Special bonus pages!

• Reading list
• Plain-text list of stub templates

So, who is Grutness?

• My name is James Dignan.
• I was born in Barnet, England, 1963, of English and New Zealander parents. (The building I was born in was about 100 metres from the imposing looking three-storey brick building at the top of the photo on the Barnet page).
• I moved to Milton, New Zealand at the age of eleven. I have lived in Dunedin, New Zealand, since 1981. I studied psychology at the University of Otago, gaining a B.A. and an M.Sc. (my M.Sc. supervisor is also apparently a Wikipedian!)
• I currently work as a part-time freelance writer (mainly for the Otago Daily Times) and artist (with two solo exhibitions since 2002).
• My interests are wide-ranging, and include art, music (I was songwriter, singer and guitarist for various bands during the 1980s and 1990s), geography, and flags. The latter interest has led to me being heavily involved with the Flags of the world web resource.
• Family legend has it that my ancestors were ollamhs of the Clan O Duibhgeannain, mediaeval Irish historiographers - the Annals of the Four Masters had a Peregrine O'Duignan as one of its writers. So I suppose I'm following in family footsteps.
• Bizarrely, while voting on WP:VFD I've realised that I pass far more of the criteria for notability than many of the people in articles voted "keep". Of course, I'm not allowed to write a Wikipedia article about myself, but - as a little exercise - I've added one here.

Grutness?

• It is:
  • a headland at the southern end of Scotland's Shetland Islands, and
  • the name I use for my art studio (studio? Oversized cupboard! One day...).

More information about me can be found at my website's Pagina Domestronica.

And the signature?

I use the Uffington White Horse as part of my signature, as I do with my painting. Talking of which, if anyone's interested in seeing my paintings, I have a gallery on my website.

Current Wiki-work

Writing

• Until recently, I was writing small articles (and occasionally big articles) on New Zealand geography. I've done a once-over of the entire country now, so I'll leave it to others for a while.
• I'm occasionally tapping away at some New Zealand music and/or art biographies.
• I'm about to start checking through articles on areas closely associated with New Zealand: Tokelau, Cook islands, Niue, and Ross Dependency.
• I also take occasional dives into the Wikipedia:Cleanup list - something which is well worth doing (try it!) - and have rescued a few substubs and the like.

Categorising

• I spent some time rationalising the categories under which New Zealand geography articles are filed. Hopefully it now looks more like a tree, rather than the web of a drunken spider.
• I hope sometime to start doing the same sort of thing on some of the other New Zealand articles.
• Currently, though, I'm wading through the Category:Geography stubs, moving articles from there into smaller categories (France-geo-stubs, Africa-geo-stubs, etc).

Administration

• As of February 15, 2005, I am officially a Wikipedia Administrator!

Best so far?

• Hmm. Well, my articles on Larnach Castle, Mount Hikurangi, and Westpac Stadium have all been on the front page's "Did you know" list of new articles, which is gratifying.
• I'm also quite pleased with what I managed to achieve from the stub that was Gisborne. Same with the Marlborough Sounds, Waikato, Northland, Wanganui, and Coromandel Peninsula. In fact any new and logical article that fills a glaring gap, and any stub that is turned into something meaningful long enough for subsections is a good thing.
• I've uploaded a few of my favourite holiday snaps to enliven some articles (see Mokoia Island for an example).

Statistics

As of 02:23, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC), I have:

• added 542 new articles and untold categories, disambigs and redirects

Article 500 was List of New Zealand cricketers at 01:22, 26 Dec 2004

• made 25,002 edits (including this one)

Edit 5,000 was a minor dab of Waikanae at 01:07, 16 Dec 2004

Edit 10,000 was adding a {{Norway-geo-stub}} template to Romsdal at 00:55, 27 Jan 2005

Edit 15,000 was a small addition to Rumpole of the Bailey at 09:03, 19 Feb 2005

Edit 20,000 was an addition to MacGuffin at 11:50, 22 Mar 2005

Edit 25,000 was expanding the stub article on the Zimbabwe Rugby Union at 13:08, 15 Apr 2005

• uploaded 30 photographs and 26 drawings

Several of these drawings are found on stub messages, including the annoying kiwi on the NZ stub articles, a larger version of which is to the right.

• added 3 new articles and made 17 edits on the Maori Wikipedia.

Last update by Grutness|^hello? 13:12, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Legalese

I agree to multi-license all my text contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

Barnstars!