Hello, and thanks for clicking to learn more about me.
My name is John Burns and I'm a professional writer and editor in Vancouver, Canada.
I use (and contribute to!) Wikipedia regularly because it's an invaluable source of information. For many years, I fact-checked information at this weekly publication. In the old days, I used to phone the central branch of our local library and pose questions to patient (oh so patient!) reference librarians. At Christmas, I'd head down to the library with boxes of chocolates to thank them for their perseverance and curiosity. Then one year, it just didn't make sense to keep buying and delivering chocolates: I hadn't phoned anyone in months. The internet had arrived (and luckily, not too many years after, Wikipedia!).
These days, I work as editorial director at Echo Storytelling Agency, a Vancouver-based custom-publishing house. And because of this work, I sometimes meet (and work with) clients who have had extraordinary lives and public recognition for their work and charity, yet aren't on Wikipedia. In one case, listed below, I decided to create a page. So yes, I wrote it on work time. And yes, the client has paid us. But I think he warrants a page, and I've included 60-odd quality stand-alone footnotes to buttress this assertion. I haven't written about his company (Deans Knight) so much as I've tried to bring his individual accomplishments to light.
I hope Wikipedians will appreciate not just this disclosure, but more importantly, the spirit in which I wrote the article — here's someone of note who was missing from the public record but now is included. I don't think he's a perfect guy, but I do think he's worthy, as I hope the page demonstrates.
Conflict of Interest