User:Ut Libet

I find that it rather maladroit to write a personal article from a third-person point of view, so I have abandoned the encyclopaedic style in favour of a more informal first-person point of view. I apologise in advance to encyclopaedic purists.

Background
I am a mining student at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Having a vested interest in this field of study, and having been disappointed by the Internet's lack of information on mining topics, I seek to create and expand articles related to geology and mining as I gain competence on the subjects through my schooling and research. I also have plans to help with articles brushing on my interests.

Motivation for page edits and creation
I really like the concept of Wikipedia. But I feel like I have taken so much from it, and have yet to give back as much as I have taken. So, whenever I have the free time, I try to correct articles' syntax or spelling, and to revert vandalism whenever I can. I also try to contribute to articles in the broader research-and-revise kind of way.

However, I am still quite unfamiliar with the language used to edit articles. Even worse, I have found that there are a number of Wikipedia's standards with which I am yet to become familiar; I have messed-up some pages because of that. Fortunately, there are some users on Wikipedia who have been willing to spend the time to correct my mistakes when I make them, and moreover, to link me to the appropriate WP pages so that I can learn how not to make mistakes in the first place. I think I am getting pretty close to the point that almost all of my edits are acceptable, and that those that are not accepetable are easy enough to fix.

Occasionally, I hear something on the radio or read about something in the newspaper that piques my interest enough that I look up that topic on Wikipedia. Sometimes, however, the information I heard or read through the media covers something not mentioned in the Wikipedia article, and I feel as though I should do a little research and add my newly-learnt information to the article. Withal, the whole "don't have enough time" and "too-afraid-to-edit" feelings I have have usually prevented me from doing this.

My interests
Once I am over my hopefully-irrational fears of editing on Wikipedia, I will probably do most of my writing about the things that interest me. A partial list of those topics are: