User:BozMo

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Bozmo is somebody called Andrew Cates. I am old for a Wikipedian, have three kids am a PhD Mathmo (Cambridge, 1989). My life is slowly appearing through the mist as google scholar works backwards into history... I downshifted in 2004 from a serious career in oil to help AIDS Orphans e.g. by child sponsorship. I currently work (part time) for the charity SOS Children, where I have been for four years.

Confession/ declarations of interest: Although I certainly do not ignore all rules I have sometimes edited/updated articles relating to SOS Children or our "competitors" in the broad sense (i.e. other NGOs) even though this is a bit marginal under the conflict of interest guideline. For example I wrote some of the article 2006 Wikipedia CD Selection and moved it from Wikipedia space to namespace (after some advice/ discussion with others) ... I am very aware of the need to be neutral and if not trivial I generally post ahead on talk pages but:

1) I openly declare my "interest" here (as on DMOZ, where I also edit a bit).

2) On minor pages (many NGO pages are a bit dull) you could wait for months for anyone to notice a request for update. At least 50% of children charity's pages are stubs, including the one I work for and I probably ought to spend more time and effort improving them rather than less.

3) Most competitors in the NGO world are also partners in one context or another

4) I try to be really careful and AFAIK no one has yet said they felt any of those edits were "POV", or reverted any edit on these topics.

5) Such edits only make up a couple of percent of my contributions to WP.

Please do say if you think I have failed to be neutral, if it is anywhere near where I am conflicted I will jump out of my skin. I am a bit more ascertive in edits on pages where I have no interest but generally listen well and like discussion.

I was recently famed or infamed for getting bored waiting for Wikipedia 1.0 and starting to produce the Schools Wikipedia (see 2007 Wikipedia Selection for Schools or Wikipedia:Wikipedia_CD_Selection/additions_and_updates). I have lots of opinions on things but am generally laid back when people disagree with me. I find Google's nofollow thing rather odd for example. Google is going to a lot of trouble to try to crack obscure Javascript redirects in websites which do not want to give away google points but is now apparently encouraging people to use a script whose only purpose seems to be to give a search engine a different impression than the one given to human surfers. Isn't that the opposite of what is required to get the web to work? If everyone got selfish and used it (why not?) google would collapse.

I like WikiPedia but it is at its weakest on "common misconceptions" which keep getting put back to wrong by new arrivals in a given discussion.

In Myers Briggs terms I am ENTP.

see also Meatball:AndrewCates and MoinMoin:AndrewCates.