Wikiquette alerts (and recent history).
 * Reference desk: Science (and recent history.

I've also had an invitation to join the Logic project, that I plan to take up eventually. The invitation was from Gregbard 08:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC) originally on my discussion page.

Awards
Thank you! Recognition and encouragement like this is much appreciated, and a nice thing about the Wikipedia subculture.