my photo: "The Peace Bridge over the Niagara River between Buffalo, NY, and Fort Erie, ON, in winter" |
Welcome to my Wikipedia user page. It has a little information about my background and the projects I'm working on or might be available to help with. Then there's a whole bunch of useless userboxes.
Some explanation about using my real name. Many Wikipedians prefer anonymity and making their contributions with no recognition by name. That would be my preference too, but I've chosen to obey a different imperative: namely transparency in order to avoid conflict of interest. So, I'm here under my own name. I respect those who've made the other choice and in many ways agree; I hope they'll respect my choice and my reasons.
Please do not edit my user page.
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Wikipedia Accomplishments
Background
Day job
In my day job, I'm a professional biostatistician -- interested in in applications of statistics, mathematics, and artificial intelligence to clinical trials, outcomes, and medical decision making, as well as to healthy communities and sustainability. For some years, I have not been university-affiliated, but have a small consulting business that is independent, one-man and intended to stay that way. I have taught philosophy, mathematics, and statistics at the university and postgraduate level, been an investigator or coinvestigator on several academic research projects, and a consultant to numerous industrial firms. I've held a peer-reviewed grant from NASA to develop telemetric medical decision support for the space station. I was a designer of the largest multi-center clinical trial ever held in spinal cord injury, and am a member of an NIH clinical study section. My CV can be downloaded as a pdf.
Arts
Otherwise, I've written several screenplays, a stage play, some short stories and a novella. I have a novel about half finished. I also like to write essays about the visual arts. I take photographs.
Philosophy, Ancient Greece
Before turning to getting a PhD in computers and statistics as a way of making a living, I studied classics in high school and philosophy as an undergraduate and graduate in college. I'm deeply interested in ancient Greek philosophy and literature.
Ancient China
I study Tai Chi (both Yang Style and Chen Style), and I work on translating the Tao Te Ching and classical Chinese poetry. Lately, I'm especially fond of the poems of Su Tung P'o.
Music
Blog
Almost all of the above-mentioned, varied topics are also represented in my blog, which is intended as a non-profit source, reusable under a Creative Commons "by-nc-nd" license. My basic plan is to contribute factual reporting to Wikipedia -- and original research and opinion to the blog.
Contact
wpc at wpcmath dot com
Projects
Yes, I realize I've joined a lot of projects. But, that reflects the reality. I'm actually interested in all these things, and active in them in various ways. I hope to make at least some contribution to each project and to be available to other users who might want my advice or help in these areas. If you need me, please leave a message on my talk page.
In all these projects, of course, my basic plan is to keep checking with the project talk page and finding grunt work to do. In some, though, I have specific ideas about contributions I'd like to work on.
Arts
I'm currently very active on Nausea (novel), which was the Novels WikiProject Collaboration of the Month in January.
work-in-progress: Modernist poetry |
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In the Portal:Arts/Things you can do, it's mentioned as an open task to expand Modernist poetry. I would like to work on this. The existing article is a 1-paragraph stub that has remained unedited and undiscussed since first written by User:Stirling Newberry 00:32, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC). Modernist poetry has a See also, several of whose references to national schools are themselves are not yet even stubs but would need to be created. It also cites two perhaps unnecessarily competing lists: List of modernist poets and List of English-language first and second generation modernist writers. Both of these lists are exclusively English-language, and both indiscriminately mix precursors, high modernists, late modernists, and post-modernists. They should be reorganized into list(s) that are international and that give the reader some idea of chronology and of specific movements. I think the main article should be international and make general comparisons and contrasts, while the national articles should describe chronology and movements within each country. I'd start by researching names of poets suggested by Marjorie Perloff in the course of an article on anthologies that mentions which modernist poets she feels belong where:
Others:
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work-in-progress: Poetics |
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Expand it. |
to-do: Andre Gide |
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See plans for work on Andre Gide, mentioned under #LGBT. |
Robotics
Classical Greece
Classical China
Clinical Trials and Medical Decisions
LGBT
to-do: Andre Gide |
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I would like to work on building up the coverage of the gay French novelist Andre Gide, a major figure in Modernism. Right now there are only stubs on his most important books L'immoraliste, Les faux-monnayeurs, and Corydon. |
to-do: LGBT youth in trouble |
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Wikipedia should be more helpful to LGBT youth in trouble, who are likely to come here for solace and information, even though it's "supposed to be" a cold-hearted encyclopedia. We aren't social workers, but we could pass troubled kids along to people who are. These articles don't have to be preachy or comforting -- but they could describe and make available sources that help -- and they could allow teens to see (in fair perspective) that a world exists in which their problems are real, widespread, and can be coped or dealt with. Such articles should be easy to find and invitingly worded.
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to-do: Edgar Z. Friedenberg and Paul Goodman |
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Back in the '60s, there was a group of theorists about freeing people and radically transforming education. One of the leaders was Paul Goodman, a bisexual, represented now on Wikipedia only by a very incomplete stub. Another eloquent voice was Edgar Z. Friedenberg, a gay who happened to teach at the university where I was a student: SUNY at Buffalo. Friedenberg does not appear to be represented on Wikipedia at all. ---Are we talking about the same guy quoted in Wars on Campus as having said: "failure to establish adherence to conventional forms of patriotic observance, or uncritical acceptance of authority (in childhood education)...is not tolerable" ?? -- lisaf106@gmail.com In some ways, their message now seems out-of-date, with changing conditions and changes in the attitude of youth. However, there's also something timeless in their call for respecting the freedom of the individual and the dignity of young people. Although I'm not a sociologist or educator, I would like to work on expanding coverage of the publications of both these men, and I'd be grateful for any help. |
Logic
Consider joining
- Philosophy
- Logic
- Philosophy of Language
- Theoretical Linguistics
- Logic
- Mathematics
- Statistics
- Biostatistics
NY State
Consider joining New York State routes
Prejudices
Me
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Grammar
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Wikipedia
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