User:Radar488

Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject. So you know you are getting the best possible information. —Michael Scott

Don’t listen to the editors who opine that “Wikipedia is an authoritative source, man…” Your teachers were right: anyone who would attempt to cite this open-source encyclopedia as an authoritative resource is a dope. Under the current rules and consensus, it is a mill for creating derivative substandard content.

If you are passionate about a subject, write about it elsewhere. Start your own website or micro-wiki over which you can exercise full control of the final product. Or do the research and write a scholarly article or book like adults used to do. Don’t waste your time on a passion project here. You will be disappointed as strangers with their own inscrutable agendas cannibalize and deride your work at will, and there will be no recourse for you.

Secondary sources, by themselves, are not noteworthy or authoritative when it comes down to making a persuasive historical argument: learn to mine the primary sources and weight them appropriately...

I will continue to edit occasionally as I see fit, mostly when something is wrong or simply irritates me and I feel motivated to change it. I will not argue with project editors or moderators, and don’t bother to message me with your project scope or rules. I don’t care.

Cheers

P.S. Wikipedia consensus is wrong—there should be a comma before a suffix such as “Jr.” For example, it is correct to say that the son of Major General Peter Conover Hains was Captain Peter Conover Hains, Jr.

About

I am an independent (that is to say, as I do it in an unpaid manner, amateur) historian, with a fair amount of formal training and professional experience in my toolbox. I am interested chiefly in Federal artillery of the American Civil War, and I aspire to be a subject-matter authority some day. Usually, having undertaken and accomplished the research work is enough for me.

In my spare time, I maintain a central database of 19th-century American artillery. It currently consists of four regimental histories and 900 officer biographies. Initially, I had hoped to work within the scope of Wikipedia, but that soon became unfeasible and I lost all interest; I maintain my own website.

I have a strong preference and proclivity to gravitate to my native Chicago Manual of Style; Wikipedia's "secondary source" primacy policy is rather like nails on a chalkboard to me. I won't argue about it—but it's stupid.

I collect Civil War memorabilia within my means, particularly artillery-related items. I also have a small but utterly respectable collection of Federal officer cartes de visite.

Projects

Actively improving and creating articles regarding the Federal artillery branch of the American Civil War and the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, including:

Created or Re-created

• Alanson Merwin Randol
• Henry Benson (soldier)
• James Madison Robertson
• Edmund Kirby (army officer)
• William Neil Dennison
• Samuel Sherer Elder
• Tully McCrea

Improvements Made

• Battery A, 2nd U.S. Artillery
• Horatio Gates Gibson

• 1st Battalion, New York Volunteer Light Artillery
• U.S. Horse Artillery Brigade

• Battle of Glendale
• Seven Days Union order of battle
• Peninsula campaign Union order of battle
• Fort Worden