Solomonfromfinland

Real name: Justus Robin Hall. Gender: male.

Biography

Early life

I was born in Espoo, Finland on February 25, 1990. During the first four and a half years of life, my family lived in several places in Finland. On August 17, 1994, my family came to the United States.

Education

Started school in 1995, in Agness, a rural community in southern Oregon. There I did kindergarten and 1st grade (1995-1997).

Family moved to Philomath, Oregon, next to a larger city called Corvallis, in 1997. I went to a Montessory school in the fall of 1997 (til winter break), then after winter break and up til the end of 4th grade (2000), I went to a Waldorf school.

In 5th grade (2000-2001), I went to school in Minnesota; in 6th grade, in Wisconsin; in 7th grade, in Maine; and in 8th-12th grade, in Washington. In 2008, I graduated from high school.

I attended Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington; from September 24, 2008 to April 10, 2014; when I dropped out. I was majoring in Physics but I didn't quite complete the major. On June 26, I left Bellingham to move to a place in Vermont, where I arrived on July 6. On my way from Washington to Vermont, I stopped in Hayden, Idaho to attend an Energy Science and Technology Conference^[1], about various forms of free energy.

Personal life

I am naturally bilingual in English and Finnish, and have a decent command of Spanish, and know some French and some Chinese.

My little brother was born in Philomath, Oregon on May 21, 1999. (A home birth, though I was born in a hospital.)

As of September 15, 2014, I am not married and do not have a true girlfriend.

Personal views

Religious belief: agnostic.

I oppose gambling, tobacco, alcohol, prostitution, and having children out of wedlock. I support capital punishment, even though I consider myself quite liberal politically.

Views on core Wikipolicies

NPOV

This is perhaps the most obvious and most important of Wikipedia's core policies.

An article should cite many sources; it shouldn't rely heavily or entirely on one source. Take almost any subject, and there are many POVs about it. Hence an article that relies too much on one source will be biased toward the views of said source.

Verifiability

For a point to be truly verifiable, at least four things must hold:

(1) There must be a source cited

Possible exception: (a) For routine calculations, which can be verified by anyone with some mathematical ability. (b) Points that are essentially common knowledge, such as “Paris is the capital of France,” “George Washington was the 1st U.S. President,” “Mars is a planet.” Such points are verifiable from almost any reasonable source on the subject.

Inline citations are much better than a mere list of references; with the former, you can tell which source supposedly supports which factoid. Some Wikipedia articles have notices at the top about the matter.

Another problem: they will occasionally have a rather extensive piece of text (~several sentences, even an entire paragraph) with no references, followed by many (~10) references bunched together; you can't tell which source supports which point. I saw this in the intro of the article Conspiracy theory; I notified people on the talk page; the references were diffused into several places. In November 2014, I may have found such a problem in the intro of the article Stephen Hawking.

(2) The source must be cross-checkable

That is, any reader can go to the source and see if it backs the factoid in question; and if it is a good source. This probably excludes personal emails or letters, word-of-mouth (unless sound-recorded), or comments on blogs (such comments probably change too frequently).

I think online sources are preferable to print ones; you can simply go and click the link. However, there have been cases where, when you get to the website, you have to navigate several links before you get to the relevant information (sometimes you get lost in the website and can't get the information); or you need to log in to get to most of the content on the site (an annoyance I have found on some medical citations). Both of these practices should be discouraged; it is best if you can click the link and you immediately get to the verifying information.

When citing a book, you can also link to a website that has the relevant parts of the book, in online form. You can often find online images of old newspaper articles; they can be cited that way.

Beware, however: websites' content changes. This may be part of why I have multiple times found myself corrected Wikipedia text to better fit the source cited (see below).

(3) The source must not have a conflict of interest (COI)

It should be obvious: a source with a COI is not reliable. COI here mostly means that the source stands to benefit from promoting the claim in question even if it is not true. (Global warming denial appears to be promoted almost exclusively by vested interests.) Sources with clear COI should not be used by Wikipedia, but if the same claim is backed by impartial sources, it may be included in Wikipedia. However, for points with a major potential for corruption (that is, a large faction [usually vested economic interest] that stands to benefit from promoting the claim even if it is false), would-be sources should be subject to conflict-of-interest background checks.

(4) The statement must not be Original Research

Original Research is usually not verifiable (see below).

No original research

OR has two main forms. One, posting new information (e.g. results of a new scientific study; current events) directly onto Wikipedia. In such a case, the new information is obviously not Verifiable, as it is not backed by an off-Wikipedia source.

Two, SYNTH. SYNTH violates NPOV, because someone else could read the same sources and come to a different conclusion; and Verifiability, because the sources don't clearly support the factoid in question.

I agree, SYNTH is not routine calculations, because any correct performance of a given calculation, e.g. adding, multiplying, subtracting, dividing, two or more figures, always produces the same result; hence there is full Verifiability and NPOV (effectively, only one POV, namely the result of said calculation, exists). Nor is SYNTH faithful transcription of spoken language (which is logically equivalent to the same spoken words being written), or faithful translation of material in other languages (information can be published in any language, with equal validity). Or simple juxtaposition of factoids (such exists in almost any piece of writing).

Notability

Avoiding non-notable articles and information is almost equivalent to the principle of “not an indiscriminate collection of information”. Also, non-notable articles could go against NPOV because they would give undue weight to their subjects, in terms of overall importance.

What Wikipedia is not

Many of these points are pretty intuitive. For instance, Wikipedia is not an advertising venue because ads are inherently POV; they advocate a specific product, service, etc. Wikipedia is also not a battleground; such battles would be disruptive to Wikipedia and would likely involve heavy POV pushing, contrary to NPOV.

Wikipedia is not a crystal ball because we do not know how to predict the future effectively. Indeed, the number of speculations about the future that one could make is almost infinite, so including lots of such speculations could turn Wikipedia into an indiscriminate, unverifiable, collection of non-notable junk.

Views on Wikistyle

(In this section, variables denoting Categories are in bold; variables denoting Articles are in italics; and variables denoting Subsections of an Article are underlined.)

Categorization

One thing I don't think makes sense is having Categorization loops, such as A > B > A, or A > B > C > A, etc., where A > B means “B is a direct subcategory of A”. I have broken a few such loops.

These loops, I feel, are illogical because it feels like saying that B is a strict subset of A (that is, all B are A, but not vice versa); while simultaneously A is a strict subset of B. It's like saying all rodents are mammals, but not all mammals are rodents; yet simultaneously all mammals are rodents, but not all rodents are mammals.

Redirects

I admit, Redirects are useful, but I prefer to see a link within Wikipedia to link directly to an Article, or subsection thereof. E.g.:

Wikicode “[[Albert Einstein|Einstein]]”; not “[[Einstein]]” (redirects to Albert Einstein).

“[[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|NPOV]]; not “[[WP:NPOV|NPOV]]”.

Or, “[[A#B|C]]”; rather than “[[D]]” (“D” redirects to article A, subsection B; and “C” represents text that carries a hyperlink to a subsection of an article).

When at the top of a page it says, “Redirected from...”, I feel it looks ugly.

Clutter

I believe strongly in concision; sometimes, I become almost obsessive about editing one of my texts to compact it. E.g. (bolded text should be deleted)

numerous → many
United States of America → U.S.
State of California
the measles
individual → person
the University of California at San Diego
member of the family Pythonidae (preferably decapitalize “Python”)
Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

Wikipedia contributions

Note: Lists are likely to be incomplete due to less-than-perfect memory.

Categories created

(* = Category was deleted.) Date of creation (if available). Time is Pacific Time, U.S.

1. Acceleration (May 31, 2012)

2. Ambiguity

3. American politicians with disabilities

4. Amputations (June 5, 2012)

5. Amputee sportspeople

6. Anthropic principle (May 29, 2013)

7. Assassination of Franz Ferdinand (January 28, 2014)

8. Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi (Dec. 2013)

9. Assassination of James A. Garfield (March 15, 2013)

10. Assassination of Martin Luther King

11. Assassination of William McKinley (March 15, 2013)

12. Astronomical controversies

13. Astronomical hypotheses (May 29, 2013)

14. Atmosphere of Earth (May 31, 2012)

15. Attempted assassinations of U.S. Presidents

16. Biological hypotheses (May 20, 2013)

17. Blue whales (May 20, 2013)

18. Borderline life (May 20, 2013)

19. Carbon monoxide

20. *Censorship of science

21. Cesarian sections

22. Chauvinism

23. Cognitive dissonance

24. Cognitive inertia

25. Cold fusion (October 20, 2013)

26. Compulsory education (December 21, 2013)

27. Congenital amputations (June 5, 2012)

28. Consensus (January 6, 2014)

29. Copernican Revolution (October 21, 2013)

30. Criticism of intellectual property (December 21, 2013)

31. Criticism of science (October 20, 2013)

32. Definition of planet (May 31, 2012)

33. Diglossia

34. Diphtheria

35. Paul Dirac

36. Dirac equation (January 28, 2014)

37. Doubt

38. English as a global language

39. English for specific purposes

40. Ethically disputed practices (March 23, 2013)

41. Ethically disputed judicial practices

42. Eyewitness (December 21, 2013)

43. Enrico Fermi (January 28, 2014)

44. Filibuster

45. Founding Fathers

46. Galdhøpiggen (January 28, 2014)

47. Gandhi conspirators

48. Gas gangrene

49. *Greek words for love

50. *Harry Potter actors

51. Patrick Henry (April or May, 2013)

52. High school dropouts (December 21, 2013)

53. Hijacking (June 7, 2012)

54. Hinduism and cattle

55. Hinduism and science

56. Homonymy

57. Homonymy in Chinese

58. Hypocrisy (December 27, 2013)

59. Hypothetical trans-Neptunian objects (May 31, 2012)

60. Ignorance

61. Individual blue whales (May 20, 2013)

62. Individual sperm whales (May 20, 2013)

63. Insects of the United Kingdom (January 26, 2014)

64. Judaism and capital punishment

65. Judaism and violence

66. Kebnekaise (January 28, 2014)

67. King Lear

68. Language versus dialect

69. Linguistic error (March 15, 2013)

70. Linguistic hypotheses

71. Linguistic purism in Icelandic

72. Linguistic universals

73. Alexander Litvinenko

74. Majority

75. Maxwell's equations (January 28, 2014)

76. Gregor Mendel‎ (December 21, 2013)

77. Metaphors referring to birds

78. Metaphors referring to elephants

79. Monkeypox

80. Munich Agreement (December 21, 2013)

81. Necrosis

82. Nepalese amputees

83. Oort cloud

84. Osteonecrosis

85. Othello (April 15, 2013)

86. Peaches

87. Permafrost (April 16, 2013)

88. Perpetual motion in fiction (January 15, 2014)

89. Pertussis

90. Philosophy of astronomy (January 15, 2014)

91. Philosophy of medicine

92. Max Planck (December 21, 2013)

93. Pluto’s planethood (May 31, 2012)

94. Pythagoras (January 28, 2014)

95. Quorum

96. Reagan assassination attempt (March 15, 2013)

97. Religion and medicine

98. Scandinavian Mountains (January 28, 2014)

99. Scarlet fever (April 3, 2013)

100. Sepsis (June 3, 2013)

101. Shark attacks

102. Shark attack victims

103. Silent letters

104. Smallpox vaccines

105. Syphilis (April 15, 2013)

106. Testimony (December 21, 2013)

107. Tetanus

108. *Things named after Albert Einstein

109. Trans-Neptunian objects in fiction (May 31, 2012)

110. Truman assassination attempt

111. Types of amputations (June 5, 2012)

112. Typhoid fever (April or May, 2013)

113. Typhus (April or May, 2013)

114. Unanimity (January 6, 2014)

115. U.S. Presidents and death

116. Vaccine controversies

117. Vaccinia

118. Violent crime (June 7, 2012)

119. Water torture

120. Works about the Mahatma Gandhi assassination

121. Xenophobia

Pages to which I have added categories

More than I can count.

Pages to which I have added Wikiprojects; or added or adjusted Quality or Importance ratings

A = added Wikiproject; Q = added quality rating (previously not rated); I = added importance rating (previously not rated);

DQ = adjusted quality rating; DI = adjusted importance rating

Amputation (A: WikiProject Disability: Q: B-class, I: High-importance)
Big Bang (WikiProject Skepticism: Q: FA-class, I: Mid-importance)
Intercontinental ballistic missile (A: WikiProject Cold War: Start-class, High-importance)
Plasma cosmology (A: WikiProject Alternative Views: B-class, Mid-importance)
Unfinished portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt (A: WikiProject Death: Start-class, Mid-importance)

Pages expanded (other than adding categories) (that is, added new information)

Added pronunciation:

Corrected page content to better fit the source cited

Biotechnology#Applications#Agriculture
Chiropractic
Lima#Economy
Paul Offit
90377 Sedna (anonymously, before formally joining Wikipedia)
Swedish-speaking population of Finland

Articles that I edited extensively to remove clutter

Talk pages to which I have contributed

Total: More than I can count.

At least 5 contribs:

List of cities proper by population

Detected possible puffery

Dhaka

Templates added or removed

Added:

Removed as unnecessary:

Use of force doctrine in Missouri

Disclaimers

General

Like any Wikipedian, I cannot guarantee that my edits will be in Wikipedia’s best interest. Feel free to revert or alter them if they aren’t. I enjoy editing Wikipedia, and occasionally I may go a little too far and make questionable or inappropriate edits.

Wikiprojects

Sometimes I will add a new article to a Wikiproject; or assign an article a quality and importance rating, with respect to a Wikiproject of which the article was already a member, but missing quality and/or importance rating with respect to said Wikiproject.

In assigning quality or importance ratings, I try to use common sense. For instance, Big Bang was listed as a Featured Article in both Physics and Astronomy. Therefore, I logically gave it a Featured Article rating in WikiProject Skepticism. I gave the article Amputation a high-importance rating in WikiProject Disability, because amputation is obviously a highly relevant subject. I didn’t give it a Top-importance rating; because, as of August 10, 2015, when adding an article to a Wikiproject, I have been reluctant to list it as Top-importance, on the grounds that if it deserved a Top-importance rating in said Wikiproject, someone would’ve added it to said Wikiproject already. However, I suspect that such an argument is flawed.

Nonetheless, feel free to adjust quality or importance ratings that I assign, if appropriate. In the unlikely case that I add an article to a Wikiproject in which the article doesn’t belong, feel free to remove it.