Misplaced Pages

Discovered Misplaced Pages in early 2004, and began editing pretty much immediately. It was one of the first places I had ever found on the Internet that didn't feel like a waste of time. I've been here now more than three years, and I'm still writing. I like it; it's fun. Most of the time.

Masters and doctorate are in music composition, with a minor in music theory; undergraduate majors in both music and geology; seven years of teaching students (undergrad and graduate) in music theory, music history, orchestration, ear-training, sight-singing, composition, counterpoint, repertoire, and various other subjects; violinist and pianist; former editor of a music research journal; part-time-career as a 21st Century Obscure Composer. Most of my teaching experience is in the classroom, but I have also tutored and taught small groups and individuals.

After leaving academia, for reasons with which I will not bore you, I have increasingly become a musicologist; I have always been fascinated with history, musical trends, the interactions of people and places and ideas; I love figuring things out, and tormenting uninterested friends and relatives with more details about Renaissance Ferrara or Padua or Venice than they can stand. Long ago I learned to recognize that glazed-over look of people who have listened politely for a moment too long, so now I have thankfully discovered Misplaced Pages. I am here because it gives me an outlet for everything I learned in school, and still love. Here I can share, and if other people can make use of what I write, that makes me happy.

Out of the big university, and being unenamored of a life of poverty and struggle as one of thousands of unemployable people with advanced degrees in a humanities field, I acquired some competence in GIS. I'm now a division manager, in that discipline, at a large firm. It's very different from studying music, but I'll say this for formally studying music: it gives you discipline, and doggedness in tackling tough problems. Those qualities are more valuable in a corporate setting than you might think. While once in a while you might catch me writing about GIS or earth sciences, for the most part I deliberately stay away.

My credentials and experience are real and verifiable, to those with a need to know, although at this time I prefer to edit anonymously.

Music, mainly. So far I have mainly focused on writing articles on "early music" (Medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque), because I love it, I know a bit about it, and when I joined Misplaced Pages, no one else bothered with it. Once in a while I contribute to articles on 20th-21st century composers, music, practice, theory, etc. I usually, but not always, avoid the common practice period, since there are plenty of other contributors capable of writing in this area; why not focus on a spot where I can use my specialized knowledge? A lot of the time when I'm feeling uncreative I do RC patrol and eradicate all the vandalism I can find. It's addictive, and once in a while I have to remind myself to stop and write articles again.

As a break from music sometimes I write articles on California geography and history, since I've lived here a while, have studied geography and geology, and have a pretty good library of books on local history. Also sometimes I click on random page and copyedit, if I don't get hooked on reading. Is anyone else surprised at the sheer amount of things you have learned on Misplaced Pages? In my opinion this is one of the most wonderful things about this project.

Some other random interests: Classics, literature, history, military history, earth sciences, mountaineering, birds, trees, religious traditions, data forensics, European and eastern philosophy. I read a lot, especially English literature, as well as a lot of stuff in translation. While I'm fairly knowledgeable on topics such as Shakespeare, the existentialist writers, Swift, Greek tragedy, epic poetry, and European, Middle Eastern, and South Asian history, I don't usually contribute to articles on those topics; I don't feel my knowledge rises above the high amateur into the "sufficiently expert". There are other writers here who are better, and who know more than I do, and for now I'm going to leave it there. I would politely ask others to at least consider the depth of their knowledge before tackling detailed subjects around which their own experience is limited; but then who am I to tell other people what to do? Do as you will, says Rabelais, but prepare to be reverted (not by me, necessarily, but by someone who actually has studied the topic). This is an encyclopedia, not a trivia site.

Wikipediholic score is usually in the "productive" range; the scores are meaningless since people keep changing the test, and it keeps getting sillier, but it's still fun to take.

As of May 16, 2007: 488 articles, of which 408 were from scratch, mostly on Medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque composers and theorists, as well as musical techniques and forms. 318 of the articles I have listed are on early music; 285 are biographies; 68 are topical overview articles; 24 are about individual pieces of music; only 34 are on 18th or 19th century topics or people. I'm probably about 30% done with finishing the area to my satisfaction, and it's starting to seem like all the low-hanging fruit is gone; now comes the hard work of getting existing articles up to an encyclopedic level of accuracy, detail, prose style, citations, and references. In general, the whole area of early music on Misplaced Pages still needs a lot of information on just how everything happened, and a lot of articles need to tie in to cultural and political and religious history as well.

Somewhere north of 60,000 edits, though I count them rarely. I was No. 23 on Wikipedians by Edit Count in May 2007. I've been here for a while. Edit count is not irrelevant: it gives some indication of one's dedication to the project. Not an infallible one, mind you, but to deny that there is any correlation between edit count and commitment to building the encyclopedia would be rather silly.

I take article requests. If you spot something that is missing, or just substandard, and it is in the area of early music--or indeed, in "classical" music in general--let me know and I'll do what I can to help, if it is within my area of competence. Since this is a big area, that's a big "if."

• Fill out the classical music area in general, and Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque in particular, since the early music area was quite undeveloped when I started.
• Starve the trolls.
• Tithe some of my time helping out with anti-vandalism, rooting out spam and conflicts of interest, participating in discussions on deletion and admins, etc., since I think it's a Wikipedian's duty to help out on the maintenance side.
• Stay positive. Laboring in the shadows, unacknowledged, is hard after a while.
• Always acknowledge the good work of others. I'm only a tiny part of the whole.
• Drink some more wikipedihol. It makes me happy. So there.
• Contribute more content, do less RC patrol. I have a specialized skill, and reverting vandalism is too easy; others can do it. It's curiously satisfying, though, as well as addictive.
• Create free content only. That includes public domain and GFDL.
• Acquire the knack of page formatting, so I can update this page without borking it. Thanks and gratitude to Phaedriel for the page design.

I am an administrator. Drop me a note on my talk page if you need help with something which requires a mop and bucket. In the interest of transparency and full accountability – pretty important things on Misplaced Pages – you may review all of my administrative actions here:

As of spring 2007, I have blocked several thousand vandals, and reverted or deleted over 35,000 separate instances of vandalism. Some people don't like me for stopping them from having their childish fun with us, but that's OK: whatever happens, whether I burn out or stay on for a while, I am confident I have done some good for this project.