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User:Noswall59

This user created, researched, wrote and nominated for FL "Listed buildings in Sleaford" become a featured article on 12 June 2024.
This user improved and nominated for FA "Robert Roberts (author)" become a featured article on 14 July 2021.
This user improved and nominated for FA "Skegness" become a featured article on 14 September 2020.
This user created, wrote, nominated for FA "St Botolph's Church, Quarrington" become a featured article on 13 September 2016.
This user rewrote, researched, nominated for FA "St Denys' Church, Sleaford" become a featured article on 14 October 2015.
This user helped "List of Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order appointed by King Edward VII" become a featured list on 25 March 2015.
This user helped "List of Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order appointed by Queen Victoria" become a featured list on 15 October 2014.
This user created, wrote and nominated for GA "Ayscoghe Boucherett" become a good article on 2 November 2014.
This user created, wrote and nominated for GA "Bass Maltings, Sleaford" become a good article on 12 July 2015.
This user Re-wrote and nominated for GA "Carre's Grammar School" become a good article on 5 March 2016.
This user Re-wrote and nominated for GA "George Bellew" become a good article on 15 March 2016.
This user Re-wrote and nominated for GA "HMS Ramillies (1892)" become a good article on 7 May 2016.
This user Re-wrote and nominated for GA "HMS Resolution (1892), Lincolnshire" become a good article on 9 May 2016.
This user created, wrote and nominated for GA "Henry Fownes Luttrell" become a good article on 20 January 2015.
This user created, wrote and nominated for GA "Manor House, Sleaford" become a good article on 30 April 2015.
This user Re-wrote and nominated for GA "Quarrington, Lincolnshire" become a good article on 15 March 2016.
This user expanded and nominated for GA "Sleaford" become a good article on 11 June 2015.
This user rewrote and nominated for GA "St George's Academy" become a good article on 29 October 2015.
This user created, wrote and nominated for GA "Westholme House" become a good article on 23 July 2015.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Recognised content
Featured content

List of Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order appointed by Queen Victoria · List of Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order appointed by King Edward VII · St Denys' Church, Sleaford · St Botolph's Church, Quarrington () · Skegness · Robert Roberts (author) · Listed buildings in Sleaford

Good articles

Ayscoghe Boucherett  · Henry Fownes Luttrell  · Manor House, Sleaford · Sleaford · Bass Maltings, Sleaford · Westholme House · St George's Academy · Carre's Grammar School · George Bellew · Quarrington, Lincolnshire · HMS Ramillies (1892) · HMS Resolution (1892) · Thomas Edward Knowles Stansfield

Barnstars
The Special Barnstar
For all your great contributions to Wikipedia's coverage of British political figures and all since joining Wikipedia two months ago! You're one of the best new editors I've ever seen and your work is very much appreciated. Voceditenore (talk) 15:26, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
Good Article Barnstar
For your contributions to bring Manor House, Sleaford to Good Article status. Thanks, and keep up the good work! Sotakeit (talk) 14:47, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
Imperial Triple Crown Jewels
I am also pleased to award you the Imperial Triple Crown Jewels for your second set of nominations. Keep up the good work! Freikorp (talk) 08:27, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
The Good Article Barnstar
For your contributions to bring St Denys' Church, Sleaford to Good Article status. Thanks, and keep up the good work!  — Calvin999 19:04, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

people and places of British history

Thank you for quality articles on places of historic and natural interest, such as St Denys' Church, Sleaford, and Dolebury Warren, and historic British figures such as Henry Fownes Luttrell, for being open to debate which "can lead to greater reflection and allow for improvements", and for "quietly get on with editing", ---Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:52, 1 December 2015 (UTC) you are an awesome Wikipedian!

The Editor's Barnstar
Your wonderful articles coupled with your amiable style of interaction indeed makes you an amazing editor! Sainsf <^>Talk all words 11:27, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
Four Award
Congratulations! You have been awarded the Four Award for your work from beginning to end on St Botolph's Church, Quarrington. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:36, 30 April 2017 (UTC)
The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
Thank you so much for all your work creating the decade lists for Fellows of the British Academy. Your effort is greatly appreciated! Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 01:52, 28 July 2017 (UTC)
The Original Barnstar
For your excellent comprehensive work on Sleaford! ♦ Dr. Blofeld 07:58, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
WikiProject Latin Barnstar of Merit
I've just learnt that R. A. B. Mynors will be promoted to FA status. Thank you so much for your interest in the article and all your patience and help in improving it. Here's a barnstar; it looks rather odd but I thought it was appropriate for the topic. Hoping to work with you again in the future, Modussiccandi (talk) 17:59, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
Reviews
Good Articles
Dolebury Warren (passed) · The Crescent, Taunton (on review)
Peer reviews
Mami Kawada · Fall of the Western Roman Empire · Princess Alice of the United Kingdom
Updated DYK query Did You Know?

Fenestraja plutonia (Passed, 2 March 2015) · Henry Aaron Hill‎ (Passed, 5 March 2015) · Horace Batten (Passed, 1 April 2015)

For a list of articles I have created or significantly expanded, please see my significant contributions. A partial list of current, future and potential projects can be found here.

Hello and welcome to my user page. I joined Wikipedia on 27 April 2014 and contributed my first article shortly afterwards. A researcher based in the UK, my academic background is in history and politics; I contribute to these areas, although rarely in relation to my real-world specialisms. I am frequently too busy off-line to edit regularly and my editing has recently become very sporadic, though I still check in often. When I get time, you'll usually find me creating or improving articles about British people, places and history.

My interests are varied. I've created hundreds of articles about a wide range of topics, focusing especially on academia, politics, military history and British places; a major achievement involved creating lists of Fellows of the British Academy, which has helped to turn many red links blue. I am also particularly happy with my work on topics about Lincolnshire; my main achievements in this area include getting Skegness to FA and Sleaford to GA (alongside bringing several other Sleaford articles to GA-level). I'm also glad to have transformed Robert Roberts (writer) from a one-sentence stub to an FA; Roberts is a fascinating, underappreciated figure and I hope this article goes a little way to introducing more people to his work. I am hoping to work a few more articles up to GA or FA standard, as time and resources allow.

My editing

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I was drawn to editing because I grew frustrated to find so many Wikipedia articles which were missing or in a poor state. After a while, it dawned on me that "if you want something doing, do it yourself" so I got stuck in. To date, I have over 14,000 edits, most to the article space (>78%) and much of the rest is related to producing content (I used to draft in my userspace). I have created over 1,000 mainspace articles and substantially improved many others, mostly biographies or lists of notable people. I remain engaged in improving Wikipedia's patchy coverage of people in under-represented fields of British history, politics and society. I have also worked to improve our coverage of women and non-Anglophone people; I've created dozens of articles about women.

Achievements

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The following are some major achievements of mine:

  • I brought several articles about Sleaford up to GA or FA-standards and improved many others (mostly 2014–16)
  • I have created wiki-linked, comprehensive lists of people receiving top-level state honours in the UK, including knights and dames of the Royal Victorian Order (2014–17) and Knights Bachelor (2020 onwards). There are still many more to go, but each list is complete in itself; I have used these to guide article creation.
  • I created a list of every Fellow of the British Academy (completed in 2015–16) and have linked all of the entries, with many being redlinks. I have used this to create dozens of articles for FBAs; I resumed this work in 2021 and have created articles for every missing fellow elected before the early 1980s.
  • I have created wiki-linked lists of top-level academics at several UK institutions, including Titles of Distinction awarded by the University of Oxford (2018) and holders of named chairs of music (2018–19). I have used this to create dozens of articles on notable subjects.
  • I have created wiki-linked lists of every member of the various Estonian legislatures (2019) and created dozens of articles for members.
  • I am in the process of writing up biographical lists of people appointed Queen's Counsel in England and Wales (see for instance 1950 silks).
  • In 2020 I created lists of every member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, the country's national academy.
  • I am interested in expanding Wikipedia's coverage of senior British civil servants and have worked on several lists of them; I have created several dozen articles for permanent secretaries.
  • I essentially rewrote the page on Skegness in 2020 and brought that up to FA standard.

Long-term projects

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As of September 2021, these are projects I intend to work on over time, often sporadically and to no schedule. Many of them are already ongoing. If anyone reads this and wants to help, please do!

  • Improve articles on major Lincolnshire towns: Grantham (high priority; need access to an unpublished PhD thesis), Scunthorpe (next in line), Sleaford (bring up to date and to FA level), Grimsby (must acquire some sources); longer-term: Lincoln, England, Boston, England, Stamford, History of Lincolnshire. Also, bring Kesteven and Sleaford High School to GA (will need access to offline newspaper sources).
  • Create articles for all Fellows of the British Academy (list of missing FBAs is here)
  • Produce navbox templates for FBAs by year of appointment
  • Create articles for all modern Permanent Secretaries of UK government ministries, departments, etc. (list of UK officials is here; heads of pre-devolution Scottish departments are here and need notability assessing on a case-by-case basis)
  • Create a list of Permanent Secretaries of Northern Irish government departments
  • Finish producing complete lists of post-1900 Knight Bachelor appointments (about a third of the way there)
  • Produce lists of GCB, KCB and DCB appointments, and link (working on offline)
  • Produce lists of GCMG, KCMG and DCMG appointments, and link (yet to begin)
  • Produce lists of GBE, KBE and DBE appointments, and link (yet to begin)
  • Link all knights, dames and 2-star-plus military officers in post-1900 honours lists for the UK (about a quarter of the way there)
  • Very long-term: populate lists of knights of the orders of chivalry (partially done for Royal Victorian Order)

Resources

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I have been privileged to have access to academic libraries and many pay-walled online resources in the past, which I have used when editing Wikipedia; I considered this rewarding and hope that it helps to make knowledge more accessible to "ordinary" people across the world. Even if the topics I research sometimes seem esoteric or obscure, I believe that, if anything, those hard-to-research articles are the ones which give Wikipedia its strength. Anyone can Google a fact about the Roman Empire, but it was much harder to find stuff about, say, the agricultural historian G. E. Fussell before I created his article. Now it's there, with links to further reading. When you do this 1,000 times over, it's likely having a positive effect.

These days, I don't have ready access to as much online material, but I do have a good library of books and pamphlets about Lincolnshire and British history and still have access to many helpful resources. I also subscribe to the British Newspaper Archive.

Writing

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When it comes to writing, I don't profess to be the best, but I have some recognised content under my belt (see right) and am always trying to improve. My initial efforts needed some copy-editing, but I've come a long way since then and have accrued real-world writing experience. I'd like to produce more high-quality stuff, but I rarely have the time for that sort of sustained effort. Hence, I've taken to making short articles (usually in sporadic batches) when I have free time.

Other stuff

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I gather that most Wikiprojects are moribund and I see little point in adding my name to most, even in areas where I am active. Nevertheless, I am a member of the following:

My approach to Wikipedia is relatively simple: it would not be an encyclopaedia without content. That is central to its mission to deliver the sum of all knowledge to anyone for free. I believe firmly in that mission. I want to help make Wikipedia better and I believe that its articles have to be high-quality and scholarly for them to fulfil this aim. Yet when I joined my university, I was shocked at how much is stored behind castle-like walls (sometimes literally, sometimes digitally or financially). I want to help make knowledge free because I think it empowers people (though obviously I respect copyright and intellectual property, etc.) It's in my nature to quietly get on with editing or creating articles which are more obscure or in need of improving. Doing so tends to avoid conflicts with other editors, and I generally prefer to avoid conflict anyway. I am a believer that we should aim to communicate in a civil and, above all, constructive manner. There really is no need to be a jerk.