Hermitstudy

Pax Vobiscum! I was born in the United States of America, Iowa, Des Moines, 2235 hrs 1 February A.D. 1947. My interests are encyclopaedic, with emphases on history, military science and practice, archaeology, religions, science, law, health, medicine, civilization, anthropology, political and civil justice, mystical theology, Catholic and Scriptural doctrine and apologetics, Judaism, Buddhism, languages and linguistics, Classical Literature, The Arts, science fiction, humor, travel logs, the United States Marine Corps (Sniper Scouts and Recon) and Cooking. God exists, the Universe has an objective rational foundation and structure, Jesus of Nazareth is ha-Meshiach, He is the Word of God; the Laws of Evidence apply, intuitive reasoning and scientific reasoning are valid, fallacies are toxic, objective standards of truth are real.

I believe I enjoy the same generous spirit that animated Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, and after several years of having benefitted from its availability I am delighted to be a contributor. I have a sense of humor, and a deep respect for genuine research and only compassion for inadvertent error. The Seven Deadly Words of Committee are these: "We have always done it this way": I am not an innovative iconoclast, historically, culturally, intellectually, but I will not defend and support entrenched stupidity, and I well know that disregarding the genuine wisdom of the past in favor of novelty frequently ends in disaster: "Who knows not the mistakes of the past is doomed to repeat them." Where there is a mystery or difficulty and I have access to a genuinely solid source of information that could possibly solve or resolve it I will readily share it.

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wiktionary. Thank you for your contributions. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• How to edit a page is a concise list of technical guidelines to the wiki format we use here: how to, for example, make text boldfaced or make a hyperlink. The Wiktionary tutorial is a more wordy, multi-page document that helps you through those same formatting issues, and also touches on a couple of other issues relevant to editing.
• The document What Wiktionary is not may be of interest. In particular, if you've edited Wikipedia in the past, you should note that Wiktionary is not an encyclopedia and does not have Wikipedia-style page titles.
• There is a technical guide to how to start a new page. But you'll also want to look at our guidelines for how to format an entry (what goes where) and our criteria for inclusion (what can be included), which are our two main policy documents. (You can get a feel for how to format an entry by looking at existing entries.)
• The sandbox is a safe place for testing markup.
• The FAQ has, of course, some frequently (and some infrequently) asked questions, and their answers.

I hope you enjoy editing here! By the way, you can sign your comments on talk (discussion) pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~, which automatically produces your name (or IP number if you're not signed in) and the current date and time. If you have any questions, then see the help pages, add a question to one of the discussion rooms or ask me on my talk page.​—msh210℠ 19:07, 4 January 2010 (UTC)