Hello there! I'm Ed Erhart, a graduate student at East Carolina University and an editor on Wikipedia since March 2006. I have been a site-wide administrator since September 2009, and previously served as the editor-in-chief of the Signpost, a Wikimedia-focused community newspaper (May 2012 – January 2015), and as a coordinator of the Military History Project (November 2008 – September 2014).
Aside from these positions, much of my Wikipedia time has been spent writing. My early work focused on the Shannara universe, but I quickly turned and focused on early-twentieth-century warships from Europe, Japan, and both Americas, with a particular interest in the South American dreadnought race that gripped Argentina, Brazil, and Chile from c. 1907 to 1914. In total, I have helped write twenty-six featured articles, a list of which is here. Most have furthered the goals of a long-term collaborative project, Operation Majestic Titan, which will see all battleship and battlecruiser articles rewritten and combined into a single featured topic.
For the Signpost, my personally written favorite articles include the Wiki-PR series, where a public relations company "created, edited, or maintained several thousand Wikipedia articles for paying clients using a sophisticated array of concealed user accounts," and an interview with a Second World War veteran who edits Wikipedia. The story that I will carry with me the longest is the life and death of Ihor Kostenko, a Ukrainian Wikipedian who perished in the country's anti-government protests in February 2014.
I work with the Wikimedia Foundation's Communications department; my staff account is located at Ed Erhart (WMF). Edits, statements, or other contributions made from my volunteer account (this one) are mine alone and do not reflect the views of my employer—I am first and foremost a Wikipedian, and I didn't lose my personal thoughts and opinions when I joined the WMF. Any accidental cross-pollination between the two accounts (forgetting to log out, etc) will be swiftly corrected.
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