User:Carbon Caryatid



My primary interest on Wikipedia is helping to weave the web. Creating links between mere raw items of information turns data into the "aha!", the "I never knew that!", the "now I see!", the "eureka!"

Sometimes I act as a wikignome. Sometimes I add facts that come my way. Mainly I sprinkle in wikilinks, and "see also"s, and terms for things that previously had no name. (I love it that Wikipedia has given me names for concepts I knew of but had never really thought about. Once we have a name for something, it becomes a much more real mental construct, and suddenly we see examples all around us. So once Wikipedia led me to the Anglosphere and cousin couples and political decoy I want to add them wherever relevant, so other readers can be exposed to these ideas as well.) Sometimes I write opening sentences or paragraphs that tie the threads together, placing a subject in context. Sometimes I contribute to the reference desks, especially humanities and miscellaneous: answers, and also questions. Sometimes I hive off sections into separate stand-alone articles. So I really should join in with WikiProject Reference Desk Article Collaboration.

I have wide-ranging interests. Don't we all? I also have my blind spots. Don't we all?

Ones I've worked on
These are a few articles I've made substantial contributions to:

Biographies

 * Isaias Afewerki, president of Eritrea
 * Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Somali-Dutch politician
 * Waheed Alli, Baron Alli, out gay Muslim politician
 * Saartjie Baartman, the original Hottentot Venus
 * Shukria Barakzai, Afghani feminist (took this one to Did You Know)
 * Cyrano de Bergerac, French soldier
 * Luisa Casati, Italian millionaire muse
 * Quentin Crisp, English stately homo
 * Father Damien, leper priest
 * Lubna al-Hussein, Sudanese journalist who dared to wear trousers
 * John R. Jewitt, slave in early Canada
 * Helen Keller, socialist
 * Leopold II of Belgium, who set the Congo up to fail
 * the Lupton family of Leeds, Victorian merchants and philanthropists
 * Fitzroy Maclean, soldier, diplomat, adventurer, possible model for James Bond
 * Irshad Manji, Canadian journalist, author of The Trouble with Islam Today
 * Marquess of Bristol, a family of often notable and notorious aristocrats
 * Victor, inter alia jewel thief
 * his first son, John, drug addict, flamboyant user of rent boys, died in penury
 * his second son, Nicholas, traditionalist, schizophrenic, bankrupt, suicide
 * Compton Mackenzie, prolific writer and Scottish nationalist
 * Jessica Mitford and Esmond Romilly, lovebirds in the pink
 * Craig Murray, "being a dissident is rather fun"
 * Elizabeth Robins Pennell, American writer in London 1884-1916
 * White Rajahs of Borneo
 * Uvavnuk, the Inuit oral poet

Language

 * Advanced Learner's Dictionary
 * Bollocks
 * Controversies about the word "niggardly"
 * English language learning and teaching
 * Franglais
 * Sound symbolism

Authors and books

 * Brave New World and Island (novel)
 * The Handmaid's Tale
 * Henry Rider Haggard
 * Richard Halliburton and his sidekick for a year, Moye W. Stephens
 * Anthony Hope
 * The Prisoner of Zenda
 * The Prisoner of Zenda (1937 film)
 * Rupert of Hentzau
 * The Island of Doctor Moreau
 * Misty of Chincoteague
 * Adrian Mole
 * Dervla Murphy
 * Round About a Pound a Week
 * Saki
 * Mark Twain
 * Utopian and dystopian fiction

Other

 * Black as a colour and Black people, such as Black British, List of black Britons, and Black Canadians
 * Breast, Breastfeeding, Breastmilk, and Wetnurse
 * Category:Occupations
 * Club (disambiguation) and Club
 * Horse-related topics such as Horsemeat, Kumis, and Warhorse
 * Islamic feminism and United Kingdom debate over veils
 * Marriage and sex topics such as Bride kidnapping, Cousin couple, Female sex tourism, and Levirate marriage
 * Tanzania, which led to History of Tanzania, Culture of Tanzania, and Music of Tanzania; then Zanzibar and History of Zanzibar as well
 * Victoriana such as Governess, Lady's companion and Royal Baccarat Scandal
 * Category:Festivals and especially Nuit Blanche, Long Night of Museums, and related articles

Ones I have actually started

 * High Arctic relocation
 * Human rights in Canada
 * Roundhouse (eco-dwelling)
 * Newington Green Unitarian Church, my best so far
 * The Wodehouse
 * Essex Street Chapel
 * Brenda Colvin, self-effacing garden designer
 * Mill Hill Chapel, in Leeds
 * Anna Letitia Le Breton, named after her great-aunt Anna Laetitia Barbauld
 * Frances Lupton, Victorian commitee woman who fought for girls' education

Amusements

 * JackofOz's favourite insults

General

 * learn Wikidata
 * write up 3? personae
 * redo this page - split
 * keep track of certain tricky articles
 * Find templates for troublesome articles, e.g. weasel words, limited scope, needs citations
 * Label the articles that deserve it
 * Help:Referencing_for_beginners

Start (just ideas)

 * Amélie Munier-Romilly, French painter, probably connected to Jane Franklin
 * Theodosia Monson
 * Matilda Charlotte Houstoun (or possibly Houston) [née Jesse; other married name Fraser], (1815-1892) novelist and travel writer, daughter to Edward Jesse.
 * keeping company - perhaps an article exists under another name, but this is a historic (obsolete?) euphemism for the *accepted* practice of premarital sex in communities which we tend to assume forbad or penalised it
 * Dollar princess (unless there's already an article under another name) (there's a recent book out on this, but doesn't use the phrase in thetitle, which I've forgotten)
 * Newington Green Academies, a subset of Dissenting academies
 * Lyceum Club - like the gentlemen's clubs, but for women; founded 1904? Inspired or affiliated to clubs of the same name in Texas and Australia?
 * maternity nurse - redirects to midwifery - not what I mean
 * and Night Nurse too - both the medicine and the baby sort
 * wise woman - currently a very unsatisfactory dab
 * collusive abduction, i.e. including elements of elopement and bride kidnapping
 * menstrual seclusion aka menstrual hut, as a bad case of menstrual taboo
 * marriage as prostitution, barely mentioned under Criticism of marriage
 * women's page - NOT the "society page" for gossip. EG Cotton's Weekly described in The Feminist Challenge to the Canadian Left, 1900-1918 (1997) (re UK Observer)
 * Auxiliary hospital - set up in WW1 (esp in English country houses) and largely staffed by Voluntary Aid Detachment nurses. See Red Cross info. There were thousands. Many leaders (often county ladies) got gongs (link to eg 1918 Birthday Honours and 1918 New Year Honours).
 * nyumba ntobhu, women marrying women in Tanzania, an old custom with a modern twist
 * translate School Mistresses and Governesses’ Benevolent Institution from German Wikipedia
 * invalid food
 * postnatal care (not the same as the current article postpartum care) - or merge with postpartum confinement?

Sandbox (my notes)

 * Lawrence family was significant in Unitarian movement in England in the 19th century, and later. They tended to be Liberal politicians, had a building firm, and were wealthy and generous.(my notes)
 * The Langham Place Group: currently this is a redirect from English Woman's Journal but they're overlapping, not synonymous. There's already some material at Langham_Place,_London.
 * Harmful traditional practices, a euphemism in official circulation - to what exactly does it refer? (my notes)
 * Fleetwood House and all it contained (sources)
 * Foss-Pelly scandal, concerning race and sex on the Canadian frontier (my notes)
 * subscription publishing, a C18 version of crowd-funding (my notes)
 * private fostering, if that's the right term; not kinship care but not through social services either (my notes)
 * Reading Abbey Girls' School (my notes)
 * women's centre or Women's center
 * Stonewall 25 (my notes)
 * Ayah's home (my notes)

Improve
Sometimes this might mean going through the archives to see what has been removed or messed up.
 * Ellen Mary Rope the sculptor
 * Joseph Chamberlain
 * Mohammad Akram Nadwi
 * Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
 * Rosa Bonheur
 * Lupton family
 * Swraj Paul, Baron Paul
 * Islamic feminism
 * children of the plantation (or perhaps there is another better article)
 * don't forget Toilet and all the related articles
 * clitoris is not nearly as good as it needs to be (my notes)
 * Women-only space

Q&A
User:BrainyBabe/Q&A

Tools

 * Using Google to search within Wikipedia
 * Media files (images and other)
 * Workspace
 * Workspace2
 * /Sandbox
 * Resource requests
 * Prep Bio tool - to create an outline of a biography
 * User:Citation bot/use

First Nations and small languages

 * Atikamekw, Wikipedia in a dialect of Cree, about 1000 articles, many on medicinal plants
 * YouTube video explaining the project, in French at Wikimania Montreal

Women in Red

 * UoEdinburgh WiR workshop
 * Outreach dashboard
 * Whites Writing Whiteness

A welcome message

 * First, take a look at the Wikipedia Tutorial, and perhaps dabble a bit in the test area.
 * When you have some free time, take a look at the Manual of Style and Policies and Guidelines. They can come in very handy!
 * Remember to use a neutral point of view!
 * If you need any help, feel free to post a question at the Help Desk
 * Explore, be bold in editing pages, and, most importantly, have fun!

Editing links

 * Editor's index to Wikipedia
 * Policy Library
 * Utilities
 * Village pump
 * Public domain image resources


 * How to edit a page
 * Editor assistance


 * Five pillars
 * Attribution
 * Cite your sources
 * Verifiability
 * Wikiquette
 * Civility
 * Conflict resolution


 * Brilliant prose
 * How to write a great article
 * Pages needing attention
 * Peer review
 * Boilerplate text
 * Requested moves


 * Userboxes

Categories, tags, and templates

 * Template messages/User talk namespace includes vandalism warnings
 * Category:Categories
 * Template:Globalize
 * subst:sofixit in produces "Thank you for your suggestion.....(Please do something about it)".
 * Wikipedia template messages

Miscellaneous

 * Disambiguation

Reminders to self of things done

 * How to delete an article

Things I've learned on Wikipedia that I never would have heard of without

 * CamelCase. Of course I had noticed it, and indeed used it myself, but I never thought to enquire if it had a name.
 * Anglosphere
 * Cousin couple

Info about Wikimedia and wikis generally

 * Wikimedia
 * Images & other
 * More editing help
 * Wikimedia Main Page
 * TourBusStop

To read

 * "Thus I Refute Beelzy" by John Collier