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[edit] The lingo
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This user is owned by two cats. |
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(Actually, below basic for Maori and Russian, but I do what I can).
[edit] The places
[edit] Special bonus pages!
[edit] So, who is Grutness?
Self-portrait, April 2002
- My name is James Dignan.
- I was born in Barnet, England, 1963, to English and New Zealand parents. (The building I was born in was about 100 metres from the imposing looking three-storey brick building at the top of the photo on the Barnet page).
- I lived in Croughton, Northamptonshire and Milton, New Zealand before moving to Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1981. I studied psychology at the University of Otago, gaining a B.A. and an M.Sc. (my M.Sc. supervisor is also apparently a Wikipedian, and the postgrad I shared an office with is one of Wikipedia's finer photographers)
- I currently work as a part-time freelance writer (mainly for the Otago Daily Times) and artist (with three solo exhibitions since 2002, including one in March 2006).
- My interests are wide-ranging, and include art, music (I was songwriter, singer and guitarist for various bands at the periphery of the Dunedin Sound during the 1980s and 1990s), geography, and flags. The latter interest has led to me being heavily involved with the Flags of the world web resource.
- Family legend has it that my ancestors were ollamhs of the Clan O Duibhgeannain, mediaeval Irish historiographers - the Annals of the Four Masters had a Peregrine O'Duignan as one of its writers. So I suppose I'm following in family footsteps.
- Bizarrely, while voting on WP:AFD I've realised that I pass far more of the criteria for notability than many of the people in articles voted "keep". Of course, I'm not allowed to write a Wikipedia article about myself, but - as a little exercise - I've added one here. Unnervingly, on Nov. 2nd 2006, User:Bill Clark decided to turn it into a full-fledged article. It was later deleted (I nominated it for deletion myself), but I was somewhat heartened by the AfD discussion, which was fairly close.
[edit] Grutness?
It is:
More information about me can be found at my website's Pagina Domestronica.
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- Grutness n. The resolve with which the Queen sits through five days of Polynesian folk dancing.
[edit] And the signature?
I used to use the Uffington White Horse as part of my signature, as I do with my painting (as seen at my gallery on my website). Sadly, with all the server overload problems, I've been asked to drop it, so (as of 07:05, 9 May 2005) I have. Feels strange - almost like it's not me doing the typing any more.
[edit] So, who does the work?
It looks like I do a lot of editing on Wikipedia. A lot of the time, though, I just type what is dictated to me. The rest of the edits are done while I'm out making coffee. Most of the editing and admin work listed to Grutness, and all of that dictation, is actually done by Nut and Bolt. Even those edits I do do myself are usually corrected by them before it gets saved. Well, would you argue with these two?
[edit] Barnstars (and similar honours)!
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I've moved these to a separate page. I never thought I'd ever reach the stage where they would be bulking up my userpage, but...well... :)
[edit] Current Wiki-work
[edit] Writing
- Until recently, I was writing small articles (and occasionally big articles) on New Zealand geography. I've done a once-over of the entire country now, so I'll leave it to others for a while.
- I'm occasionally tapping away at some New Zealand music and/or art biographies.
- I'm about to start checking through articles on areas closely associated with New Zealand: Tokelau, Cook islands, Niue, and Ross Dependency.
- I also take occasional dives into the Wikipedia:Cleanup list - something which is well worth doing (try it!) - and have rescued a few substubs and the like.
- The location maps on New Zealand geographical articles showing where towns, rivers, lakes, and things are are mostly my work, too.
[edit] Categorising
- I spent some time rationalising the categories under which New Zealand geography articles are filed. Hopefully it now looks more like a tree, rather than the web of a drunken spider.
- I hope sometime to start doing the same sort of thing on some of the other New Zealand articles.
- Until recently I spent much of my time at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting, trying to keep the hierarchy in some form of order (this includes chasing up the creators of any stray stub templates that haven't been through the WP:WSS debating process. I've scaled back my work there, but you'll still find me on the project's pages quite often. I tend to regard the geography stubs as "my baby", since I'm pretty proud of the way that has been organised, although I do realise that this is a dangerous thing to do in an egalitarian editing milieu like Wikipedia.
[edit] Administration
- Since February 15, 2005, I have officially been a Wikipedia Administrator.
- I prowl the pages of Templates for deletion, Votes for deletion, Stub types for deletion, and Categories for deletion, giving roughly equal numbers of thumbs ups and thumbs down. I tend to be an inclusionist for many things, and have saved quite a number of articles heading for the plughole (see below), but many of the things that turn up at tfd, cfd, sfd, and vfd are there for a reason.
- I keep an eye on quite a few user pages, ready to revert any sign of vandalism, and try to be as helpful as possible on the Village Pump and Reference Desks (Miscellaneous, Humanities, and Science).
- Most administration seems to be just dealing with whatever turns up...
[edit] Best so far?
- Three articles that I've been involved with the writing of have now made it to Featured Article status:
- I've uploaded a few of my favourite photos to enliven some articles, some of which I'm quite pleased with. The two shown here have both made it to the front page of the New Zealand wikiportal, as has Image:Purakaunui.jpg.
- An image which I created for the Korea geography stub template was nominated for Featured Image as a nice piece of graphic design. I must admit to being quite proud of it myself. Sadly, not only was it deemed ineligible (as it was on a template rather than part of an article), but now stub template icons have been ruled bad for the servers, so it may soon be no longer in use :(
[edit] Saves from AFD
quite a few... I didn't keep track at first, but some I know of are:
(* - still under debate)
[edit] Statistics
As of 22:34, 10 November 2006 (UTC), I have:
- added 1100 new articles and untold categories, templates, disambigs and redirects
- Article 500 was List of New Zealand cricketers at 01:22, 26 Dec 2004
- Article 600 was Lamu Islands at 11:09, 25 Aug 2005
- Article 700 was Mottistone at 1:55, 6 Nov 2005
- Article 800 was The Octagon, Dunedin at 10:51, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
- Article 900 was Attila Petschauer at 05:51, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
- Article 1000 was Anapaike at 06:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
- Article 1100 was Waimea Plains at 22:28, 10 November 2006
- made over 75,000 edits (including this one)
- Edit 10,000 was adding a {{Norway-geo-stub}} template to Romsdal at 00:55, 27 Jan 2005
- Edit 20,000 was an addition to MacGuffin at 11:50, 22 Mar 2005
- Edit 30,000 was starting a new article on Bill Hammond at 09:26, 12 May 2005
- Edit 40,000 was adding a map to Lake Tarawera at 08:15, 1 August 2005
- Edit 50,000 was leaving a comment on User:Martyman's talk page at 06:39, 11 October 2005
- Edit 60,000 was answering a question at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous at 00:59, 15 February 2006
- Photograph 50 was Image:DunedinRlyStninterior.jpg at 07:49, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
- Photograph 100 was Image:LoganParkDunedin.jpg at 06:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
- uploaded 372 illustrations (drawings and maps). Several of these drawings are found on stub messages, including the annoying kiwi on the NZ stub articles, a larger version of which is to the right.
- Illustration 100 was a location map of Masterton, New Zealand at 12:18, 1 July 2005 (UTC)
- Illustration 200 was a location map of Lake Taupo at 07:58, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
- Illustration 300 was a location map of St. George's, Bermuda at 01:54, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
- added 4 new articles and made 22 edits on the Maori Wikipedia.
- added 2 new articles and made 8 edits on Wikinews.
- made 7 edits on Wikicommons.
Last update by Grutness at 22:34, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Legalese
I agree to multi-license all my text contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:
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Multi-licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License versions 1.0 and 2.0 |
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| I agree to multi-license my text contributions, unless otherwise stated, under the GFDL and the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license version 1.0 and version 2.0. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my contributions under the Creative Commons terms, please check the CC dual-license and Multi-licensing guides. |
I used to use the Uffington White Horse as part of my signature, as I do with my painting (as seen at my gallery on my website). Sadly, with all the server overload problems, I've been asked to drop it, so (as of 07:05, 9 May 2005) I have. Feels strange - almost like it's not me doing the typing any more.
Francis Petre - as a secondary author and supplier of photos
