User:DutchmanInDisguise

Welcome to my world! I am the Dutchman In Disguise. Even though many of my ancestors were Dutch, I don't use that language, but contribute to Wikipedia in English, in Spanish and in several other languages. Unlike some Wikipedists, I have a life beyond Wikipedia, and only make occasional contributions about random things which interest, or annoy, me.

My contributions in English

Articles

I either created, or was responsible for much of the text, of the following articles:

Dutch-American history

Charles Winans Chipp, American naval officer and Arctic explorer
Cornelis Melyn, early Dutch-American settler and leader – my first attempt at an article
Winans, just an index of various persons with this Dutch surname who have Wikipedia articles; this is known as a disambiguation page in Wikispeak.

Some other disambiguation pages

Butera (surname), a town in Sicily, a saxophonist, two ballplayers and some other interesting people
Carey and Carrey, two related surnames which had been neglected by Wikipedians
Cheney (surname), a page which needed to have a lot of stuff added to it
Coello, a page to which I added a lot of entries after noticing that an Angels pitcher wasn't on it
Ege, a page which I went to work on while watching a Marlins pitcher work
Follett, a surname of several people I've known
Frías, a very common Spanish and Portuguese surname and place name
Galindo (disambiguation), a common Spanish surname and place name
Gillespie, the surname of one of my favorite jazz musicians
Hester, to which I added a lot of entries after noticing that an Angels catcher wasn't on it
Kela, which I expanded while watching Keone pitch for the Rangers
Lackey, which I expanded while watching a Cardinals pitcher pitch
LEWP, which reminds me of my very first home computer
Mahle, which I expanded while watching a new Angels pitcher pitch
Melançon, which I created after watching Mark Melancon playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates; this is a common surname in Louisiana and Québec
Oliveto, the surname of a controversial bishop who was in the news recently
Ove, a Scandinavian first name which was part of the title of a book
Puig, to which I added a lot of entries while watching the great Dodger player hit home runs
Redick, which I created while watching the L. A. Clippers play
Wada, which I expanded while watching a Cubs pitcher work
Wassermann (or Wasserman), a German / Jewish surname borne by a number of interesting people
Wigglesworth (disambiguation), an unusual surname and place name

Music, especially jazz

Chu Berry, jazz tenor saxophonist
Chuck Cecil (broadcaster), a great disc jockey whose final show I listened to the evening of July 3, 2016
Leo Edwards (composer), early 20th century Broadway songwriter
Four Saxophones in Twelve Tones, a 1955 jazz album
Bob Gordon (saxophonist), jazz baritone saxophonist
Billy Gray (comedian), owner of an L. A. night club where some great jazz musicians used to play
André Hodeir, jazz and classical music composer and author
Nappy Lamare, jazz banjoist/guitarist
Mark Masters (musician), a jazz trumpeter, composer and arranger
Roy Porter (drummer), jazz drummer
Steve Propes, disc jockey
Wim Statius Muller, Curaçaoan composer and pianist – my first attempt at translating an article from my ancestors' language into English
Sleepy Stein, pioneering jazz disc jockey and radio station owner
The Jazz Review, a wonderful magazine which was published all too briefly
Mike Zearott, a great musician I knew a long, long time ago

Baseball

Gene Baker, infielder who came up from the PCL Angels to the Cubs and formed their "keystone combo" with the late Hall of Famer Ernie Banks.
Chris Bourjos, Giants outfielder whose son played for the Angels
Joe Gonzales (baseball), who pitched for USC, the Red Sox, and in the PCL
Truck Hannah, major league and PCL Angels baseball player
Bob Kelley, who announced PCL Angels baseball and also Rams football
Clarence Maddern, major league and PCL Angels baseball player
Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá, a Puerto Rican writer who has written several books and articles about ballplayers
Jigger Statz, major league and PCL Angels baseball player
Blaine Walsh, Milwaukee Braves and Green Bay Packers announcer
Two "templates", which make it easier to include links to the Society for American Baseball Research's biography project in a ballplayer's article:
- Template:Sabrbio
- Template:Sabrbio1

California politics and history

Deane Dana, Los Angeles county supervisor
John Anson Ford, Los Angeles county supervisor
Lucy Killea, San Diego county state Senate and Assembly member
Samuel Marshall Perry, Los Angeles city councilman and county supervisor
Pete Schabarum, California politician and football player

Miscellaneous

Feeding America, an organization which helps provide food for needy people all over the U. S. A.
Hartmut Heinrich, German scientist who discovered an important geological event.
Jaunjelgava, a little town in Latvia
Samuel B. Thomsen, first U. S. ambassador to the Marshall Islands
Shag (artist), a very interesting modern artist

Editing

I also do a lot of trivial edits and corrections (wrong links, missing links, typos and grammar errors really bug me):

other contributions

Carlsbad

Not long ago, I was vacationing in the beautiful town of Carlsbad, California. I happened to see a plaque along a street there commemorating the beach city's sister city relationship with some Czech town. It took a lot of reading and research before I figured out that the strangely-named (to my Anglo ears) town is the place that I used to hear of as Carlsbad or Karlsbad.

My curiosity aroused, I did some wiki-browsing and discovered that a lot of articles contained links to plain old Karlsbad, but failed to distinguish between the Karlovy Vary version of that name and a small town in Germany with the same name. There were also a bunch of links to plain old Carlsbad which were put in wiki articles by incompetent or careless editors. The links took you to a "disambiguation page" which left it up to your imagination which town the editor really meant. I've tried to remedy this situation whenever I've had a few minutes to kill and could figure out which town an article was talking about — the one in Bohemia? in California? in Baden? in New Mexico? I hope I've guessed correctly while making these corrections.

Chelyabinsk

15 Feb 2013, I scooped the world, sort of, in Wikipedia's coverage of the 2013 Russian meteor event. At 0633 GMT, after hearing the early news reports, I added a paragraph entitled Meteor shower to the Chelyabinsk article. Well, to be completely truthful, Edward Vielmetti had already wondered about it on the Chelyabinsk talk page 49 minutes earlier. Y para decir la verdad, un usuario anónimo agregó un párrafo al artículo en español unos siete minutos antes de mi cambio al artículo en inglés. Y es posible que habían contribuciones en otros idiomas aún más temprano que éstas.

Surnames and dates

Something which is of much more interest to me than a "category" is a page which lists persons having the same surname. When I have trouble remembering the first name of somebody who interests me it's quite helpful to be able to see all the people who happen to share the same last name. I've helped create, or add to, such surname disambiguation pages (see above), and have also expanded their contents by filling in the birth and death dates on pages which lack them. I believe the inclusion of a person's dates in a surname page is very helpful in determining whether Joe Blow or José Fulano is a contemporary, or somebody from out of the distant past. The most recent of these pages where I supplied names and/or dates is:

Person (surname), and Persson (surname)

"Intitle"

While adding and correcting information on people with certain surnames, I discovered a capability for seeing, in an instant, all articles whose titles included the name, or word, I was interested in. This is done via the "intitle" template. For instance, to see all wiki-articles whose title line contains "Dutchman", click here:

   All pages with titles containing Dutchman

So, having discovered this handy feature, I added the "intitle" template to a number of pages I was working on. What do you think? Is this a worthwhile change, or would you rather not see that unobtrusive link at the bottom of certain pages?

Stuff

some stuff I'm working on

My Wikipedia edit history

Here are the numbers of edits I've made each month to the English Wikipedia:

YEAR	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	TOTAL
2021	4	4
2020	7	1	5	3	8	3	8	6	0	0	2	3	46
2019	11	16	9	17	17	9	17	21	13	6	10	7	153
2018	7	8	6	7	16	11	16	18	19	12	11	15	146
2017	9	13	18	21	9	12	21	16	13	5	20	24	181
2016	30	31	31	54	26	20	43	22	12	25	23	21	338
2015	44	22	24	18	16	21	18	20	19	20	54	19	295
2014	50	34	57	19	60	39	30	26	19	42	39	64	479
2013	69	33	38	60	66	53	97	41	37	145	134	47	820
2012	69	64	81	47	62	66	17	27	23	34	28	37	555
2011	50	20	53	81	80	42	43	80	48	86	90	44	717
2010	49	34	66	23	49	13	30	25	43	33	48	35	448
2009	12	2	11	7	7	28	34	23	29	28	56	52	289
2008	Began editing Wikipedia in December											8	8
GRAND TOTAL OF EDITS:													4,479