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User:Rusty Cashman

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Professional history

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I am a software engineer who has worked on embedded system software and on data communication protocols, on devices such as cable modems, VoIP systems, and wireless comunication devices. I played a role in the early development of both the CDPD and DOCSIS systems, and I am currently working in the areas of Ultra-wideband and IEEE 802.15. For more information see my linkedIn profile.

Areas of interests

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Although my professional expertise is in SW engineering I rarely edit those articles. Instead I do most of my editing on articles related to the history of science and evolutionary biology which are long standing interests of mine.

Personal beliefs relevant to Wikipedia

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Fig.1: The title page of the Encyclopédie
  • I also believe that Wikipedia is one of the best practical realizations of Ted Nelson's hypertext concept even though he probably hates it. Whenever I use Wikipedia as a reference I never stop with the article I started with, so I believe that cross linking between articles is incredibly important and I try to spend time adding cross links wherever I find them missing.
  • I believe that Wikipedia should be as easy to use as possible so I also spend time adding redirects.
  • I believe that many otherwise reasonably good articles on scientific topics don't have enough historical context.
  • I believe that biographical articles should always tell you why the subject was important enough to merit an article. In particular I think that means that a biographical article on a scientist should always include some discussion of the subject's work and how it fit into the historical development of whatever scientific field that person contributed to, not just a laundry list of career achievements.

History as a Wikipedian

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I had used Wikipedia as a reference for years, but I only became a Wikipedian, when I stumbled across an incorrect fact in the polar bear article back in August 2006. Naturally, after I corrected it, my edit was reverted out (probably by someone who thought I was a vandal) the next day. I managed to find some online references to support my position and managed to make my edit stick. Once I made one edit to the article I just had to make a few more improvements...


Articles I started:


The 6th-8th grew out of my work on Alfred Russel Wallace, and the last 2 were spin-offs from History of evolutionary thought.

I am particularly proud of my contributions to:


I am a member of the Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Science project and its sub project the Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Biology. My current personal wiki-project is to improve articles related to early 19th century paleontology. I have been working on Mary Anning, which is now FA, and William Buckland, which is much improved. Now I plan to work on William Conybeare, Thomas Hawkins (geologist), John Phillips, Georges Cuvier, The Great Devonian Controversy and some others. I also plan to improve some of the articles connected to History of evolutionary thought.

Here is my edit count. I am not a big edit count guy, but I find the statistics about what I have been working on interesting.

Some things I am proud of

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Featured article Alfred Russel Wallace - Promoted to featured article status May 27, 2007. Featured article History of evolutionary thought - Promoted to featured article status July 28, 2008.
Featured article On the Origin of Species - Promoted to featured article status June 20, 2009. Featured article Mary Anning - Promoted to featured article status June 15, 2011.

The Origins Award
Thanks for all the fish, Rusty, and for doing so much to improve On the Origin of Species. . .
dave souza, talk 11:02, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
A Barnstar!
The shiny new Darwin-Wallace medal

For your dedicated work on Alfred Russel Wallace - Shyamal 02:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
Tim Vickers awarded this Barnstar to User:Rusty Cashman for his excellent work on the History of paleontology.
The Bio-star
En avance de bringing Alfred Russel Wallace to FA status, and for some earlier contributions. Samsara (talk  contribs) 09:37, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
A Barnstar!
The Barnstar of National Merit

For excellent, dedicated and ongoing efforts to Alfred Russel Wallace -- --Merbabu 17:37, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
The Bio-star
For helping to taking 2 important and complex works to FA, Origin of Species and Fertilisation of Orchids --Philcha (talk) 12:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

User:Rusty Cashman has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian,
and therefore, I've officially declared today as Rusty Cashman's day!
For being such a beautiful person and great Wikipedian,
enjoy being the Star of the day, dear Rusty Cashman!

Peace,
Rlevse
00:06, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

A record of your Day will always be kept here.

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Rusty Cashman 06:26, 17 September 2006 (UTC)