User:MainePatriot

Thanks for stopping by my user page. I hope to expand on it in the coming weeks.

Areas of Interest

History

I have a fascination with history, especially local history. Who lived here before I did? What did they do? How did they survive? What were their lives like? Wikipedia has been an invaluable resource for learning more about the history of my home and surrounding areas. I've inquired about a couple of areas that don't yet have Wikipedia entries so I've taking up the task of compiling existing research to create those pages myself—if for no other reason that to have all the available data for these places in one article.

Science & Nature

You might also catch me editing scientific articles, especially niche topics, unusual species, or articles (or subsections thereof) involving forgotten bits of our humanity. Anthropology is another interest area of mine.

Journalistic Integrity & Fact Checking

This seems to be slipping away in the modern world as mainstream media intersects more and more with social media. It's amazing how often I click on a headline in Facebook only to find that the actual article either contradicts the headline, or has little to do with it. Similarly, it's amazing how often a headline is worded so as to lend a certain impression of the subject matter—be it to discredit a candidate, paint a celebrity in a bad light, or to justify or condemn a given act—but upon reading the article one learns that what was purported is not in fact the reality. It's as if mainstream media has learned that most social media users don't read the articles, so they do what they can to get their point across in the headline itself, even if their own article doesn't support it. And why would a supposedly unbiased news source need to get a point across? Well, that's another topic altogether isn't it?

So, yes, I am a fact-checker, too.