User:Ethnic laundry

Ethnic laundry Says Hello!

I am a leading-edge U.S. baby-boomer who has lived in the Midwest, the Northeast, and presently reside on a well-known hill in Northern California.

I'm male, married to a Gaddang woman from the mountains of Northern Luzon, Philippines.

I bailed-out on my formal education short of my Masters at Cal Arts, because I saw no future delight as an academic. Nevertheless, I have taught at a variety of institutions, including Harvard and the San Mateo County Regional Occupational Programs. Because I worked in anthropology, I have an excellent grounding in (as well as nit-picking quarrels with) varieties of academic referencing.

How I Get Involved

Lots of times I run across an article on something I know about from personal experience which I feel needs my attention; particularly stubs or out-of-date articles. I tend to look for sources that address my experience and am limited (as are we all) by the vast waters and distant shores of my own ignorance.

Should I feel the article does not present the subject completely, or some part seriously misses the mark, I try to amend it (an example is Jimmy Garrison).
If the article is a stub or is (to my mind) poorly-organized, I will do a major re-write; I did this with Stanley Dance and Fred H. Lau.
Where I feel an extant article needs further, related article(s) to be created, I'll do that: Gaddang language -> Gaddang people. (This was my first article.)
I will beat the drum for a subject I personally feel is significant and unaddressed: Clifford Thornton.
I also re-visit articles (whether or not I have created/edited them) and act if people want more clarity or references: Proto-Indo-Europeans.
I'm not very prolific - I've made fewer than 2,700 edits (and have created a mere 120 new pages) over nearly eleven years as an editor.

Some Peeves

I understand that Wikipedia depends not only on people who are willing to do research and to write, but also on folks who define and enforce standards.

However:

Standards are necessary - but must be applied to all articles in the category. Please - don't start a crusade by messing with someone's well-intentioned contributions - unless you're willing to make the effort review and repair the same problems in articles on all subjects in the same class. Examples might be: sports-teams, universities, newspapers, congress-people, &c. Don't enforce standards on the Padres if you let the Yankees (or the Astros) get away with flouting them.
Reference-paring to support a particular opinion or POV happens! Google is amazing. But the internet is also mutable. Dead-links YES! Purposeful misunderstandings and supression NO!
Experts (particularly those who are self-appointed and have no witnesses to their impartiality) must recognize that different viewpoints can be valid. Particularly when those varying views get thoroughly referenced...
Identifying, describing, and referencing multiple opinions and/or interpretations on a subject should be a common technique and an important Wikipedia goal.
Humility is really quite useful...

	The Original Barnstar
	For Gaddang people. Corny as it is, I think this says it better than anything I could write in response to your latest post in Talk:Gaddang people. Austronesier (talk) 22:40, 29 January 2022 (UTC)