The idea of an Free software style type encyclopedia is in my mind a excellent idea. I have in recent years been a fan of free software but could not contribute because of my lack of programming skills. Wikipedia however allows me to contribute without the need for a background in computer programming. Secondly, my favorite book series the His Dark Materials trilogy advocates the message of creating a "republic of heaven". This means that it is up to each individual to lead a good life and create and pass on knowledge and skills and I truely believe wikipedia allows me to do this. Secondly, working on this project allows me to feel a sense of contribution to society. In my life I've felt that I haven't really contributed to society, mainly because I'm 19 and most of my life has been spent in education which is self focused.
I will admit I have certain strengths and weaknesses as far as my ability to help on wikipedia. Firstly, my English skills have always been sub-par therefor I try not to write long paragraphs or sections of articles if I can avoid it because I know it will most likely be riddled with errors. Regardless though, I do understand that it is important to be bold so my grammatical errors do not stop me if I feel the article can truely benifit from my addition. I do however prefer to work more on the structure of an article through the addition of tables or infoboxes. I believe that this greatly increases the quality of the articles and is something I can do and manage to avoid mistakes. I also enjoy making additions to chemistry stubs or articles lacking information that is available to me in my text book and through my studies.
Overall I believe wikipedia is a great undertaking and couldn't be possible without the support of it's users and I'm very honored to be able to help in this project.