User:Colin MacLaurin/Wikipedia work

This page is both a record of my contributions to Wikipedia, and also a sandbox for future editing (see below).

Links

 * Tools
 * Tracking tool for watching key articles
 * Traffic statistics for Wikipedia
 * All my subpages

Other links:
 * Spectrum videos on YouTube

Material

 * http://english.sdaglobal.org/news/fb28.htm - "Soo"'s story. (Potentially appearing in Here We Stand?) http://english.sdaglobal.org/ generally

Some from July 22, 2008:
 * http://spectrummagazine.org/files/archive/archive21-25/index25-4.html
 * http://spectrummagazine.org/files/archive/archive21-25/25-4guy.pdf
 * http://spectrummagazine.org/files/archive/archive21-25/25-4lawson.pdf
 * http://spectrummagazine.org/files/archive/archive21-25/25-4sickler.pdf
 * "Books I treasure most" Ministry 1973, v46, May, p47
 * http://www.exadventist.com/Home/Video/tabid/502/Default.aspx - John Ankerberg show videos - Ford and Johnsson
 * Time magazine Jesus Revolution article!
 * articles - 5 most influential SDAs (see here) and where are they now? (see here)
 * Mormon view of Muhammad and others as receiving partial light http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=bbaba1615ac0c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1

December:
 * Prophecy and Community ASRS paper
 * When the Visions Led by Hackleman; ASRS paper

Excellent quote, for possible later use:
 * "Owing in part to the failure of nerve among the leaders in 1919, Adventist academics faced a spiritual and vocational crisis in the 1970s without the benefit of knowing that at one time the movement's mainstream had experienced a similar turmoil. As a result, they had been forced into an unnecessarily peripheral and isolated position." But perceptions of Ellen White had changed...


 * A reliable source emailed me that Jon Paulien claimed Ford's Crisis was "seminal for current theological views" in Adventism.

Contributions to Wikipedia

 * "I discovered the progressive adventist Wikipedia entry today and was blown away. I had no idea there was a “name” for Adventists who believe everything from the “Moral Influence Theory” to “old earth” creationism to non-traditional views of Ellen White. And now I find this blog and even the writer of the Wikipedia entry. This is too much for one day!..." -Pamela Maize Harris, May 21, 2007 "this blog" refers to ProgressiveAdventism.com

My friend Jono Weslake told me on Saturday 16th July that he discovered the progressive Adventist article and appreciated many aspects of it! As of that date it was edited almost solely by myself.

Articles Created

 * 1) Hillsong Conference
 * 2) Hillsong Conference 2006
 * 3) 28 Fundamentals
 * 4) Remnant (Adventist)
 * 5) The Great Controversy (book). Much reworking of Great Controversy as well.
 * 6) Adventist baptismal vow
 * 7) Inspiration of Ellen White
 * 8) Progressive Adventist
 * 9) Adventist Today
 * 10) Day-year principle
 * 11) Biblical Research Institute
 * 12) Adventist Theological Society
 * 13) Spirit of Prophecy (Adventist) stub
 * 14) List of Ellen White writings
 * 15) Ellen G. White Estate
 * 16) List of Seventh-day Adventist periodicals
 * 17) Journal of the Adventist Theological Society stub
 * 18) Spectrum (magazine) (technically, my computer crashed after I had written much of it, but before saving it. Ansell ended up creating it, doing a good job, and I expanded it)
 * 19) Association of Adventist Forums
 * 20) Pre-advent judgment stub
 * 21) Alden Thompson
 * 22) Teachings of Ellen White
 * 23) Jon Paulien
 * 24) George R. Knight stub
 * 25) Jombok Hoas stub
 * 26) Wat Preah Yesu
 * 27) Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary stub
 * 28) Wingen, New South Wales
 * 29) Dale Ratzlaff
 * 30) Robert H. Pierson, reworked from POV material in the Last Generation Theology article
 * 31) General Conference Session
 * 32) South Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists virtually rewritten
 * 33) Australian Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
 * 34) Christian anthropology
 * 35) Theological anthropology stub
 * 36) Heavenly sanctuary. Actually, technically Tonicthebrown beat me to it - I was writing it but he saved his copy first! I expanded and reworked it significantly.
 * 37) Samuele Bacchiocchi
 * 38) Robert Brinsmead
 * 39) Richard Rice
 * 40) Julius Nam
 * 41) Sabbath in Seventh-day Adventism
 * 42) Raymond Cottrell
 * 43) Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
 * 44) John F. Ashton
 * 45) A Very Special Person
 * 46) Ángel Manuel Rodríguez (good stub)
 * 47) Arthur Patrick
 * 48) Woodrow Whidden (stub)
 * 49) Record (magazine)
 * 50) Nathan Brown (writer)
 * 51) Ministry (magazine)
 * 52) Red Books
 * 53) Biblical law in Christianity
 * 54) W. W. Prescott (good stub)
 * 55) Biblical law in Seventh-day Adventism
 * 56) Fritz Guy stub
 * 57) Norm Young stub
 * 58) Newbold College stub
 * 59) Edward Heppenstall stub
 * 60) Seventh-day Adventism in popular culture
 * 61) Valuegenesis
 * 62) Adventist studies
 * 63) Seventh-day Adventist interfaith relations
 * 64) Glacier View controversy
 * 65) Remnant (Bible)
 * 66) Seventh-day Adventist education
 * 67) Donald Barnhouse stub
 * 68) Eternity (magazine)
 * 69) Adventist Currents
 * 70) Evangelica
 * 71) Standish brothers (merged from earlier separate articles also started by myself)
 * 72) Glacier View Ranch stub
 * 73) Seeking a Sanctuary
 * 74) Walter T. Rea
 * 75) Present Truth Magazine
 * 76) Hans LaRondelle
 * 77) Generation of Youth for Christ
 * 78) Hope International (Seventh-day Adventist)
 * 79) Pacific Union Recorder
 * 80) Clifford Goldstein
 * 81) Charismatic Adventism
 * 82) George Vandeman (?? check page history)
 * 83) Morris Venden
 * 84) Geoffrey Paxton, an Australian Anglican who has interacted with Adventists
 * 85) Insight (Adventist magazine)
 * 86) Graham Maxwell
 * 87) Prophecy in the Seventh-day Adventist Church
 * 88) Tongues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church
 * 89) Holy Flesh movement
 * 90) Association of Seventh-day Adventist Librarians
 * 91) Israel Dammon trial
 * 92) John Carter (evangelist)
 * 93) Seventh-day Adventist worship
 * 94) Ralph and Mrs. Mackin
 * 95) Southern Asia-Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventists
 * 96) United Sabbath-Day Adventist Church
 * 97) Jonathan M. Butler
 * 98) The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements
 * 99) S. M. I. Henry
 * 100) Richard M. Davidson
 * 101) Grenville Kent
 * 102) Roger Morneau
 * 103) Samir Selmanovic
 * 104) Jack Provonsha
 * 105) Safari Kimanzi
 * 106) Seventh-day Adventist tertiary student ministry
 * 107) Eternity (newspaper)
 * 108) "God helps those who help themselves"

plus others, or other articles with major contributions such as Seventh-day Adventist Church, Seventh-day Adventist theology and Ellen White. See complete list, which also includes disambiguation pages, pages "created" by moving them, and others I created as redirects which others later made into a separate article.

I have also created much of the category structure for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, plus categories for other topics. I have also created dozens of disambiguation pages, and uploaded some images.

Templates (nontrivial)

 * User:Colin MacLaurin/Adventism userbox
 * Template:SeventhdayAdventist-stub stub template
 * Template:Ellen G. White navigational box

Investigation into spread through Wikipedia
Spread of CSDA in Wikipedia articles.

Edit count
Edits are certainly not everything! I just edit Wikipedia – I do not aim to get my edit count up. Nonetheless, here is a list of my edit count at various times, from "List of Wikipedians by number of edits":


 * May 27, 2007 – #3059 ranked with 5180 edits (first appearance on list)
 * July 16, 2007 – none
 * August 2, 2007 – none
 * September 12, 2007 – #3095 with 6060 edits
 * December 22, 2007 – #2401 with 8606 edits
 * January 20, 2008 – #2287 with 9279 edits (highest)
 * March 11, 2008 – #2298 with 9513 edits
 * May 23, 2008 – #2343 with 10062 edits
 * July 23, 2008 – #2399 with 10378 edits
 * September 16, 2008 – #2436 with 11136 edits
 * November 20, 2008 – #2374 with 11775 edits
 * February 25, 2009 – #2457 with 12386 edits
 * April 22, 2009 – #2499 with 12635 edits
 * June 10, 2009 – #2519 with 12935 edits
 * July 1, 2009 – #2543 with 12973 edits
 * September 9, 2009 – #2421 with 13998 edits
 * October 14, 2009 – #2443 with 14185 edits
 * December 30, 2009 – #2493 with 14847 edits * check... *
 * February 24, 2010 – #2493 with 14,847 edits [apparent Wiki mistake]
 * April 28, 2010 – #2493 with 14,847 edits [apparent Wiki mistake again]
 * June 30, 2010 – #2471 with 15,823 edits
 * August 25, 2010 – #2527 with 15,939 edits

Main Interests
I am interested in pages related to Christianity, particularly Seventh-day Adventism. I have also made a number of edits to other random pages. I might create a few maths stubs (that's "math" if you are American) when I get the chance.

To Read
Interesting looking articles I would like to read:
 * Quantum Mechanics, steady state theory, nonstandard cosmologies, General Relativity, Big Bang
 * Politics articles, philosophy articles
 * Universal reconciliation, mysticism, prophet, prophecy

To do

 * Requests: Graph C*-algebra, Quantum ball, plus anything else related to honours thesis, except for original research
 * Expand: Add "Robert Newton"'s Creationist cosmology, add to Spiritual gift: Discerning the validity of spiritual gifts - Mt 7:15-20 (false prophets), and Mt 7:21-23 "gifts" not necessarily from God. Work on merging of pages, etc.
 * Other: review Prophet and Prophecy. Email regarding photos
 * "Quotable Quotes from Adventist Scholars". Evangelica November 1981, 37 (looks interesting)

Inspiration

 * Ford said, "Having researched the stacks of the Library of Congress, I know that most writers in theology, medicine, history, science, etc. of the Nineteenth Century used other authors freely without giving them credit. In addition, the expression, "I was shown," was commonplace among religious writers of Ellen White's day. That phrase did not always or necessarily mean revelation by vision. For example, the famous book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, according to its author, came story by story to the writer in a dream. This religious phenomenon was not at all uncommon in the 1800s."
 * Seola novel

Other

 * Raymond Cottrell: "Bible teachers' 1950 meeting at Pacific Union College, responses to a questionnaire found complete agreement with respect to every major, divisive exegetical and doctrinal issue over the preceding fifty years!" ...Asset or Liability
 * http://spectrummagazine.org/files/archive/archive21-25/21-5graybill.pdf - Where are they now?
 * http://spectrummagazine.org/files/archive/archive21-25/21-5gladson.pdf - Jerry Gladson
 * http://www.atoday.com/ethos-adventism Ethos of Adventism by Cottrell


 * From AP: "Two recent journal articles take us toward a more promising future. Roy Gane's JBL article, a sterling attempt to deal with the significance of blood in Leviticus, shows just how difficult it is to sustain an aspect of the Adventist tradition exegetically. Ross Cole's COLLOQUIUM review offers ways to better debate the Daniel issues. We'll see more of these kinds of articles as time goes by."

Theological Research Institute, http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/_PDFArchives/apologetics/AP1W0999.pdf (accessed August 4, 2007)." from Kenneth Samples' paper.
 * "For varying views expressed by knowledgeable evangelical scholars on Seventh-day Adventism, see Philip Johnson, “Apologetics, Mission and New Religious Movements: A Holistic Approach (Part Two),” Sacred Tribes Journal of Christian Missions to New Religious Movements, Summer/Fall 2002, http://www.sacredtribes.com/issue1/apolog2.htm; James Bjornstad, “Seventh-day Adventism,” Ankerberg


 * Ford mentioned an article in the Adventist Review appearing a few years after the Glacier View controversy which claimed Adventists are a fiercely Protestant people, who relish the spirit of enquiry.
 * Also said there was a series of Neufeld article in the Review about the IJ, and how it was only derived 13 years after 1844, in the 1950s.


 * http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/digitaltheses/public/adt-acuvp78.25092005/02whole.pdf
 * http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2003-1215-112739/full.pdf
 * http://www.j-e-s-u-s.org/special/cg3_e.htm


 * User:Colin MacLaurin/Wantirna Seventh-day Adventist Church
 * User:Colin MacLaurin/Wallsend Seventh-day Adventist Church


 * "The Friendly Isles of Tonga", National Geographic, March 1968, p. 358. Tongan Adventists hold church gatherings on Sunday.


 * New faces arrive at PUC. Pacific Union Recorder 2003, v103, Sep, p5 re: Nam
 * Nam, Julius. "Adventism in present communal progressive". Adventist Today 2007, v15, Sep-Oct, p8-qo
 * Lee, Julie Z. "How a dream come true is leading the Asian-American community". Pacific Union Recorder 2002, v102, Dec, p11-12


 * Tongues: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/endtimeissues/et_194.htm


 * McLarty, John Thomas. "Intellectual Adventism". Adventist Today 2006, v14, Mar-Apr, p18-20


 * http://www.dennispriebe.com/documents/Evangelicals%20and%20Adventists%20Together.html

News from user page:

September: Home now. Europe was the best ever! Met so many fascinating and inspiring people and made great new friends. I even managed to create a few articles and stay up to date with my Wikipedia editing! Er, who really wants to Prague etc. anyway, when you could be looking at a computer screen... (?!!) (Will delete this news soon, as it is not a blog!)

August 2007: We are in Greece, and the fires are the worst ever here. News reports are in Greek so we don't understand much, but I could translate a little, e.g. 17 nekroi meaning 17 dead, at an earlier stage.

News: July–September 2007: I'm on a three month trip through Europe with my brother James, and so will have a lesser presence on the web, however I will still try to regularly feed my addiction :-) Subscribe to our blog at james.maclaurin.id.au/blog.

News: I'm safe after the massive storms. Electric power has been off at Avondale College from about 1am Friday night until Wednesday (I think). The place practically shut down, they encouraged on-campus students to leave if they had somewhere else to go, and there may be special consideration for the soon-coming exams. The huge 225m ship Pasha Bulker is grounded on a reef at Nobby's beach in Newcastle, New South Wales (Newcastle's famous landmark beach).

Also, I was on TV! Channel Ten news local weather report with Tim Bailey, just after 5:30pm on Wednesday 13th June 2007. It was in front of the surf lifesaving club building (?) on the South end of Nobby's beach, with the beached ship in the background. I SMSed about 20 friends, and two even replied live, during the taping, to tell me that they could see me and that I was even center screen! I checked the SMSes as they came in – thanks Zoe and Will. I am the tall guy with (temporarily, then) a short beard.

Progressive Adventism template
Media: Spectrum, Adventist Today, Adventist Heritage, Present Truth Magazine/Verdict, Good News Unlimited and its magazine also Evangelica, Adventist Currents.

People: Edward Heppenstall, Hans LaRondelle, Raymond Cottrell, Desmond Ford, Robert Brinsmead (What about: Prescott, Daniells, White, etc.? Need citations. Norm Young?)

Places of learning: West Coast Religion Teachers, Loma Linda University, Walla Walla College, Pacific Union College, La Sierra University (need to cite all these!)

History: Questions on Doctrine, Glacier View controversy,

Random

 * "The Intellectual World of Adventist Theologians" (Still need to add details to specific articles on each doctrine, although other material has been added)

Working on the WikiProject Seventh-day Adventist Church/Assessment page: (commented out)


 * http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/spirit/stories/s407315.htm - Yancey transcript

Write article on: Seventh-day Adventist culture, habits, customs, practices, lifestyle

This is for stuff I am planning to add to articles:


 * ReligiousTolerance.org profile
 * Magnus' Referencing Tool
 * first reference to Seeking a Sanctuary
 * ATS, ASRS stuff
 * Check removed edit from Criticism of the Seventh-day Adventist Church: 12% of the Seventh Day Adventist Church community and it is no different to Catholics or other denominations who remove or add parts of the bible.
 * Joseph Tsach (WWCoG) - 3 sources for Sabbath changes.
 * BRI view of speaking in tongues
 * Hillsong Men's Conference
 * Storm Co -
 * Pinnock Review of Reign of God by Richard Rice. Add to Ellen White, Sabbath and SDAism, IJ, etc.
 * How various notable Christians have viewed the Adventist church
 * Check Seventh-day_Adventist_theology edit about "against majority view"
 * Robert Brinsmead, Adventist Review article on righteousness by faith. "Undated but issued 16 May 1974."

Sabbath
Review "Sabbath" and "Sabbatarianism" (wikilinks removed by another editor) Since E. P. Sanders' groundbreaking book in the late 1970s, Christian views on the law have exploded in theological circles! Encylopedias and Bible dictionaries: Journals:
 * Spectrum blog on new Sabbath books by Adventist pastors
 * Marva J. Dawn keeps a whole day as a Sabbath. The Sense of the Call, p.313-14 has a list of recommended resources. See also her Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting, which emphasizes those four themes. She does not argue for a specific day of the week, only a complete 24-hour period, unlike those who insist on either Saturday or Sunday.(55,56) However "corporate worship" is "an essential part of God's Sabbath reclamation." (The Sense of the Call, 55). "How Can We Do It?", 69-71; hints on keeping a Sabbath.
 * see "Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, III:4, pp. 49, 57. Indeed, Barth goes so far as to claim that "the Sabbath commandment explains all the other commandments, or all the other forms of the one commandment. It is thus to be placed at the head." He quotes De Quervain approvingly: " ?Where the holy day becomes a day of man, society and humanity wither away and the demons rule?? " (Church Dogmatics, III: p. 53." (cited in Des Ford)
 * Merge content from Talk:Sabbatarianism, Ten Commandments and Christian Torah-submission
 * historical groups of Sabbath keepers from bible-sabbath.com. Dubious source, but could be useful as a pointer for more accepted research. See also other links at http://www.bible-sabbath.com
 * Google Sabbath directory
 * http://www.biblestudy.org/godsrest/main.html - some articles are written by Bacchiocchi
 * Book Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives by Wayne Muller
 * Book Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom In The Rhythms Of Rest by Lynne M. Baab
 * Book Five Views on Law and Gospel
 * Hans Küng, rebellious Catholic respected theologian (respects Judaism much more highly than most Christians, different views on law, etc.)
 * Book A Day Apart: How Jews, Christians, and Muslims Find Faith, Freedom, and Joy on the Sabbath by Christopher D. Ringwald
 * Robert Leo Odom - Sabbath and Sunday in Early Christianity
 * Robert Leo Odom - (lord's day?) on a Round World
 * David Bird - Sabbath Challenge, Sabbath Delight
 * Weiss - A Day of God's Gladness
 * Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith by Marvin R. Wilson fairly high ranking in sales on Amazon.com
 * The Law, the Sabbath and New Covenant Christianity by Anthony Buzzard (Paperback - April 21, 2005)
 * Theological Dictionary of the New Testament; possibly VI:1
 * ATS JATS search for "Sabbath" and PD archives (currently no results for a search for "Sabbath")
 * AUSS archives (currently not functioning)
 * ASRS - does not have a journal. But perhaps there are papers from those scholars?
 * Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia articles on "Sabbath", etc.
 * http://sabbathinchrist.com
 * Don Neufeld articles on Sabbath.
 * ASDAL selected index to SDAPI
 * The Decline of the Sabbath in The Wall Street Journal
 * http://sabbath-rest.blogspot.com/

Eschatology
Improve page based on my suggested sources at Talk:Seventh-day_Adventist_eschatology.
 * Jon Dybdahl article on Remnant

Students of F. F. Bruce
(If I can find enough, I might create a category). There may be extra names from: People: Desmond Ford, Norman Young, Clark Pinnock, Moisés Silva
 * W. Ward Gasque & Ralph P. Martin (eds). Apostolic History and the Gospel: Biblical and Historical Essays Presented to F. F. Bruce on his 60th Birthday. Exeter: Paternoster/Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1970. ISBN 0-85364-098-X
 * D.A. Hagner & M.J.Harris (eds). Pauline Studies: Essays Presented to F. F. Bruce. Exeter: Paternoster/Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1980. ISBN 0-8028-3531-7

Law in Christianity
(Main article branch from Old Testament. Read it thoroughly. Scholarly views underrepresented, I believe.) Popular views relevant and important POV for the article, but there is too much emphasis on a Lutheran/Dispensational view. Ten Commandments.

Terms
Some are used pejoratively...

New Testament concepts
The Law of Christ

Christian views
E. P. Sanders' book represented a "tilt" in scholarly attitudes, towards more positive views toward the law. Prior to this, the general consensus was that of F. F. Bruce. N. T. Wright,

On a popular level, dispensational, Lutheran (find out more about Calvin...) views are probably more common.

Other

 * http://www.atoday.com/magazine/archive/1997/marapr1997/articles/HammillInterview.shtml. Article suggesting administrators more conservative, teachers more liberal.

This template was deleted: Templates for deletion/Log/2007 February 21

Category:WikiProject Seventh-day Adventist Church White, Ellen G.

Check out book Issues: The Seventh-day Adventist Church and Certain Private Ministries mentioned in LGT article.

Sourcing Adventist theology proposal draft: Second attempt
My previous proposal was very wordy. I would like to offer a second, simpler attempt, returning to the original motivations for presenting it. I have tried to incorporate Tonicthebrown's comments which were very helpful, and also helped to clarify my own language. Several months of thought have gone into this :). Colin MacLaurin 16:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Motivation. Until [|an edit] in December 2006, the article Seventh-day Adventist theology contained a statement:
 * "Adventists are sharply divided over whether Jesus Christ took on a fallen or an unfallen nature in the Incarnation."

Some supporting scholars and some disagreeing scholars were listed; an equal number of each. Articles from the Biblical Research Institute (BRI) support both positions.

All this would seem to imply that Adventists are divided fairly evenly over the issue. Isn't the BRI official, one might ask? In fact, this does not characterise the world church fairly.

Some contributors might ask, "What is the church's official position on ... ?" In fact many items do not have an "official" view. Statements voted at the five-yearly General Conference sessions are what is official. Such statements, particularly the 28 Fundamentals, should be given priority, but if there are other significant views they should also be stated and in correct proportion.

Be careful of the point of view (POV) of sources, and work together with other editors to portray a balanced picture representing all major views accurately and in due proportion.

What matters?
 * Scholarly views are very important, and should be cited to support positions (as opposed to Wikipedians inserting their own personal argument and Bible verses, or quoting a non-notable churchmember).
 * However, on average the scholars are more progressive than the world church (Pipim, Receiving the Word), and local churches are arguably the real face of Adventism. Hence what one might encounter in a local church should also be given priority

(Disputes should be resolved by simply citing all the relevant different points of view - e.g. xx traditionally taught,

What would be extremely helpful and NPOV is surveys of church members regarding beliefs, but only some such citations have been discovered so far.

Colin MacLaurin 16:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Possibly Useful Extras

 * I am currently listening to Third Day, Josh Groban and the Walk the Line Soundtrack which features Johnny Cash covers.
 * My favourite movie is Good Will Hunting. I also love any epic action, adventure or fantasy titles such as The Matrix, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.
 * My favourite books are The Heavenly Man, Wild at Heart, The Bible and many others.
 * My favourite books are The Heavenly Man, Wild at Heart, The Bible and many others.

Nice clean design borrowed from another userpage: {| style="border-spacing:8px;margin:0px -8px" width="100%"
 * class="MainPageBG" style="width: 55%; border:1px solid #FFFFFF; background-color:#F5FFFA; vertical-align:top"|
 * class="MainPageBG" style="width: 55%; border:1px solid #FFFFFF; background-color:#F5FFFA; vertical-align:top"|

See the Excellent User Page Award for great userpages to learn from!

Links

 * Image:Pleiades_large.jpg
 * Nice user page designs: User:Alkivar, User:FireFox-was good, until he deleted it...