User:Wladmeister~enwiki
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Babel
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I mainly contribute to the German wikipedia, see my user page there. I am a graduated forester from Freiburg in South-Western Germany, focussed on socio-economical aspects of forestry. The majority of my articles thus refers to international forest policy. I am furthermore interested in Russian rock music.
The wikipedia is certainly one of the most fascinating developments of the internet. I am convinced that hardly anybody with access to the world wide web will not have had no benefit from this great encyclopaedia.
I personally use it broadly for getting a quick overview on things I want to know, just as the big majority of users probably does. Furthermore, I regard the wikipedia as my personal “note block”. Whenever I read something new, or when I refresh my knowledge about certain aspects of forestry, I consider writing it down here. That makes it more effective for me to memorize, and others will benefit from my knowledge, too.
However, just reading quickly the content of an article is not enough to ‘’learn’’ about things. This requires active recapitulation and reading the original sources. No one should have the illusion that an easy access to knowledge is enough to remember and ‘’understand’’ the information that can be found.
Recently, since the time I started to write down and publish information, I frequently get confronted with the question: “Why are you doing this voluntarily? You are a graduated forester, you must sell your knowledge! This is what keeps you alive”. Well, this sounds like a reasonable question, doesn’t it? And certainly, from an egoistic point of view, this may even be true. I would like to explain my point of view on this, and why I am convinced that I am doing right.
Good information is the key to a good decision making. Especially, when we talk about comparably complex issues like in (forest) policy, it is therefore essential to present a neutral point of view. Ideologies and narrow perception of developments are a main thread to good decisions. One needs to understand ‘’both’’ sides – and quite often, just saying “both sides” is already a careless abstraction. Political issues are not like a medal with only a plus and a minus, they are polyhedrons with countless surfaces and corners. Environmental issues can only be approached as a system. Unfortunately, within the wikipedia, you will always see attempts to not inform, but to manipulate the reader in order to develop a certain opinion on this or that. Although the intentions will normally be good ones, they will most probably lead to the wrong conclusion. And when we talk about our environment, this can be fatal. So, I hope that I can contribute to a better decision making in forest policy by informing people and fellow future colleagues.
Furthermore, consider the economic theory: When everybody provides services for a lower price, then the welfare for each of us will grow.
And after all, we are just talking about basic knowledge.
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