Deluno

If this page is ever visited by anybody, hello! Please post your username & purpose of visit on the Talk page, even if only browsing, just to satisfy my curiosity, as this page may do for yours. I'm not sure what to write here. I suppose some material relevant to my habit of editing and contributing to Wikipedia articles may be useful. My educational background includes psychology, philosophy, and English literature. I believe I've learned more about music composition in my self-driven reading, study and practice, for which I don't have a university education... which is perhaps for the better when it comes to music. The same could be said of some areas of psychology, in which I've learned in my own readings well beyond what I've learned at university.

This private learning has largely depended on access to specialised readings. My local public library was a starting point, but soon became inadequate. Access to the physical library of books at my university, and the online databases of scholarly journal articles being a uni student has given me access to, has been the main source of the learning materials I've used. Readings from online sources such as Wikipedia have served an important role in this, in providing background material, and most importantly, introducing or pointing me to new topic areas.

My editing of Wikipedia articles is motivated by a desire to contribute to what I believe is a good and important cause. I agree that education and the means to it should be available to all. I find the vision of a world in which learning and other creative products are shared, projects such as Wikipedia and open-source software are freely contributed to, much more attractive than one in which these things are bought and sold, restricted from those who for whatever reason are unwilling or unable to pay, and penalties inflicted for sharing.

Other reasons I contribute to Wikipedia include its usefulness for my own learning, and a sense that since I learn much from the contributions of others, I therefore in some sense have an obligation to also contribute. There's also a certain enjoyment in writing and editing articles of interest. I like that Wikipedia articles are written largely by people with an interest in the topics they're about. I'm sure that this enthusiasm is often conveyed in choice of wording, emphasis on interesting subtopics, etc., and more likely imparted to readers than topics about which the authors write for little if anything more than merely an income.