User:Paleorthid/Vanity

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I am Paleorthid, a consulting soil scientist. Most of my effort at Wikipedia and its sister projects has been to expand natural science topics. I live in a 120 year old Victorian neighborhood which accounts for my interest in historic preservation. I live in a part of a medium-sized city that has big city problems. This accounts for my fascination with practical aspects of criminology.

In 2004, my best article creations were agrology and Crime prevention through environmental design. Agrology is a term related to agriculture that is limited in usage, but which changes meaning dramatically by region. Crime prevention through environmental design (or CPTED), is a concept which originated in 1971. I found it fascinating that the founder of the CPTED concept, an academic criminologist who is still teaching at the University of Florida, has been all but forgotten by the CPTED movement. The commonly understood concept of CPTED developed along practical lines. Thus the material I contributed to the article may seem to go against accepted Wikipedia principle to write from the viewpoint of what is commonly understood on a subject. I often felt I was breaking the rules in order to improve the Wikipedia content.

Preparing and maintaining the agrology and CPTED articles has affected my attitude about Wikipedia content. I believe more strongly than ever that all common views can and should be represented in Wikipedia articles and that addressing origins of concepts is important. I am particularly interested in describing origins when those concepts or terms have changed meaning dramatically over time.

In 2006, I worked on various soil articles. Article structure and content are being improved per guidance at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Science. I deal with vandals using VandalProof and contribute to various projects.

Most of 2007 was an extended wikibreak.