About Me

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I live and work as an administrator and educator in Vermont. I work with students to understand, improve, and de-pollute our digital information environments. I occasionally blog at redpincushion blog

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I don't do any paid work on Wikipedia and am not paid to edit any articles. There is nothing in my job duties as assigned that requires me to edit Wikipedia. I don't have any grants to do editing work on Wikipedia.

I am participating in a project that is trying (as one of its goals) to get students involved in editing Wikipedia articles (see below) and as part of that project I try to model practice for students by participating in the project, which is sometimes done on work hours. I also sometimes edit articles on work hours to build my competence in editing and familiarity with issues in editing. This helps me in teaching students and faculty how to use and edit Wikipedia.

I am working on a current project where -- if things go as planned -- a donor will donate a certain amount to a specific charity (Room to Read) for every article completed on a subject (in this case thousands of local newspapers without an article). I don't have any connection to Room to Read or any of the newspapers in the project. I don't receive any money from the donor. The donor is not secret -- when we launch this project we'll name the donor. My and my students' participation in the project is based on our desire to improve the information environment and familiarize ourselves with the process of editing Wikipedia.

Newspapers on Wikipedia Project

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I am currently participating in the Newspapers on Wikipedia Project initiated by user:Michaelacaulfield to improve the coverage of historic local newspapers in Wikipedia. One of the best ways to help readers sort out whether a newspaper is real or fake is to check Wikipedia to see if it has an article (and what that article says). Having newspapers documented is also crucial to Wikipedia internally, since many historical claims are sourced to local papers, and editors require context on the nature of the publication the material appears in. This project, Newspapers on Wikipedia (NOW) [1] will help to improve the quality and reliability of local news sources, particularly historic newspapers.

Sampling of pages I have added for this project

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Manchester Journal
Bradford Journal-opinion

Waxahachie Daily Light

Abbeville Herald

Baldwin Times

Narragansett Times

Jamestown Press

South County Independent

Atlanta Voice

Pages I have edited for this project

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The Davis News

Iowa Bystander

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