User:Matthewedwards/Sandbox/NPD

The current time and date in Los Angeles, California is 09:14, Friday November 29, 2024.

Hi, I am Matthewedwards. Thank you for visiting my page time and reading my profile.

About me

I am a thirty-one year old Englishman living in California. I was born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and I attended The Kingstone School, until my family left England and moved to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. I then attended The Read School, a boarding school in Drax, Selby, North Yorkshire. After living in Gran Canaria for a year, my family moved to Whangarei, New Zealand. I stayed on at Read School, returning to New Zealand in the school holidays.

After leaving school, I spent a year living in New Zealand before returning to Barnsley, where I took up an apprenticeship at Armstrongs Restaurant, which was listed in The Good Food Guide, the Michelin Guide, and the AA Restaurant Guide. When the restaurant was sold, I worked for the Formula 1 team Jordan GP via Sodexho (with the h) as a team chef. It wasn't entirely like this; it seems more professional now. When I did it there'd be days where we would just go to the local McDonalds and buy 60+ burgers and fries! But for two seasons I got to travel all around the world. I had my own yellow racesuits, got to watch each race trackside, met numerous Formula 1 drivers, team principals, technical directors, the fabulous commentator Murray Walker, and – oh yes – the Formula 1 Girls!

In 2000 I returned to Barnsley again and began working as a pastry chef at Brookland's Hotel, home of the famous Barnsley Chop. Two years later I moved to Chevin Country Park Hotel & Spa in Otley, West Yorkshire. After that I worked at Bagden Hall Hotel in Scissett, West Yorks, then the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate, North Yorks. Coincidentally, both are now part of the Classic Lodges group, although neither were when I worked for them.

In 2006 I emigrated to the United States, and began living permanently with my son and girlfriend (now wife). Spending obscene amounts of money on airfare every two months wasn't really the smartest idea! Since living in the US I have owned an ice cream truck and a hot dog cart, moved back into the hotel industry and transferred from back of house to front of house becoming a conference and banqueting manager; however, I am now a stay-at-home dad with two sons, an 8-year-old and a seven-month-old.

What I do here

I created my account on May 10, 2007, although I had been editing Wikipedia as an Anon for about a year prior to that. In 2008 I was asked to be a director of Wikipedia:Featured lists, which meant that I maintained that page and many others associated with it, including Wikipedia:Featured list candidates and Wikipedia:Featured list criteria. My primary function was determining whether or not there was community consensus to promote a nominated WP:List, and close the nomination accordingly. I stepped down from that position in 2009 when real life meant I couldn't commit the time needed to spend on the project. I occasionally participate at WP:Good article nominations, WP:Featured picture candidates, WP:Featured article candidates and WP:Peer review, usually picking out something which interests me no matter what the subject matter is. If I have no real knowledge in it I will usually only point out WP:Manual of style breaches. Upon request, I will try to carry out any other review or if I'm feeling particularly generous, copy edit. Additionally, if you need an image to be mapped, I'm happy to do that, too.

After spending the last two years not editing Wikipedia much, I'm trying to get back into it but looking after two boys makes it hard! I've noticed that a lot of editors who were here before have now left the project , and things seem to operate a lot differently nowadays. The majority of my editing was centered around list-type articles, but I've written a few regular articles as well, and I often end up doing cleanup on the articles I happen to be reading. Although I don't vandal patrol, I do revert whenever I see vandalism to a page on my watchlist. I probably should do more, but all those counter-vandalism programs such as Vandalproof, VandalSniper, WikiBench and Huggle just annoy me.

With regards to my editing, I am usually doing something within the scope of the WP:WikiProject Television, though I quite often venture into something entirely different. If you look through my contribs, it's likely that you'll see I don't edit in the mainspace a lot; instead I write my edits down on paper, then type them out into my sandbox, and then make one large edit to an article. This is especially true for new articles or complete article re-writes.

When I get writer's block, I try to help out with behind-the-scenes stuff that isn't usually noticed by the average editor. There are a number of backlogs which always need attention. I tend to go for redundant media, merging and splitting articles, cleanups, renaming images, orphaned articles and images, and the occasional French to English translation.

I'm also an administrator, although to be fair I've never done much administrative tasks. I stay away from WP:ANI, WP:Deletion discussions, Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, Wikipedia:Requests for permissions, Wikipedia:Requested moves, Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets, and Wikipedia:Usernames for administrator attention. I infrequently go through Category:Candidates for speedy deletion and Category:Proposed deletion.

Some other things that keep me busy from time to time are

CAT:SHORTFIX (Replacing {{shortcut|[[WP:A]]}} with {{shortcut|WP:A}}, and {{shortcut|[[WP:A]]<br>[[WP:B]]}} with {{shortcut|WP:A|WP:B}} in {{shortcut}} and its sister templates)
WP:NOWRAP (Replacing {{nowrap|Entry 1}}{{·}} {{nowrap|Entry 2}} with {{nowrap begin}}Entry 1{{·w}} Entry 2{{nowrap end}}, and {{·}}{{wrap}} and {{·wrap}} with {{·w}} in Navboxes)

I need to create a new list for this

WP:DOC (Replacing {{/doc}} with {{documentation}} in templates)
Category:Album infoboxes lacking a cover
Category: Articles with incorrect citation syntax
Category:Images with inappropriate compression

When I'm bored of all that, User:Sardanaphalus and User:Davidgothberg often have a list of things that need to be done.

Articles

The following articles are ones which I created or expanded considerably.

Good article nominations

I have nominated a handful of articles at WP:GAN, and I have reviewed a large number of articles, too

GAs

	Article	Page	Reviewer	Date started	Date ended	Status
1	Degrassi: The Next Generation	(GAN)	Albacore	March 15, 2008	March 15, 2008
2	"Mother and Child Reunion"	(GAN)	97198	August 15, 2008	August 17, 2008
3	Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel	(GAN)	Mitchazenia	January 17, 2009	January 17, 2009
4	The Million Dollar Homepage	(GAN)	Mitchazenia	February 8, 2009	February 8, 2009
5	Law & Order: Criminal Intent (season 1)	(GAN)	Chzz	May 30, 2009	June 12, 2009
6	"Already Gone" (Kelly Clarkson song)	(GAN)	HJ Mitchell	November 28, 2009	December 7, 2009
7	"Not All Dogs Go to Heaven"	(GAN)	Hunter Kahn	February 16, 2010	February 24, 2010
8	The Boys from Baghdad High	(GAN)	SMasters	April 17, 2010	April 21, 2010

GA reviews

	Article	Review	Nominator(s)	Date started	Date ended	Result
1	Sierra Highway	(GA1)	Moabdave	January 5, 2009	January 13, 2009
2	Clay Aiken	(GA1)	Maria202	October 16, 2009	October 16, 2009
3	Eric McCormack	(GA1)	ThinkBlue	October 15, 2009	October 18, 2009
4	"Señorita" (song)	(GA1)	ThinkBlue	October 20, 2009	October 22, 2009
5	Javine Hylton	(GA1)	Judo112	October 20, 2009	October 20, 2009
6	SexyBack	(GA1)	ThinkBlue	October 22, 2009	October 26, 2009
7	"The Best of Both Worlds" (song)	(GA1)	ThinkBlue	October 22, 2009	October 26, 2009
8	Betty Williams (Coronation Street)	(GA1)	Frickative	April 1, 2010	April 3, 2010
9	Body piercing	(GA1)	Moonriddengirl	April 1, 2010	April 6, 2010
10	"Lovely" (Desperate Housewives)	(GA1)	Hunter Kahn	April 1, 2010	April 10, 2010
11	"Bang" (The Good Wife)	(GA1)	Hunter Kahn Opark 77	April 1, 2010	April 11, 2010
12	Fox Sports Detroit	(GA1)	TomCat4680	April 1, 2010	April 11, 2010
13	Gordonstoun	(GA1)	RudolfSchmidt	April 1, 2010	April 11, 2010
14	Murder of Marwa El-Sherbini	(GA2)	Mootros	April 1, 2010	April 11, 2010
15	"Video Phone" (song)	(GA1)	Legolas2186	April 1, 2010	April 11, 2010
16	"Easy" (Sugababes song)	(GA1)	Jezhotwells	April 11, 2010	April 11, 2010
17	"The Chase" (Desperate Housewives)	(GA1)	Hunter Kahn	April 1, 2010	April 13, 2010

Featured content

Featured Articles

	Article	Date of first edit	Date promoted	Status	Main page
1	Degrassi: The Next Generation	October 26, 2007	April 30, 2008		Y
2	"Mother and Child Reunion"	August 6, 2008	September 23, 2008		Y
3	Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel	December 3, 2008	January 31, 2009		Y
4	The Million Dollar Homepage	January 29, 2009	February 24, 2009		Y
5	The Boys from Baghdad High	August 22, 2009	August 31, 2010		N

Featured lists

	Article	Date of first edit	Date promoted	Status	Main page
1	List of Degrassi: The Next Generation episodes	September 27, 2007	October 14, 2007		N
2	Degrassi: The Next Generation (season 1)	October 12, 2007	February 14, 2008		N
3	Degrassi: The Next Generation (season 2)	October 12, 2007	February 23, 2008		N
3	Degrassi: The Next Generation (season 3)	October 12, 2007	March 10, 2008		N
4	Degrassi: The Next Generation (season 4)	October 12, 2007	March 8, 2008		N
5	Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office	March 12, 2008	March 24, 2008		N
6	List of Scripps National Spelling Bee champions	March 8, 2008	March 24, 2008		N
7	Degrassi: The Next Generation (season 5)	October 12, 2007	April 15, 2008		N
8	Degrassi: The Next Generation (season 6)	September 22, 2007	April 15, 2008		N
9	List of Blue Peter presenters	July 3, 2008	July 16, 2008		N
10	Degrassi: The Next Generation (season 7)	September 23, 2007	August 14, 2008		N
11	List of 24 episodes	January 1, 2009	January 17, 2009		N
12	Tokio Hotel discography	January 3, 2009	January 17, 2009		N
13	Girls Aloud discography	October 26, 2008	January 20, 2009		N
14	List of First Ladies of the United States	January 10, 2009	January 27, 2009		N
15	List of FIFA World Cup finals	January 29, 2009	February 18, 2009		N
16	Sigur Rós discography	February 13, 2009	February 28, 2009		N
17	Rihanna discography	February 14, 2009	February 28, 2009		N
18	Jamelia discography	April 3, 2009	April 25, 2009		N
19	List of winners of the London Marathon	May 12, 2009	June 2, 2009		N

Featured Pictures

Nominations

	File	Creator	Date Promoted	Status
1	File:Burned mobile home neighborhood in California edit.jpg	FEMA / Michael Mancino	January 14, 2009
2	File:Peter Levy BBC.jpg	John Byford	January 20, 2009

Featured sounds

Own work

	File	Nominated by	Date created	Date Promoted	Status
1	File:Barack Obama inauguration speech 2009.ogg	Self	January 20, 2009	February 1, 2009
2	File:Barack Obama Oath of Office.ogg	Self	January 20, 2009	February 1, 2009

Featured topics

	Topic	Date promoted	Status
1	Seasons of Degrassi: The Next Generation	April 26, 2008

Awards

Unfortunately, I think it speaks volumes that I haven't had a barnstar since 2008! lol

		The WikiProject Scotland Award of Excellence
		This award is given with many thanks to Matthewedwards for assistance in helping Timeline of prehistoric Scotland to become a Featured List from Ben MacDui, 4 May 2008.

		Ray of Sunshine Award
		You, User:Matthewedwards, are a Ray of Sunshine! You know how sometimes you hate checking your watchlist, especially when you see that certain someone or an IP has edited your favorite articles? The Ray of Sunshine is bestowed on that person that, when you see their name at the top of your watchlist, you know that all is right with the world, you can relax, and do something besides cleaning up another mess. I especially appreciate your helpful contributions to all Degrassi-related articles! Thanks again! - Keng - t \| c - 18:27, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For your fine featured list and WikiProject Degrassi edits. I look forward to your involvement with the Lost WikiProject. –thedemonhog talk • edits 04:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

		The Reviewers Award
		To Matthewedwards, for your useful reviews of every nomination at WP:FLC. They are much appreciated. Thank you! Crzy cheetah 08:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

		The Guidance Barnstar
		Thank you for helping me setting up a committed identity! NuclearWarfare ^{contact me}_{My work} 14:57, 2 September 2008 (UTC)