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This editor is a Tutnum of the Encyclopedia and is entitled to display this Book of Knowledge with Coffee Cup Stain, Cigarette Burn, and Chewed Broken Pencil.
A little about me
I registered in late 2006, intending to work on dinosaurs. In autumn 2007 I became interested in the Cambrian Explosion, where User:Smith609, a real paleontologist, became my guide and friend. While working on the Cambrian Explosion, I realised that I knew far too little zoology about the invertebrate phyla which are the focus of the Cambrian Explosion, and Smith609 note that the WP articles on in invertebrate phyla were poor. I've improved some to Good Article standard, and hope to cover others in time. Since mid-2011 I've worked on jumping spiders of the genus Portia - these animals' behaviour is about as complex as that of wasps, bees and ants. I also create or improve articles in other topics which I enjoy.
Useful stuff
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No RfXs since 17:37, 25 December 2024 (UTC).—Talk to my owner:Online
Citation tool on edit box. Enabled by option in "Gadgets" section of "Preferences".
Reference generator - runs in a separate Web page, unlike the edit box tool.
Tools
Tools and techniques that have been useful:
There are 2 for building citations. refTools is more convenient, but you should also check out Magnus' citation builder as well. Magnus' citation builder shows a ref and citation that you can copy and paste into the article. While refTools runs in the edit box, Magnus' citation builder runs in a different page than the article, and it is usually easier to run it in a different tab. The builder outputs the ref and citation as text rather than in box, but you can use the hotkeycopy here and then paste in the article's edit box. Table of keyboard shortcuts lists hotkeys for common operating systems.
If you specify a URL, you must also specify accessdate. Until mid-2009 the recommended format was the ISO yyyy-mm-dd, but now regular dates are recommended, and a bot has been these working through these. Someone has even an parameter in citations to say whether the accessdate is in form dmy or mdy.
Just before nominating an article for GA- or FA-review, use User:Dispenser/Checklinks to check that none of its URLs has not died (the checker does all in one hit) and that all required parameters of the citation are present.
If a URL dies, Internet Archive's Way Back Machine often contains archived copies of Web pages that have gone offline. You need to supply the original URL. When citing archived copies: parameter accessdate= is still required; add parameter archiveurl=... for the link provided by Internet Archive - as well as url=...; add parameter archivedate=... giving the date when the archived copy was made (a link shown in the search results from the Way Back Machine; you have to click this to see the archived content). Occasionally a URL dies during a reviewer. Keep calm, explain what happened, try the Internet Archive and and then fix the link. But some sites use the robot.txt to prevent the Way Back Machine from making a backup copy. In that case you need find another source, or remove some of the article's text.
Keep Alt text checker in the toolbox but don't use it until WP:ALT has been re-written and got real consensus. At present (end of May 2010) WP:WIAFA excludes WP:ALT.
For converting old money values to modern ones:
Template:Inflation. Based on consumer prices, handles a wide range of currencies. Best used with template:Formatprice, e.g. £{{Formatprice|{{Inflation|UK|35000|1948|r=-4}}|0}} (modern value of a 1948 figure of £35,000) generates £920,000.
measuringworth.com has only £(GB) and $(US), but can use prices, incomes and other bases for conversion.
Misplaced Pages:Featured article tools might be useful. This "template" is undocumented, but it seems the way to use it is to add <noinclude>{{Misplaced Pages:Featured article tools|1=article name}}</noinclude>
WikEd - the Find and Replace facilities are great for doing global edits. It's often best to switch off its the Syntax highlighter because it has a few eccentricities, especially in moving to & selecting highlighted text. N.B. WikEd does not currently work with Internet Explorer (non-standard CSS; a security hazard) or Opera (seems limited in JavaScript). The tool works fine in Gecko-based browsers like Firefox or K-meleon, and in WebKit-based ones like Safari and Google Chrome, and presumably on KDE's KHTML as WebKit is a port of that.
The part of GA criteria about style and layout is pretty good. But I disagree with quite a lot of the full WP style guide (MOS). I think the rules for using dashes, hyphens, etc. are a waste of time. More seriously, I think MOS aims at the wrong audience. MOS is based on academic style guides, especially The Chicago Manual of Style, which are written for academics and primarily published in hard-copy (paper, dead trees). Most WP readers are teenagers or adults who have the reading capabilities of teenagers. And most WP users read from screens, which have a much lower dot pitch than printers, in other words screens are more "grainy" and readers become tired more quickly.
Usability On The Web Isn't A Luxury by Jakob Nielsen and Donald A. Norman says, "Studies of user behavior on the Web find a low tolerance for difficult designs or slow sites. People don't want to wait. And they don't want to learn how to use a home page. There's no such thing as a training class or a manual for a Web site. People have to be able to grasp the functioning of the site immediately after scanning the home page--for a few seconds at most."
Kathy Henning's Writing for Readers Who Scan advises only "Include one idea per paragraph", "Subheads allow scanners to skip over chunks of copy that don't appear to have a direct relationship to their needs," "Bullet-point parallel words, phrases, or clauses".
In Web Style Guide, section Editorial Style explains why making scanning must be easy and what is the physical explanation for this, "many users find reading on-screen uncomfortable".
While working on WP internally, e.g. in Talk pages, we all use these techniques to make it easier to present our ideas. Yet WP:MOS insists on techniques that were developed for academics reading from printed pages.
Things I've done
I don't do Featured Articles, as I reckon I can do at least 2 Good Articles in the same time, which is better for readers. This and the first paragraph of this are good examples of the extra work required for FAs.
Thanks for all the work you did in making Portia fimbriata a certified "Good Article"! That really is a very detailed and thorough article! (And that was certainly a detailed and thorough review.) Your work is much appreciated.
To Philcha, for writing several articles about arthropods and molluscs. Axl ¤ 17:13, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
Philcha, a thank for your endlessly good contributions to chess articles of WikiProjects Chess. Regards, SunCreator 13:32, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
The Guidance Barnstar
Thanks for taking up the His Band and the Street Choir review and going through the article thoroughly, showing me in great detail what was needed to improve it, suggesting techniques, links and language style. This will not only help the article in question, but any other I choose to take to GA in the future. You deserve this! Kitchen roll (talk) 21:30, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
The Anti-Flame Barnstar
To Philcha for valiant efforts, above and beyond the call of duty, to mediate in the case of D51 vs MF. When writing your sage words and your appeals for calm you must have felt like a lone voice, but I noticed and I was grateful. Your voice is the sort of voice that makes Misplaced Pages worthwhile for many. Dolphin51 (talk) 07:45, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
The Special Barnstar
Philcha, for being who you are - totally irreplacable! from —mattisse (Talk) 22:25, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
The Music Barnstar
For the excellent and thorough job you did reviewing the complicated but important Mr. Tambourine Man article, I award you this barnstar. Rlendog (talk) 21:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)
The Guidance Barnstar
I would like to thank you and Cliff smith for your help even though I didn't get around to your suggestions... i feel bad now :( But your small contributions helped, becuase it's the small contribs that add up in the end :P... have a good one Bugboy52.4 | =-= 02:31, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
The Bio-star
To Philcha, for attempting to address the bias that our invertebrate second-cousins are up against in being ignored in mainspace (and the image is of an invertebrate too) cheers, Casliber (talk·contribs) 13:02, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for asking all those awkward questions and pointing the way to bring a whimsical sketch up to FA standard. Much appreciated! dave souza, talk 12:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
The Working Man's Barnstar
Thankyou for all your hard work in reviewing York Park. Also for your tireless work in reviewing other GANs. Aaroncrick (talk) 13:26, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
For the extensive work and excellent guidance in reviewing the Sperm Whale article, so that this important article could regain its GA status, I hereby award you the Mammal Barnstar Rlendog (talk) 17:16, 10 November 2008 (UTC) Danilot (talk) 19:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
Either you have an army of impersonators, or you've completely taken over the Biology section at GAN! You've been doing amazing work, both contributing lots of content and giving impressively thorough GA reviews. delldot∇. 06:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
The Half Barnstar
For the great work Philcha (a British) and Krakatoa (an American) were able to produce together in order to reach a neutral point-of-view in the article Howard Staunton so that it reached GA-class, I award to each of them half of this barnstar. SyG (talk) 08:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
The Content Creativity Barnstar
For the tremendous work and material you put in the article Alexander Alekhine during the GA-review, I award you this barnstar. SyG (talk) 21:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
The Working Man's Barnstar
For excellent work on Chess topics:Staunton, Blackburn, Zukertort , Steinitz and Anderssen. I am very happy to award you this barnstar. SunCreator (talk) 18:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
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