User:Mandarax

The name Mandarax comes from the Kurt Vonnegut novel Galápagos.

Milestones

 * I made my first edit as a registered user on February 14, 2005 (correcting the spelling of Jackson Pollock in the Robert Motherwell article).
 * A week later I created my first article, Maurice Denis.
 * In November 2009, I made my 50,000th edit (giving a Barnstar to a deserving user).
 * In December 2009, for the first and only time, I made over 10,000 edits in one month.
 * In May 2010, I my first DYK, for John McLaughlin (artist); when it  two days later, the article was viewed 2.6k times, making it the most-viewed DYK of the group.
 * In June 2010, my place in the list of the all-time most active users entered the top 100.
 * In June 2010, I made my first DYK nomination for an article (Edward Weston) which I did not write.
 * In July 2010, I made my 100,000th edit (giving another long-overdue Barnstar to a deserving user).
 * In December 2010, I wrote my first BLP, rewriting and expanding Chantal Joffe. The DYK for this article was my most viewed so far. (This was also my first DYK which mentioned pornography. Coincidence?) At 4.7k views, it was just short of qualifying for inclusion on the DYK Stats page. I'm sure it would have done better if not for its unfortunate timeslot: it was about an English subject and appeared in England from midnight to six a.m.
 * Continuing the tradition, my 150,000th edit, in February 2011, was used to award another well-deserved Barnstar.
 * On April 1, 2011, the "Batman" DYK hook which set a new record as the most-viewed non-lead hook of all time. (I did not write the article, though.)
 * The April 15, 2011 Colin Campbell Cooper hook was my first to qualify for the DYK Stats page. It generated 12k views for the article, plus 13.5k for the image. This was also the first time I had two hooks appear in the same calendar month (Charles Angrand had been featured on April 7).
 * In June 2011, my position in the list of Wikipedians by number of edits hit number 25.
 * In November 2011 the DYK for Frederick Carl Frieseke received 17,500 hits (plus 10,600 for the image), despite the fact that the hook appeared on Thanksgiving, a low traffic day when Americans were spending time with their families rather than looking at Wikipedia. This hook which generated the most views for any of my articles was my first to feature a nude painting.
 * On April 1, 2012, I had my first April Fools' Day hook for an article I wrote. I composed a total of four of the April Fools' hooks, including two which I plucked out of the regular nominations when I recognized their AFD potential.
 * On April 1, 2013, Walter Baxter became my first article which I began to write solely so that it could appear as an April Fools' Day hook. It was also the first article I ever wrote which was not related to art.
 * On April 1, 2014, a hook which I had nominated on April 3, 2013 appeared as an April Fools' DYK. I believe I set a record for the longest any article has ever been held for a DYK.

DYK
''Note that these appeared when DYK sets were on the Main Page for just six hours. Currently, hooks generally appear for a full day, or sometimes for twelve hours.''

People I've met in real life

 * Ted Danson – I met him at an art museum; wouldn't Diane have been proud?
 * Troy Evans
 * David Garibaldi
 * John Hensley
 * Jeffrey Jones
 * Richard Kind
 * Wallace Langham
 * Roland Reiss
 * Pat Schroeder
 * Jane Seymour
 * Joe Spano
 * Barry Van Dyke
 * Dick Van Dyke
 * Jacob Zachar

Awards
(The above list includes only archived awards. Any more recent ones may be on my current talk page.)