For now see my user page on WikiEducator - or on Wikiversity.

My interests and biases

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Libre knowledge

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Consider this an invitation to mercilessly edit my contributions (and/or create/improve articles which present other views) to present a more balanced perspective on Wikipedia.

I am in favour of and (used to) edit pages related to Libre knowledge and the word Libre which I use when applicable rather than "free" or "open".

At least for now March 2015 (and for a long time previously and in the foreseeable future), I agree with the vision, mission and values associated with libre knowledge

Knowledge for all, freedom to learn, towards collective wisdom.
Enabling communities to empower themselves with knowledge.

Early this century (from late 2003 to the end of 2008) I held positions in the CSIR (South Africa) which involved (among other things) promoting and researching FLOSS, open education and libre knowledge. During that time it seemed appropriate to share knowledge gained through those projects on Wikipedia, which I regarded as the epitome of libre knowledge.

Since then I have continued to develop learning resources related to libre knowledge and occasionally support organisations aligned with the mission above, usually on a voluntary basis, and none of these have paid me to edit Wikipedia pages.

To me this seems to be an "equivalence of interest" with the mission of Wikipedia/Wikimedia Foundation - reminder:

to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.[1]

I am just one person with a point of view, and hope that some merciless (and/or friendly suggestions and :-) editing will help balance my biases and lead to better Wikipedia articles. In my opinion, merciless deletion of undesirable material and of vandalism is good, but speedy deletion of articles removes the opportunity for commons-based peer production to take its course - the process which has made Wikipedia so great.

Etc.

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I also have interests and opinions on many other things but generally don't often edit associated Wikipedia pages. If I do, will try to remember to list my associated biases here.

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Below is a reminder for me some day of work done and speedily deleted from Wikipedia. I would have preferred a more organic process of commons-based peer production to improve the articles or merge the content into other articles as appropriate. Oh well, I guess that knowledge is out there somewhere and may yet find its way back into Wikipedia (if not by the time you read this :-):

  • Libre culture 19:04, 2 June 2017 (UTC) up for deletion - a page I created for someone 2015-02-06T19:45:44.
  • Libre (word) deleted 2017-06-01. As before, I was unaware of any discussions leading to this speedy deletion until today (it was on my watch list, so I got an email when it was deleted).
  • Libre (word) up for deletion again: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Libre (word) (24 May 2017)
  • Libre (reinstated today as "Libre (word)") - 12 Mar 2015)
  • Libre knowledge :-( nominated for deletion on 13 March 2015 )
    • I will try to save it from deletion ... there is quite a lot that can be done to improve it ... (finding the time ...).

Useful tools for improving Wikipedia articles:

  • Dab solver (find disambiguation links - usually a mistake)

Co-composing libre knowledge (pointers to the type of working culture I prefer):

  • Reagle, Joseph (2010). Good faith collaboration : the culture of Wikipedia. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262014472.

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