This Wikipedian is deceased. His user page is preserved here in his memory.
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This is a Wikipedia
user page. This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user whom this page is about may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kent_G._Budge. |
Kent G. Budge is away on vacation and may not respond swiftly to queries. |
Well, not exactly a vacation. I was seriously injured in a car crash on 20 August; I'm told the first responders did not think I would survive. I'm now home recuperating, but my editing will be light to nonexistent for the next month or two. Mind the store while I'm out.
Yes, my name is really Kent G. Budge. Back in the day, I used to have lots of fun with my initials. Nowadays, not as many people get the joke. Thank goodness.
I have edited Wikipedia in the past under a pseudonym, but eventually retired that username, took a long Wiki-vacation, and began posting under my actual name when I was ready to edit here again. So far as I know, that violates no Wikipedia policies, since the previous account remains firmly retired and since I was editing a nearly completely disjoint set of articles back then from what I edit now. (My interests shift from time to time.)
I have a theory, for which there is some supporting evidence, that I behave myself better when I'm not hiding behind a pseudonym. I have a second theory, for which I don't really have much evidence either way, that others behave better towards me when I'm not hiding behind a pseudonym. I recognize there is a chance that someone, somewhere, will take advantage of that openness to try to make life miserable for me, for whatever twisted reasons, but I judge that chance to be low and worth the risk to be "me" here.
My Ph.D. is in astronomy. I don't actually edit astronomy articles much. I got frightfully burned out on astronomy by the time I finished my doctorate, something that is not unprecedented, and I've been doing computational physics for most of the decades since. I don't much edit articles relevant to computational physics, either, for various reasons. I mostly edit articles on geology, which has become something of an amateur passion for me the last few years. (Long story.) It's a sister field to astronomy, but I can't claim to be an expert.
As a non-expert, I try to live by a few rules:
I am employed by Triad National Security, LLC. However, I am not paid to edit Wikipedia, and none of my edits reflect the views of Triad, the U.S. Department of Energy, or the U.S. Government. I typically refrain from editing articles related to Los Alamos National Laboratory, Triad, or the U.S. Department of Energy, other than routine vandalism patrol and uncontroversial edits such as changes of leadership.
I suppose every editor has a slightly different answer to this question.
I think most other editors are comfortable with the first two roles. The third may be controversial, since it facially contradicts the idea that Wikipedia is not a link farm. I don't believe thoroughly citing articles to what is available in reliable sources on the web necessarily contradicts that, but the line is fuzzy.
I believe articles should be written accordingly. The first sentence of a lead section should immediately tell the reader whether the search term he entered led him to the right article. The first paragraph of a lead section should provide (at a minimum) a dictionary definition of the topic of the article. The lead section as a whole should make a reasonable assumption about what kind of reader would enter that search term, and provide a quick introduction to the topic. The remainder of the article fleshes out what is in the lead. It provides wikilinks and references for further in-depth self-education.
Writing good leads is a special skill that not all Wikipedians have. I'm struggling to master it myself. I believe it is vital to the long-term success of the project.
Not all articles should be written at the same level. An article like Volcano is going to be visited by a huge audience ranging from school children who barely know what a volcano is to experts curious what Wikipedia has gotten wrong this week. We cannot fully accommodate those extremes. There is a simple English Wikipedia suitable for younger students. But an intelligent high school student who is genuinely curious about volcanoes should find the lead comprehensible, interesting, and informative.
On the other hand, an article like Alkaline magma series is only going to bring in readers who already know something about geology. It's just not a search term many people will stumble across. The article lead should still be comprehensible, interesting, and informative to, say, an undergraduate geology student, or a dedicated amateur rockhound (cough cough). It cannot reasonably be expected to bear the weight of background explanation required to make it comprehensible, ineresting, and informative to a middle school student who stumbles across it while working on a class report.
Articles must be amply and reliably sourced. Otherwise, Wikipedia fails to be the human-curated index of the Internet it should be. It is practically a truism at the laboratory where I work that Wikipedia is only good for basic introductions to non-controversial topics ... and as a list of citations pointing the reader at the greater wealth of information that can be found on the Internet. I accordingly believe that editors should be looking for excuses to add citations (to reliable sources, of course) to Wikipedia articles. And, given the choice between a paper that is behind a paywall and one that is not, the editor should choose the latter; and given the choice between a book not available on the Internet and a paper that is (whether or not it's behind a paywall), the editor should choose the paper. (Of course, one can always embrace the power of "and" ...)
Non-controversial topics: There are some topics so radioactive I will not touch them. For example, hydraulic fracturing is well-written, interesting, heavily sourced, and dreadfully unbalanced. So far as I am concerned, it is a lost cause. I don't edit such articles, because I need to keep my blood pressure low, and there are so many interesting subjects that are not particularly controversial that I can make contributions to.
A response to a College Teaching study critical of Wikipedia STEM articles
This is referenced in a number of articles in Wikipedia. It shouldn't be. While I am proud of my work, it is nonetheless a self-published tertiary work, and is not a reliable source under Wikipedia's policies. Read and cite the sources I used instead. They're at the foot of every one of my articles.
Not referenced anywhere I know of in Wikipedia. Keep it that way. While I hope you find my blog interesting, and visit it regularly, it's another self-published work.
The Science of the Planted Aquarium
Ditto.
The most ludicrously long article name I've yet run across, fortunately converted to a redirect.
This user is a participant in WikiProject Geology. |
This user is from Los Alamos, where discoveries are made |
Wikipedia:WikiProject Geology/Popular pages
Find link: /info/en/?search=User:Edward/Find_link
Citation bot: https://citations.toolforge.org/
Copyvio detector: https://copyvios.toolforge.org/?lang=en&project=wikipedia
Find external links: Special:LinkSearch/*.omniglot.com
This Wikipedian is deceased. His user page is preserved here in his memory.
|
This is a Wikipedia
user page. This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user whom this page is about may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kent_G._Budge. |
Kent G. Budge is away on vacation and may not respond swiftly to queries. |
Well, not exactly a vacation. I was seriously injured in a car crash on 20 August; I'm told the first responders did not think I would survive. I'm now home recuperating, but my editing will be light to nonexistent for the next month or two. Mind the store while I'm out.
Yes, my name is really Kent G. Budge. Back in the day, I used to have lots of fun with my initials. Nowadays, not as many people get the joke. Thank goodness.
I have edited Wikipedia in the past under a pseudonym, but eventually retired that username, took a long Wiki-vacation, and began posting under my actual name when I was ready to edit here again. So far as I know, that violates no Wikipedia policies, since the previous account remains firmly retired and since I was editing a nearly completely disjoint set of articles back then from what I edit now. (My interests shift from time to time.)
I have a theory, for which there is some supporting evidence, that I behave myself better when I'm not hiding behind a pseudonym. I have a second theory, for which I don't really have much evidence either way, that others behave better towards me when I'm not hiding behind a pseudonym. I recognize there is a chance that someone, somewhere, will take advantage of that openness to try to make life miserable for me, for whatever twisted reasons, but I judge that chance to be low and worth the risk to be "me" here.
My Ph.D. is in astronomy. I don't actually edit astronomy articles much. I got frightfully burned out on astronomy by the time I finished my doctorate, something that is not unprecedented, and I've been doing computational physics for most of the decades since. I don't much edit articles relevant to computational physics, either, for various reasons. I mostly edit articles on geology, which has become something of an amateur passion for me the last few years. (Long story.) It's a sister field to astronomy, but I can't claim to be an expert.
As a non-expert, I try to live by a few rules:
I am employed by Triad National Security, LLC. However, I am not paid to edit Wikipedia, and none of my edits reflect the views of Triad, the U.S. Department of Energy, or the U.S. Government. I typically refrain from editing articles related to Los Alamos National Laboratory, Triad, or the U.S. Department of Energy, other than routine vandalism patrol and uncontroversial edits such as changes of leadership.
I suppose every editor has a slightly different answer to this question.
I think most other editors are comfortable with the first two roles. The third may be controversial, since it facially contradicts the idea that Wikipedia is not a link farm. I don't believe thoroughly citing articles to what is available in reliable sources on the web necessarily contradicts that, but the line is fuzzy.
I believe articles should be written accordingly. The first sentence of a lead section should immediately tell the reader whether the search term he entered led him to the right article. The first paragraph of a lead section should provide (at a minimum) a dictionary definition of the topic of the article. The lead section as a whole should make a reasonable assumption about what kind of reader would enter that search term, and provide a quick introduction to the topic. The remainder of the article fleshes out what is in the lead. It provides wikilinks and references for further in-depth self-education.
Writing good leads is a special skill that not all Wikipedians have. I'm struggling to master it myself. I believe it is vital to the long-term success of the project.
Not all articles should be written at the same level. An article like Volcano is going to be visited by a huge audience ranging from school children who barely know what a volcano is to experts curious what Wikipedia has gotten wrong this week. We cannot fully accommodate those extremes. There is a simple English Wikipedia suitable for younger students. But an intelligent high school student who is genuinely curious about volcanoes should find the lead comprehensible, interesting, and informative.
On the other hand, an article like Alkaline magma series is only going to bring in readers who already know something about geology. It's just not a search term many people will stumble across. The article lead should still be comprehensible, interesting, and informative to, say, an undergraduate geology student, or a dedicated amateur rockhound (cough cough). It cannot reasonably be expected to bear the weight of background explanation required to make it comprehensible, ineresting, and informative to a middle school student who stumbles across it while working on a class report.
Articles must be amply and reliably sourced. Otherwise, Wikipedia fails to be the human-curated index of the Internet it should be. It is practically a truism at the laboratory where I work that Wikipedia is only good for basic introductions to non-controversial topics ... and as a list of citations pointing the reader at the greater wealth of information that can be found on the Internet. I accordingly believe that editors should be looking for excuses to add citations (to reliable sources, of course) to Wikipedia articles. And, given the choice between a paper that is behind a paywall and one that is not, the editor should choose the latter; and given the choice between a book not available on the Internet and a paper that is (whether or not it's behind a paywall), the editor should choose the paper. (Of course, one can always embrace the power of "and" ...)
Non-controversial topics: There are some topics so radioactive I will not touch them. For example, hydraulic fracturing is well-written, interesting, heavily sourced, and dreadfully unbalanced. So far as I am concerned, it is a lost cause. I don't edit such articles, because I need to keep my blood pressure low, and there are so many interesting subjects that are not particularly controversial that I can make contributions to.
A response to a College Teaching study critical of Wikipedia STEM articles
This is referenced in a number of articles in Wikipedia. It shouldn't be. While I am proud of my work, it is nonetheless a self-published tertiary work, and is not a reliable source under Wikipedia's policies. Read and cite the sources I used instead. They're at the foot of every one of my articles.
Not referenced anywhere I know of in Wikipedia. Keep it that way. While I hope you find my blog interesting, and visit it regularly, it's another self-published work.
The Science of the Planted Aquarium
Ditto.
The most ludicrously long article name I've yet run across, fortunately converted to a redirect.
This user is a participant in WikiProject Geology. |
This user is from Los Alamos, where discoveries are made |
Wikipedia:WikiProject Geology/Popular pages
Find link: /info/en/?search=User:Edward/Find_link
Citation bot: https://citations.toolforge.org/
Copyvio detector: https://copyvios.toolforge.org/?lang=en&project=wikipedia
Find external links: Special:LinkSearch/*.omniglot.com