User:M Alan Kazlev

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Geometria

I'm an autodidactic metaphysician, esotericist, vegan, sentientist, integral philosopher, writer, armchair palaeontologist, futurist, worldbuilder, geek/nerd, and all round eccentric. I joined Wikipedia in the old days when all knowledge was welcome, and have witnessed its sad fall from grace into a deletionism-based policy. (see "My view of Wikipedia - bouquets and brickbats"). As of the time of writing this, I am not actively contributing, as I am focusing on other projects. I am author of Kheper website. co-founder of and the main force behind setting up Orion's Arm; co-author of Palaeos, and author of the new science fiction series, work in progress, and blog Freehauler Alcione. Social networking Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, also Academia.edu, blog.

My view of Wikipedia - bouquets and brickbats
Bouquet: A multi-authored open source project

There is something very cool about the way that the Wikipedia system allows anyone to contribute, and is built up from the sum total of thousands of contributers. Actualy, even before Wikipedia, I had already come upon this same idea, which I used in the hard science fiction project Orion's Arm. Collaborative editing has been the strength of Orion's Arm, just as it has been of Wikipedia. In both cases, the result has been far far richer than any one person alone could have come up with.

In the case of Wikipedia, this is the largest collaborative project on the web, which has made it a brand name equal to Google.

Bouquet: a free and (for non-controversial topics) reasonably reliable source of information

Many people have said that the information in Wikipedia isn't reliable, that the system is open to abuse, etc. Sure it is open to abuse, such as politican's staff editing entries to make their politician more electable, removing anything that reflects negatively on them. But these things are always fixed, just as vandalism is. Similarily, although a badly written but accurate statement on a scientific page may be replaced by a well-written but inaccurate statement, the net effect is to tend towards greater accuracy (and ideally, well written and accurate).

Ok, I wanted to say the above too things because there is stilla lot that I like and respect about Wikipedia, despite the following brickbats.

Brickbat: Deletionism and the end of the Wikipedia dream:

I joined Wikipedia in the old days (early 2005), during it's time of glory, attracted by the concept of a limitless internet encyclopadia. Maybe that concept was real, maybe it was nothing but a figment of my imagination. Since then I have witnessed its sorry decline into a vehicle of deletionists. So Wikipedia no longer has the spark it once held for me, although I acknowledge there is still a lot of cool stuff on wikipedia, science, history etc. In terms of all these conservative subjects, it is excellent. But it is no longer the cutting edge experiment it once seemed, perhaps it never was.

Imho the rot set in with Wikipedia's more conservative and deletionist based "notability" policy, which is biased against biographies, although curiously it hasn't touched the geekish "impersonal" subjects (I suppose were the Wikipedia policy makers to do that that would really be the end of the project). I have made my views known here and here.

Sure I am not alone in my Wikipedia editorial philosophy; there are other Inclusionists and Eventualist, and even an Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians. But the policy as a whole definitely seems to go the other way.

update 25 September 2009: I noticed an interesting essay in TIME magazine on the decline of Wikipedia: Is Wikipedia a Victim of Its Own Success?. The essay looks at various possible reasons for this, and they mention bureaucracy and Wikilawering. But for me the tipping point was the day the deletionists took over. From that time on, Wikipedia which had previously been an exciting and creative ecology of ideas and essay writing became subject to deletionists.

For me there are two ways to interpret deletionists, both equally valid but also partial perspectives. From the positive side, deletionists fulfill an important role in making Wikipedia more academically respectable. This is because they consider that Wikipedia should only include notable, well written articles. In the negative sense, deletionists do not contribute anything new, they take but do not give, like a parasite. I am sorry to use this term, and I don't mean it in a personal, ad hominem sense, but rather as a biological metaphor: it is I believe a very close ecological analogy and we are talking about Wikipedia as an ecology of ideas. A parasite is an organism that feeds on another without contributing anything itself, a deletionist is a wikipedian who contributes no new pages to Wikipedia but instead deletes pages others have written, often at great time and effort themselves.

And that is when - as the Time essays says - the joy went out of Wikipedia. Certainly it was for me. I don't think Wikipedia management is really aware of how pernicious and disheartening on other contributers the effect of deletionism is. The good thing (for me) and bad thing (for Wikipedia) is that it turned me back to my own websites, which I had neglected during my manic and enthusiastic Wikipedia phase.

But I will admit that deletionism (like anything) isn't totally bad. It has forced editors like myself to adopt a more rigorous and academic tone then we had previously used, and this is surely a good thing for an Encyclopaedia.

Of course, it isn't anywhere as much fun to write a tedious academic entry with footnotes and print references and what not. It's the very opposite of creativity. So the result is a decline in number of editors, and those that remain tend to be more insular, forming their own academic-geek subculture.

Brickbat: Blogs not recognised as viable reference sources:

Another sign of conservativism is the fact that current Wikipedia policy doesn't acknowledge blogs as a viable source of reference citation. The world is changing, and part of that change involves the developing noosphere, in which blogs, like webpages, have become as authoritative as the printed word. Once again, the world moves on, but Wikipedia remains at a lecvel perhaps a bit more radical than a print encyclopeadia, but not radical enough to keep pace with the expanding noosphere.

Bouquet: Transparency:

The superb transparency that is built right into the Wikipedia system is something to be applauded. Every edit is recorded and saved, and it is very easy to track the activities of any user through their contributions page. This makes it very hard for anyone to abuse the system. This was shown to me when a disgruntled Wilberian (who in no way should be considered representative of the Wilberian movement as a whole) who seemed to have taken offense to some of my material on Frank Visser's Integral World website, began targetting biographies I had written and Wikipedia external links references to any of my webpages and essays (not to anyone else's material mind you, only to my work). Tracking this user's footprints through his Wikipedia activities, I was able to openly challenge him, and force him to cease his activities and apologise. See my talk pages and blog comment. That I as an ordinary editor, not an administrator or moderator, can do this, is a wonderful example of "people power".

Bouquet: Blocking malcontents.

Another thing I really like about Wikipedia is that malcontents who try to hijack Wikipedia for their own pov agendas will eventually be banned by the Wikipedia admistration through arbitration. One example of this is an extreme Sai Baba supporter who after a long period of harrasment of several editors who are critical of Sai Baba, was banned from contributing.

Brickbat: still thinking too much like a paper encyclopaedia:

Wikipedia is electronic, right? It isn't limited the way that a paper encyclopaedia is. Sio why should it be structured like one? Why have deletionism at all, when there is a whole world out there, waiting to be described?

Summing up:

All in all, Wikipedia, like everything else created of human mind and hands, has both strengths and weaknesses. While my own radical inclusivist philosophy means that I am not interested in being involved to the degree that I previously was in 2005 and early 2006, Ive decided to remain a part of the Wikipedian community, albeit in a more low-key manner.

My contributions
Apart from dabbling about two years earlier, I first contributed on 2 February 2005, and signed in under my name a few weeks later (13 February, which also happens to be my birthday). I have been an enthusiastic wikipedian ever since. Indeed, Wikipedia is so adictive that it means often I am doing stuff here when I should be writing my book!

More recently (since late 2006) I have toned down on my Wikipedia activities, to devote more time to other projects. Since Februrary 2007 I have been concentrating more on writing my books.

Deleted entries
The peruser of this user page will notice that a number of these entries, mostly biographies, have been considered non-notable under current policy guidelines and so deleted. I have included them but without any links. It is hoped (although perhaps not very likely) that in future some or all of these biographies on them re-written or restored.

Wikipages - Esotericism and Integral Paradigm
This material goes beyond the consensus western secular paradigm. While I still occaisonally make comments and corrections, I no longer am involved in adding to this area of wikipedia, due to the overenthusiasm of deletionists. It is nevertheless encouraging that many of these pages still survived, and a few, like Esoteric cosmology, have become very vibrant with a lot of edits. This indicates a decent number of editors have esoteric interests or sympathies, which is encouraging.

Esoterica, New Age, Alternative, Meditation, Paranormal, etc
Esotericism is a vast and fascinating topic that is rather under-represented on the Wikipedia. In 2005 I started adding some pages, and expanding and correcting others. Also some New Age entries would go here as well. Particularly surprising is the fact that the page on David Wilcock was deleted; were he a conventional, as opposed to a New Age, author and speaker, the material would surely have been retained. Pages I've Created:

General: Causal body - Causal plane - Divinization - Esoteric cosmology - Etheric body - Etheric plane - Gross realm (deleted) - Kama (Theosophy) - Mental plane - Neo-Theosophy - Non-physical entity (stub) - Physical body (Theosophy) - Physical plane - Round (Theosophy) - Septenary (Theosophy) - Spiritual philosophy (stub) - Subtle realm (deleted) - Universal mind (stub)

Biographies: Hilary Evans ‎ (stub) - Antoine Faivre - Wouter Hanegraaff - Walter Kilner (stub) - Ainslie Meares - Vladimir Megre - ‎David Spangler (stub) - Diane Stein - David Wilcock (deleted)

Pages I've Contributed Substantially To:

Astral body - Astral plane - Barry Long - Involution (philosophy) - Plane (cosmology) - Spiritual evolution - Subtle body

Eastern Philosophy
Pages I've Created:

Anandamaya kosha - Divine Mother - Linga sarira - Loka - Sukshma sarira (merged) - Shuddhashuddha tattvas - Category:Vedanta - Category:Gurus

The Theon Tradition
A little known esoteric tradition that had a formative influence in late 19th and early 20th century European occultism. Many of these ideas were adopted by The Mother (Mirra Alfassa).

M. J. Benharoche-Baralia - Cosmic Movement - Cosmic philosophy - Cosmic Review - Cosmic Tradition - Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor - Pascal Themanlys - Alma Theon (stub) - Max Theon

Category:Max Theon

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
If I choose as personal preference one spiritual teaching and system of yoga over others, it is that of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The current project here is not just to elucidate various elements of their teaching, but also mention a few individuals associated with them. In addition I have completely rewritten the previous wiki biography of the Mother

Pages I've Created:

Many of these topic pages have suffered through the depredations of deletionists (confirming the materialistic/geek bias of wikipedia); I saved some of the material through merging, sometimes the material has been deleted anyway. In hindsight I now consider this is a good thing in some instances as the pages were over split for a general encyclopaedia (as opposed to a specialised esoteric one); e.g. the various faculties in Sri Aurobindo's integral psychology (physical, vital, mental, etc) have been merged, and I now agree with this. In other cases, such as refusing to give a major philosophical opus like The Life Divine and other equivalent works their own pages, the situation reflects a clear secular westocentric materialistic bias. Which is fine, only Wikipedia should not then be considered a universal encyclopaedia of knowledge (which is how I originally approached it) but simply a vast but still limited Western encyclopaedia. Perhaps in the future things will change. Topics (various): The Advent (journal) - Arya (journal) (merged) - Auroconf (merged/some deleted) - Central being (rather stubby) (merged) - Chit-Tapas (stubby) (merged) - Delight (Sri Aurobindo) (merged) - Gnostic being (merged) - Inner being (merged) - Integral education (deleted) - Integral psychology (Sri Aurobindo) - Integral yoga - Intermediate zone - Letters on Yoga (merged) - The Life Divine (merged) - Mental (Sri Aurobindo) (merged) - The Mother (book) (stub) (merged) - Mother's Agenda - Mother India (journal) - Outer being (merged) - Physical (Sri Aurobindo) (merged) - Psychic being (merged) - Psychicisation (merged) - Record of Yoga (merged) - Spiritualisation (merged) - Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Sri Aurobindo Association (deleted) - Sri Aurobindo Circle - Sri Aurobindo Mandir Annual - Subtle physical (merged) - Supermind - Supramentalisation (merged) - Vital (Sri Aurobindo) (merged)

Biographies: Amal Kiran - Champaklal - Rod Hemsell (stub) - Nirodbaran - Nolini Kanta Gupta - Sisir Kumar Maitra - Ram Shankar Misra - Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (deleted) - M.P. Pandit - Pavitra - Sujata Nahar (stub) - Satprem - Indra Sen - Luc Venet (brief stub, deleted) - Georges van Vrekhem (stub)

Templates: Template:Sri Aurobindo - Template:Triple transformation

Pages I've Contributed Substantially To:

Biographies: Sri Aurobindo - Mirra Alfassa - The Mother

Integral Thought, Academia, Business, etc
Integral Thought: Some overlap with the preceding, but then all these things overlap anyway (e.g. includes Peer-to-Peer) Once again, the deletionists have had a field day. Some material has been merged, other stuff deleted outright. The fact that Integral Psychology was simply redirected to Ken Wilber shows a total ignorance of the subject; what happened to Indra Sen's and Haridas Chaudhuri's contributions to the field? I managed to save some of this material by transferring it to Integral movement; later I was able to restore the page, this time with references/citations added.

Pages I've Created:

Topics (various): Integral art - Integral psychology (restored) - Integral psychotherapy (merged or deleted) - Integral World (merged) - Integralwiki (stub) (deleted) - Now & Zen - Peer-to-Peer (meme) - Unified Science (stub) - What Is Enlightenment? (magazine) (stub)

Biographies: Michel Bauwens - Roland Benedikter - Elliot Benjamin (deleted) - Brant Cortright (deleted) - Matthew Dallman (deleted) - Geoffrey D. Falk (deleted) - Edward Haskell - Robert A. McDermott - Thomas J. McFarlane (deleted) - Steve McIntosh - Rolf Sattler - Bahman Shirazi - Frank Visser (stub) - Joseph Vrinte (deleted) - Johannes Wallmann - Timothy Wilken (very stubby) (deleted) - Michael Zimmerman (stub)

Books and websites: Full Circle (book) (merged) - The Self-Organizing Universe - Peer to Peer and Human Evolution (stub) (merged)

Categories: Category:Integral art - Category:Integral theory (Ken Wilber)

Templates: Template:Integral thought /Template:Integral /Template:Integral2

Pages I've Contributed Substantially To:

Integral education - Integral psychology (merged/some deleted, later restored page) - Integral theory (merged) - Integral movement - Ken Wilber (critique section) (mostly deleted)

The Phylogeny of Life
It is impossible for any one (or two or ten or a hundred) people to write up the "family tree" of life, with its millions of clades and species. The following entries concentrate on a few branches, nodes, and twigs of the great Tree of Life. These include both extinct and recent taxa (so far I've been covering only the molluscs and the vertebrates). I have had fun and a great deal of satisfaction, from doing write-ups on various prehistoric organisms; so far mostly Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic amphibians and reptiles (also a few insects from this time), as this represents my favourite time in the history of the Earth. Yeah yeah I know, I still use those old Linnaean terms a lot, as I like them and theya re easy and convenient. But nowadays instead of "reptile" you should technically say sauropsid or synapsid ("mammal-like reptile"); while early primtive amphibians are now referred to as basal tetrapods.

Pages I've Created:

Vertebrates : Adelospondyli - Aetosauria - Aïstopoda - Anomodont (stub) - Anteosauria- Anteosauridae - Archosauriformes - Archosauromorph - Anthracosauria - Biarmosuchia - Batrachomorpha - Batrachosauria (stub) - Bradysaurus - Brithopodidae - Cacops (stub) - Carboniferous tetrapods - Caseidae - Chilgatherium - Cistecephalus - Crocodylomorpha - Crurotarsi - Diadectes - Diadectidae - Diadectomorpha - Deinotheriidae - Dicraeosauridae - Dicynodon - Dicynodon trautscholdi - Dinocephalia - Dissorophidae (stubby) - Dissorophoidea (stubby) - Dvinosauria (stubby) - Edaphosauridae - Eothyrididae - Eryopidae (stubby) - Eryopoidea (stubby) - Erythrosuchidae - Estemmenosuchidae - Estemmenosuchus - Eupelycosauria - Eureptilia - Gorgonops - Ichthyopterygia - Indricotheriinae - Jonkeria - Kannemeyeria - Kannemeyeriidae (stub) - Lepospondyli - Lethiscus - Lissamphibia - Lysorophia - Neodiapsida - Nigersaurus - Paraceratherium - Parareptilia - Pareiasaur - Permian tetrapods - Phytosauria - Plesiosauria (originally redirect page) - Plesiosaurus (originally redirect page) - Poposauridae - Prestosuchidae - Procolophonia - Procolophonomorpha - Prodeinotherium - Proterosuchia - Proterosuchidae - Pseudosuchia - Rauisuchia -  Rauisuchidae - Rebbachisauridae - Reptiliomorpha - Rhynchosaur - Robertia - Sauria - Sphenacodontia - Sphenacodontidae - Sphenacodontoidea -  Syodontidae - Tapinocephalus - Temnospondyli - Trematosauria (stubby) - Trematosauroidea (stubby) - Trilophosaur - Zatrachydidae (stubby)

Technical terms (Vertebrates) (all these are stubs): Fourth trochanter - Postcrania - Triradiate pelvic girdle

Insects : So far all pretty stubby: Diaphanopterodea - Palaeodictyoptera - Palaeodictyopteroidea - Protodonata - Protorthoptera -

Molluscs : Bellerophon (mollusc) - Bellerophontida - Bellerophontidae - Chippewaella (stub) - Orthocerida - Orthoceratidae - Muricidae - Muricoidea - Nautilida - Strepsodiscus (stub) - Thais (gastropod)

Technical terms (Molluscs): Body chamber - Body whorl - Camerae - Orthocone - Phragmocone - Sculpture (mollusc) - Septa - Spire (mollusc) - Varix (mollusc) - Whorl (mollusc)

Systematics: Autapomorphy (stub)

Books, Journals, Websites, etc: Evolution of the Vertebrates - Journal of Systematic Palaeontology (stub) - Mikko's Phylogeny Archive - Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology - Tree of Life Web Project (stubby) -Vertebrate Palaeontology (Benton) - Vertebrate Paleontology (Romer) - Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution

Templates: Template:Paleo-stub

Categories: Category:Anomodonts - Category:Canadian paleontologists - Category:Carboniferous animals - Category:Mesozoic life - Category:Paleontology books - Category:Paleontology stubs - Category:Paleontology websites - Category:Paleozoic animals - Category:Paleozoic_life - Category:Parareptiles - Category:Pareiasaurs - Category:Pelycosaurs - Category:Permian animals - Category:Permian life - Category:Temnospondyls - Category:Sauropterygians - Category:Science websites

Pages I've Contributed Substantially To:

Genera and Clades: Archosaur - Baluchitherium - Caseasauria - Deinotherium - Dicynodont - Edaphosaurus - Ichthyosaur - Jobaria - Nautiloid - Nemegtosauridae - Orthoceras - Pelycosauria - Prosauropoda - Rhopalodon - Sauropsid - Synapsid - Thecodont - Thecodontosaurus - Therapsida

Projects: The following are WikiProjects I am (sporadically) involved in:

WikiProject Tree of Life - WikiProject Cephalopods - WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles

Naturalists and Palaeontologists
The great task of the classification and tracing the evolutionary relationships of life on Earth is the result of the combined and tireless efforts of tens of thousands of naturalists, paleontologists, biologists, and others. I have decided to write stubs on any not listed in wikipedia, as pertinant. e.g. the author of the scientific name of an organism or group or clade, or the author of a book or monograph or article. Many of these pages are stubs, and some are extremely stubby.

Vladimir Prokhorovich Amalitskii (stub) - Lieuwe Dirk Boonstra (very stubby) - Frank M. Carpenter - Kenneth Carpenter - Robert L. Carroll - Edwin H. Colbert - Emanuel Mendez da Costa - Kristina Curry Rogers - Michael S. Engel - Susan E. Evans - Mikael Fortelius - Eugene S. Gaffney - Peter Galton - Jacques Gauthier - David Grimaldi - John Kappelman - Gillian King - Oskar Kuhn - Spencer G. Lucas - Andreas V. Martynov - Pierre Denys de Montfort - A. Morley Davies (very stubby) - Paul E. Olsen - Boris Borisovitsch Rohdendorf - Otto Schindewolf - William J. Sanders - Ernst Friedrich von Schlotheim - Edward Oscar Ulrich - Peter J. Wagner - Wilhelm August Wenz - Jeffrey A. Wilson

Institutions (stubs)
Likewise the museums and institutes that house the specimens

Paleontological Institute

Earth History and Geological Timescale
Pages I've Created:

Aalenian (stub) - Beaufort Group - Chitarwata Formation (stub) - Early Cretaceous (stub) - Karoo Supergroup - Middle Jurassic(stub) - Early Ordovician (stub) - Guadalupian (brief stub) - Late Cretaceous (stub) - Late Ordovician (stub) - Middle Ordovician (stub)

Pages I've Contributed Substantially To:

Early Jurassic (needs more work) - Geologic timescale

Wikipages - Other
Wikipedian categories I created: Category:Wikipedians interested in transhumanism - Category:Wikipedians interested in paleontology

Geography
Pages I've Created: Bugti Hills (very brief stub)

Futurism, Transhumanism and Sci Fi
From the past and present to the future...

Pages I've Created:

Topics: Archailect - Transapient

Biographies: Anders Sandberg - John Smart (futurist) (stub)

Pages I've Contributed substantially to:

Topics: Dyson tree

Other
Miscellaneous stuff that doesn't fit under the other categories

Pages I've Created:

Topics: AK Comics, Theory of everything (philosophy)

More on comics (well, if you can't beat 'em, join em! :-)  Cyberpunx (stub) - Brave Old World (comic) (stub) - The Brotherhood (comic) (stub, redirected)

Biographies: Jonathan Huebner - Michael L. Benton (disambiguation stub) - Theodore Modis

Style of writing for Wikipedia
(notes and references to self)

in the preferred order:
 * Quotations
 * See also
 * References
 * External links

Useful pages:
 * Five pillars
 * Notability
 * Manual of Style
 * External links
 * Cite sources

CC License
I agree to multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below: