User:Chiswick Chap/About

Hallo, I'm Ian Alexander. If you're curious about my handle, Chiswick is a place (with a silent 'w') and chap means a man. It's चिज़िक चैप in Hindi's Devanagari script, which I think works rather elegantly. Maybe that goes with my Yoga edits.

This user has published peer-reviewed articles in academic journals.

EW is a recipient of the Editor of the Week award, twice.

WJSci is on the WikiJournal of Science's editorial board.

TCC was joint winner of the Core Contest in April 2013.

I have to some extent specialised in biology articles, including evolutionary biology along with its history and philosophy, covering topics (to take a few that begin with A) as different as active camouflage, adaptation, Adaptive Coloration in Animals, aggressive mimicry, agriculture, Ammophila sabulosa, anatomy, animal, animal husbandry, animal navigation, antipredator adaptation, apex predator, aposematism, Apple, Arab Agricultural Revolution, Aristotle's biology (and the man himself), and automimicry not to mention a whole lot of arthropods such as antlion, Anopheles, and aphid, (and I'm delighted these all made it to 'Good Article'). However I've edited on a host of other topics.

I suppose it is natural for an encyclopedia to look into the history of everything: after all, it cannot look forward or even at the present. A liking for Sweden led to "Il signor improvisatore" Carl Michael Bellman's wonderful 18th century songs, especially Fredman's Epistles. Similarly, interest in patterns led to tessellation, a meeting-place of mathematics and art, which led in turn to the splendour of Islamic geometric patterns. Another track is English cuisine, where I found a void in coverage of even the most important historic cookery books, and a remarkable amount of recentism. During the Covid lockdowns I walked the streets of Chiswick every day and did quite a bit on its coverage here. I've had a go at the whole area of living things in culture, another juicy subject with a rich history, and have scoured and renewed much of Wikipedia's Tolkien coverage, including creating and bringing to GA articles such as (among those starting with "A") Addiction to power in The Lord of the Rings, Anachronism in Middle-earth, Ancestry as guide to character in Tolkien's legendarium, Aragorn, and Architecture in Middle-earth.

I seem to enjoy creating order out of chaos, which is fortunate as there is a considerable supply of suitable articles. If you think this is all mad, I won't disagree with you.

Even back in 2011, I thought there was something very wrong with how Wikipedia looks to newbies, enough to write an essay about it. I note in passing that folks sometimes try to improve articles by removing hyphens and suchlike activities, claiming the action is mandated by some or other part of the MOS. Life is basically too short to stuff mushrooms, so I often leave these changes in place, but when I actually peek at the MOS, it usually says the usages were correct, and didn't need fixing. Just saying.

I've long wondered about the difficulty scientists have on Wikipedia. The biochemist Thomas Shafee long ago told scientists how editing worked. I've separately addressed the question of how to turn biology research into a Wikipedia article. Perhaps it's too simple for scientists; but then again, perhaps Wikipedia's simple-minded readership is exactly the problem for very clever, very technical people used to writing for other people like themselves.

I have, by the way, no connection at all with someone who uses the name "Chiswick Chap" on "Twitter"; I do not "tweet".