Jump to content

User:Chiswick Chap/About

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A few details...
0has made no edits using AWB.
20has helped to create at least that many Featured Articles.
40has helped to create at least that many Scandinavian Good Articles.
50has helped to create at least that many Yoga Good Articles.
100has helped to create at least that many new Tolkien articles.
180has helped to create at least that many Biology Good Articles.
200has helped to create that many Tolkien Good Articles.
600has nominated at least that many Good Articles
670has helped to promote or rescue at least that many Good Articles (some co-nominated).
1000has contributed well over that many images to Commons.
10khas made at least that many edits on Commons.
250khas made at least that many non-automated edits, 75% to articles.
TCCwas joint winner of the Core Contest in April 2013.
EWis a recipient of the Editor of the Week award, twice.
WJSciis on the WikiJournal of Science's editorial board.
3rdon 17 October 2021 had that rank among those who had created the Most Good Articles.
200thOn 3 September 2021, had that rank among the most active Wikipedians ever.
Cutting some articles to shape


—THEY order, said I, this matter better in France.—

Hallo, I'm Ian Alexander. If you're curious about my handle, Chiswick is a place (with a silent 'w') and chap means a man. It's चिज़िक चैप in Hindi's Devanagari script, which I think works rather elegantly. Maybe that goes with my Yoga edits.

I have to some extent specialised in biology articles, including evolutionary biology along with its history and philosophy, covering topics (to take a few that begin with A) as different as active camouflage, adaptation, Adaptive Coloration in Animals, aggressive mimicry, agriculture, Ammophila sabulosa, anatomy, animal, animal husbandry, animal navigation, antipredator adaptation, apex predator, aposematism, Apple, Arab Agricultural Revolution, Aristotle's biology (and the man himself), The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, and automimicry not to mention a whole lot of arthropods such as antlion, Anopheles, and aphid, (and I'm delighted these all made it to 'Good Article'). However I've edited on a host of other topics.

I suppose it is natural for an encyclopedia to look into the history of everything: after all, it cannot look forward or even at the present. A liking for Sweden led to "Il signor improvisatore" Carl Michael Bellman's wonderful 18th century songs, especially Fredman's Epistles. Similarly, interest in patterns led to tessellation, a meeting-place of mathematics and art, which led in turn to the splendour of Islamic geometric patterns. Another track is English cuisine, where I found a void in coverage of even the most important historic cookery books, and a remarkable amount of recentism. During the Covid lockdowns I walked the streets of Chiswick every day and did quite a bit on its coverage here. I've had a go at the whole area of living things in culture, another juicy subject with a rich history, and have scoured and renewed much of Wikipedia's Tolkien coverage.

I seem to enjoy creating order out of chaos, which is fortunate as there is a considerable supply of suitable articles. If you think this is all mad, I won't disagree with you.

Even back in 2011, I thought there was something very wrong with how Wikipedia looks to newbies, enough to write an essay about it.

I have, by the way, no connection at all with someone who uses the name "Chiswick Chap" on "Twitter"; I do not "tweet".


Wyrd oft nereð unfǣgne eorl, þonne his ellen dēah!
Committed identity: 7169570e4d46cd6ca10165ea669b15f8510c6836f1f181f379b0340c077900936122d65aaf9e0f4dc2989a49a6d12414bd6145f455ceba7577e9927fbb8ad882 is a SHA-256 commitment to this user's real-life identity.