User:Alvestrand

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Note on languages: I can read Danish, Swedish and Nynorsk pretty fluently (especially nynorsk) - everyone who speaks Norwegian will do, because of how closely the languages are related. But asking me to write Danish and Swedish will be a disaster. In German, which I've studied for years in high school, I get the sense of the text, more or less.

If you want to know more about who I am, check out *blush* Harald Tveit Alvestrand.

Projects

These days, I don't do much Wikipedia stuff - I've been working over at Geni.com instead.

But most of my on-Wiki time is spent on

Wikipedia:Find-A-Grave famous people
- which started as a list of ~46.000 persons that might or might not have a Wikipedia article, now whittled down to ~13.000 names of people who probably don't have one. I regard this as a perfect channel for the "do something else" urge that tends to strike at inopportune moments - you can do a worthwhile effort (like search for a person under different spellings and note the result) in a minute or two while waiting for something to compile, or you can check out fifty while lending an ear to the evening news.

Other projects I've been dabbling in:

The only excuse for my obsession with that particular letter is my middle name....

I have promised to help with:

Also (things that I note here so that I do not forget):

References

Stuff I look for all the time:

  • Wikipedia:Vandalism - what to do if the vandals strike again
  • Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion - getting rid of some strange stuff
  • WP:WSS/ST
    - stub hierarchy for marking short articles
  • WP:PROD
    - how to mark an unworthy article for deletion in a week or so
  • Category:Fundamental is the top of the category hierarchy
  • WP:CSD#Deletion_templates
    - what to do for really nonsense articles

Contributions

Stuff I've started or significantly edited (kept here because my watchlist is too long):

Pages I watch

These are pages I tend to check out when they appear on my watchlist, because of my history with them:

As part of copyvio stuff and dead-end pages work, I've touched a lot of pages. Some of them rather forcefully.

Latest watch: Pepe Iglesias - exists on other Wikipedia, made an extreme-stub with a translate request. Waited to see if someone picks it up before creating more from the F-A-G people with articles on other Wikipedias - it did happen, but it took 6 months. Useful as calibration.

TODO list

Learn to use {{cite book}} and {{cite journal}} and apply them to pages above

More generic:

Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles

Signs of serious brain damage

On Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits of September 23, 2006, I was listed as #2210, with 4366 edits.

  • Nov 4, 2006: #2045 - 5262. Worse and worse.
  • Nov 30, 2006: #1892 - 5965.
  • 9 February 2007: #1798 - 7065
  • 27 May 2007: #1660 - 8956
  • 2 August 2007: #1639 - 9793
  • 1 November 2007: #1410 - 12349
  • 20 January 2008: #1251 - 14604
  • 23 July 2008: #1410 - 15462 (hooray - finally falling!)
  • 25 February 2009: #1154 - 21538 (ouch. Up again.)
  • 22 April 2009: #1134 - 22417
  • 19 February 2011: #1381 - 26,136. 2010 was a quiet year

The signs of brain damage is that I care enough to note it, and that my user page is the first place I think of to jot down that fact.... of course, number of edits are meaningless (see Wikipedia:Editcountitis for details).

And - someone's nominated me for adminship. Successfully.

In memoriam

I used to have on my projects list:

But after this discussion, there doesn't seem much point to continuing the work.

And some other stuff

Where else should one keep these?

The Working Man's Barnstar
This well earned barnstar was brought to Alvestrand today by the letter "T". Thank you for all your hard work! — Catherine\talk 20:55, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
The Invisible Barnstar
Thank you for your continued work and assistance on Wikipedia:Copyright problems, reviewing copyright status and generally cleaning up articles that need attention or a referee. Your good work goes unseen unless someone disagrees ;) Jeepday (talk) 12:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
What a Brilliant Idea Barnstar
For finding the sources for Merck headquarters, couldn't have done it without you! MBisanz talk 19:49, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
The Articles for Creation Barnstar
For helping to complete the OBI missing biographies list! Jokestress (talk) 21:08, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I'm an awesome Wikipedian!
I'm an awesome Wikipedian!
This user has been identified as an Awesome Wikipedian and was awarded his own day.