User:Rusty Cashman

Professional history
I am a software engineer who has worked on embedded system software and on data communication protocols, on devices such as cable modems, VoIP systems, and wireless comunication devices. I played a role in the early development of both the CDPD and DOCSIS systems, and I am currently working in the areas of Ultra-wideband and IEEE 802.15. For more information see my linkedIn profile.

Areas of interests
Although my professional expertise is in SW engineering I rarely edit those articles. Instead I do most of my editing on articles related to the history of science and evolutionary biology which are long standing interests of mine.

Personal beliefs relevant to Wikipedia

 * I believe it was no accident that the greatest literary project of the enlightenment was an encyclopedia.


 * I believe that Wikipedia represents a major step towards Isaac Asimov's Encyclopedia Galactica, a nearly comprehensive summary and distillation of human knowledge.


 * I also believe that Wikipedia is one of the best practical realizations of Ted Nelson's hypertext concept even though he probably hates it. Whenever I use Wikipedia as a reference I never stop with the article I started with, so I believe that cross linking between articles is incredibly important and I try to spend time adding cross links wherever I find them missing.


 * I believe that Wikipedia should be as easy to use as possible so I also spend time adding redirects.


 * I believe that many otherwise reasonably good articles on scientific topics don't have enough historical context.


 * I believe that biographical articles should always tell you why the subject was important enough to merit an article. In particular I think that means that a biographical article on a scientist should always include some discussion of the subject's work and how it fit into the historical development of whatever scientific field that person contributed to, not just a laundry list of career achievements.

History as a Wikipedian
I had used Wikipedia as a reference for years, but I only became a Wikipedian, when I stumbled across an incorrect fact in the polar bear article back in August 2006. Naturally, after I corrected it, my edit was reverted out (probably by someone who thought I was a vandal) the next day. I managed to find some online references to support my position and managed to make my edit stick. Once I made one edit to the article I just had to make a few more improvements...

Articles I started:
 * Nylon-eating bacteria - My first
 * Nylon-eating bacteria and creationism
 * History of paleontology - Made GA!
 * Duria Antiquior - Outgrowth of history of paleontology
 * Elizabeth Philpot - Outgrowth of Mary Anning
 * John Jenner Weir
 * The Malay Archipelago
 * Charles H. Smith (historian of science)
 * The eclipse of Darwinism - which someone renamed to The eclipse of Darwin for political reasons, but it finally got switched back.
 * Evolutionary ideas of the renaissance and enlightenment

The 6th-8th grew out of my work on Alfred Russel Wallace, and the last 2 were spin-offs from History of evolutionary thought.

I am particularly proud of my contributions to:
 * Alfred Russel Wallace - My biggest project, finally promoted to FA! Featured on Main page Jan. 8 2009.
 * Georges Cuvier
 * Catastrophism
 * History of biology
 * History of evolutionary thought - Finally made FA! Featured on main page Feb. 12 2009 (200th anniversary of Darwin's birth)
 * Modern evolutionary synthesis - Much improved but still needs work.
 * Bernhard Rensch -- ditto
 * Stratigraphy
 * Wallace effect
 * Transmutation of species
 * On the Origin of Species - Made it to FA in time to be featured on main page for the 150th anniversary of its publication in Nov. 2009.
 * Mary Anning - Made it to FA.
 * William Buckland
 * Kirkdale Cave

I am a member of the WikiProject History of Science project and its sub project the WikiProject History of Biology. My current personal wiki-project is to improve articles related to early 19th century paleontology. I have been working on Mary Anning, which is now FA, and William Buckland, which is much improved. Now I plan to work on William Conybeare, Thomas Hawkins (geologist), John Phillips, Georges Cuvier, The Great Devonian Controversy and some others. I also plan to improve some of the articles connected to History of evolutionary thought.

Here is my edit count. I am not a big edit count guy, but I find the statistics about what I have been working on interesting.

Some things I am proud of
Alfred Russel Wallace - Promoted to featured article status May 27, 2007. History of evolutionary thought - Promoted to featured article status July 28, 2008. On the Origin of Species - Promoted to featured article status June 20, 2009. Mary Anning - Promoted to featured article status June 15, 2011.

Useful links
Rusty Cashman 06:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)