User:NickDupree

I'm Nick Dupree, a 32 year-old disability rights activist, writer, seeker, and amateur historian.

I grew up in and around the Spring Hill College campus in Mobile, Alabama, where my mother taught studio art from the time I was a year old, and where I was a student of English/writing from 1998, when I entered at age 16, until 2005. It was some guys at Spring Hill that introduced me to Wikipedia.

I made a major impact with my two-year campaign to change Medicaid in Alabama, dubbed "Nick's Crusade."

In August 2008, I transitioned to a new life in New York City, where I am starting anew. I've continued writing and creating, both fiction (online comics such as Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders vs. Zombies, and Bunnies in Space) and nonfiction (essays on history, politics, and health care). One of my essays, on the impact of cuts in the federal budget and universal health care as a human right, was published as part of Greenhaven Press' reference volume Health Care: Opposing Viewpoints in 2008.

Check out NickDupree/About for an in-depth bio with information about my life as a disabled man, my artwork, and my work as a long-term care reform advocate, including press coverage.

About
See my About page for a detailed autobiography covering the ins and outs of my disability, my successful 2001-2003 campaign "Nick's Crusade" to stop Alabama Medicaid's policy of cutting off ventilator-dependent people's home care at age 21, links to the media coverage that (and later advocacy) has generated, and information on my artwork, Superdude Comics.

I can't use a keyboard, nor lift my hands at all. I type with my thumb on a trackball mouse (I can only use the long-ago discontinued Logitech T-CD2-6F TrackMan Stationary Mouse, ca. 1995) and I click out text by hitting letters on onscreen keyboard software. Sometimes it takes me hours to type out an article, but this also gives me time to consider my words and extract the best possible writing from myself.

Nick the Wikipedian
I began contributing to Wikipedia in December 2005 and love the Wikipedia project. It gives me an important intellectual outlet. As I'm studying history and how people set change in motion in their governing systems and cultures, I want to share the knowledge I learn freely.

Message me for help with writing and editing articles; I've taken particular interest in Chinese history, the History of Asia in general, and American history (including Latin America).

I was introduced to Wikipedia in 2004 by fellow Spring Hill College student Jay Champagne who believes Wiki to be the next frontier of human achievement, a collective of knowledge, a move toward a common human consciousness (I agree).

I believe in single, comprehensive, complete articles on a topic, with daughter articles when applicable, NOT many, small, uncoordinated, duplicative articles. Whenever possible, these should be merged into a comprehensive, omnibus article. Thus, I am a Mergist. All articles must also adhere to an encyclopedic, high-level of quality.

 Articles I'd like to create {| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="text-align:left; clear:right"  Did You Knows created by me
 * History of pharmacy in the United States
 * History of the Qing dynasty
 * Juanqinzhai the first of the Qianlong emperor's restored retirement suites.
 * Cuban Question - about the 100+ year history of debated U.S. annexation of Cuba
 * Cuban Liberation Army
 * Martín Morúa Delgado Afro-Cuban, president of the Cuban Senate
 * Independent Colored Party or Partido Independiente de Color (PIC), pivotal in the history of anti-discrimination activism in Cuba
 * Latin America in World War II
 * Bolivian Revolution of 1952
 * Luque Rods
 * Alabama Medicaid Agency
 * Medicaid waivers
 * Medicaid law
 * My Sandbox - for nascent articles I'm working on
 * Did You Knows?

 Other contributions I'm proud of:
 * 1) Palace of Tranquil Longevity  -  12:05, April 27, 2012‎  (Qianlong emperor's retirement retreat in the northeast corner of the Forbidden City, which is currently undergoing an $18 million international restoration effort)
 * 2) Proposal:Moving beyond moribund WikiProjects to new platforms for collaboration   -   03:57, 9 July 2011   (A proposal I wrote on strategy.wikipedia.org about how we could improve Wikipedia by transitioning away from the WikiProjects that have died to the new platforms for collaboration mentioned in the Wikimedia Strategic Plan to 2015)   I discussed the proposal with Jimmy Wales here, and with the WikiProject Council here.
 * 3) Juan Gualberto Gómez   -  02:06, June 20, 2011  (After discussing on WikiProject Cuba the fact that Afro-Cuban leader in the war of independence against Spain, Juan Gualberto Gómez, DESERVES AN ARTICLE, I created it, the first article I've created on Wikipedia. That the Juan Gualberto Gómez Airport has its own article but its namesake, a Cuban founding father, did not was just weird!   So I tried to rectify this; my sources were primarily the español wikipedia Juan Gualberto Gómez and the Cuban government article on him)
 * 4) Hoja-Niyaz  - 04:19, June 17, 2011 ‎ (MAJOR copyedit, improving grammar and English phrasing, adding lead, wikifying, and removing one unsourced paragraph. Please note I only sought to copyedit, not deal with the content, which may have citations needed)
 * 5) United States presidential election, 1952  - 02:00, June 16, 2011 ‎ (—»General election: improved photo location; added fear of Latin America going communist as a campaign issue with citation from reliable source)
 * 6) Ming Dynasty ‎ - 00:46, June 1, 2011 (—»History: HUUUGE overhaul trimming back and summarizing the content duplicated at History of the Ming Dynasty in order to ensure Ming Dynasty is the best article it can be, complying with Wikipedia's summary and article size policies, also, moving one section to History of the Ming Dynasty)
 * 7) Confucianism   - ‎00:57, May 19, 2011  (added content for "Women in Confucian thought" section that I created)
 * 8) Zheng He  - ‎22:56, May 18, 2011 ‎(Removed unsourced material, added very important sourced material from an English summary from Journal of Chinese Studies)
 * 9) Adolf Hitler ‎ - 14:47, September 19, 2009 (—»Early years: added material from Payne's The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler about pivotal experiences during Hitler's formative years)
 * 10) Christopher Pike (Star Trek) -  22:45, September 1, 2009  ‎ ("The Menagerie":  removed outdated and offensive "confined to a wheelchair" phrase'')
 * 11) Woodrow Wilson -  02:52, August 31, 2009 (cleanup, trim, and fix redundancies in the too-long introduction. not everything has to be in the lead.  added a mention of the Zimmermann Telegram)
 * 12) U.S.-attempted annexation of the Dominican Republic -  05:20, August 16, 2009 (merged into Dominican_Republic)
 * 13) Kangxi Emperor - 19:33, August 15, 2009 (added section about Kangxi's famous interactions with Christianity)
 * 14) Edict of toleration - 13:53, August 15, 2009  (added Kangxi Emperor's Edict of Toleration (1692))
 * 15) 1692  -  13:15, August 15, 2009  (merging 1692 in China into this article, adding some sourcing)
 * 16) Ruth Bader Ginsburg  -  05:01, August 15, 2009 ‎ (carefully merged content from the public domain FJC Bio into the article and some restructuring)
 * 17) List of Mayor-Presidents of the Mobile City Commission ‎ -  02:32, August 15, 2009  (merged this into List_of_mayors_of_Mobile,_Alabama)
 * 18) Southern United States Culture  -  13:12, August 13, 2009 (merged this into Culture of the Southern United States, part of WP:INT project)
 * 19) Culture of the Southern United States ‎ - ‎12:19, August 13, 2009  (following the WP:BOLD guideline, I moved the cultural variations section from Southern United States article and merged it here where it's more fitting; deleted the unnecessary Tobacco section)
 * 20) ‎Oregon Health Plan -  ‎ 17:07, August 11, 2009 (created a new section called "Controversy," to include previous edits about the OHP denying chemotherapy controversy using copious sourcing and NPOV)
 * 21) Hashshashin‎ - 18:41, August 9, 2009 ‎ (A big overhaul: restructuring for clarity, simplicity. Length shortened, as some unsourced and redundant text is trimmed or removed. Citations are still a problem, but this edit was sorely needed)
 * 22) List of generic and genericized trademarks ‎ - 15:15, August 9, 2009  ‎ (—»List of protected trademarks frequently used as generic terms added Ambu bag)
 * 23) Hospital emergency codes ‎ - 17:46, October 9, 2008 ‎ (—»Code White added Coler Goldwater Memorial Hospital's use of code white, for disaster)
 * 24) Culture of the Southern United States ‎ - 12:06, 31 December 2005 (I spent all day on Culture of the Southern United States, adding stuff.  I redid the overview, added a big new "People" section and doubled the size of the language section.  I like how I made one section flow into the next.  I already see more I want to add.  Will do that tomorrow.)
 * 25) Mongol invasions of Japan ‎ - 05:18, 18 December 2005  (got Kanjii pillar translated and added caption)
 * 26) Justinian I  ‎ - 06:58, 28 December 2005 (—»Relations with Rome - major edit for clarity and to weed out confusion, but more is needed, esp. a source & more content re: letter of Pope Leo I to Flavian of Constantinople)
 * 27) Baal  ‎ - 12:38, 16 December 2005 (Huge merge of 2 other baals into this Baal. Having a separate Ba'al article for those researching the Ba'al of Carthage / Phoenicians cuts these people off from the better source on this same topic,)
 * 28) Sea monster  ‎ - 12:18, 4 December 2005 (Added Himilco the Navigator to sea monsters)
 * 29) Himilco the Navigator  ‎ -  09:13, 4 December 2005 (I've added more about the Iberian sea route Himilco found for Carthage and his tales of sea monsters, as well as fixing some grammar)

Contact
nick (at) nickscrusade.org

AIM: NickSD Y!: nickscrusade MSN: NickSD@aol.com