Fred Gandt – User
I get sidetracked ... ooh look, a squirrel!
My Contributions
I discovered the Arma platform through the release of the DayZ Standalone, and have (as of March 2014) a limited knowledge of Arma.
As a learner, I am relying on this Wiki and other documentation in order to expand my knowledge, so where I find obvious problems with the documentation, I apply what fixes I can. However, since I am a learner, I cannot add clever examples, or detailed descriptions (yet), and in many cases, I may not even know if existing examples are correct. I will therefore sometimes e.g. tidy up the presentation of a page but leave in place inaccurate or misleading information that I simply didn't know was inaccurate or misleading at the time.
Wikis are designed to be collaborative, and as such, all the time I am not actually breaking or messing up any of the content, any efforts I make, even if not of the highest calibre, are meant well as improvements (big or small), even if the page I leave behind still needs work.
This declaration of intent is made in the hope that anyone who cared to find out more about me by visiting this page, might better understand that although my contributions are at this time (March 2014) a little bit less than awesome, I am simply trying to help where and as much as I can.
As time goes on and my understanding of the platform improves, I hope to contribute more usefully. But for now, if you see that I've edited a page, don't expect that it's all perfect and as good as it can be - it probably isn't - which is likely why I stopped off to tweak it.
Other Wikis
I have done extensive work on Wikipedia and the Second Life Wiki and am quite at home with the MediaWiki platform. I have even been considered helpful on occasions ;-)
My Philosophy
Learning forges a stronger understanding of a subject than being taught, and as such detailed documentation is essential. However:
- Give a man instructions and he'll become a user.
- Give him technical specifications and blueprints and he'll get confused.
- Give him clear, complete but concise information that assumes no existing knowledge, and he'll become a student.
Documentation that can only be understood by the people that wrote it, and that doesn't encourage or assist others to learn, is a waste of space.