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Greetings. I am Vasileios Peidis, or Basil Peidis for those of you who think of the Greek language as little more than the epitome of scientific gibberish. Although I enjoy my ducal persona and indulge in frequent bursts of concentrated pomposity, I have never cared much about keeping my identity secret. This is partly because editing Wikipedia is far less popular in Greece than in the great countries of the developed world and therefore I am unlikely ever to discover a Wikipedian in the wild—indeed, I haven't met a single one so far, even though users of the encyclopaedia are many. It's also less likely here to find those sorry lunatics who would take an on-line dispute and start stalking or threatening the object of their misdirected hatred. (Greece may be up to its neck in debt, but this level of insanity is mostly limited to the workings of the government—and I wrote this long before the country became world-famous for its financial troubles.) Finally, I like to keep myself honest, and to ensure that my actions and words will be true to who I am. Anonymity is nice, but it is never completely assured, and I do not wish to do something for which I'll be ashamed if it is traced back to me.

I live on the edge of Katerini, a fairly average town in northern Greece with a rather popular beach (especially for Eastern Europeans) and neighbouring mountains more famous than itself. I am male, Caucasian and in my mid-twenties, which means I fall squarely in the main demographic of Wikipedia editors, though my activity levels peaked early (in 2008) and have since lingered mostly in the double digits per month. As the sole concession to privacy (and to not having people mistake the above for a dating profile), I have decided not to upload a photograph of myself, so if you want a pictorial representation of me that is more human-looking than my fictional coat of arms, just picture a dashing young man, dark-haired and clean-shaven, with piercing brown eyes and an athletic build I cannot help you much. Imagine a stranger, though, a man in tails and a top hat, emerging through the shadows to speak absurd things and use his lion-headed walking stick to strike people in the shins, before disappearing again. The mysterious figure will be completely out of place on the warm, sunny, distinctly un-foggy shores of the Thermaic Gulf, of course—not to mention sweating profusely—but you will choose to ignore that, won't you?

About me

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I was born on New Year's Day, 1989, but contrary to early expectations I am not a lucky person at all. Just as well; I am a rationalist, and I do not believe in superstitions, UFOs, astrology or God. But my birthday is the source of my Christian name: 1 January is the feast day of St Basil the Great, and I was named after him.

I am three-quarters Greek and one-quarter German; my father and my maternal grandmother are descended from the Pontos region of the southern Black Sea coast, and my maternal grandfather was from Berlin. Even though I have largely forgotten the German I learnt a few years ago (or at least its abysmally difficult grammar), and keep postponing that big revision, I can still say "Ich bin ein Berliner" and get away with it, despite the fact that I've never actually visited the city.

I try to avoid physical work and I rarely exercise, although I am quite fond of walking and cycling, especially when I have good company. On the other hand, I don't mind mental work as long as I consider the subject interesting; as a matter of fact, I am completely incapable of staying idle, doing nothing at all. I spend many hours weekly on my various hobbies and pet projects, which often relate somehow to some manner of list-making or information-gathering. I am also quite relaxed, preferring to avoid hurrying for most things, but these slow rhythms oddly co-exist with a certain restlessness, manifesting in fidgeting, varying sleeping hours and endless and often fast talking. This mixture, combined with a latent perfectionism, results in my seemingly being unable to carry out large, time-consuming projects, which I am soon bored of, favouring small-scale or multi-stage undertakings instead.

My lifestyle is not especially healthy or unhealthy. On one hand, I do not smoke or drink coffee, I seldom drink alcohol (and then almost always wine, preferably red), I like fruit—with a preference to apples, strawberries and tangerines—I walk a lot and I use the stairs as much as possible. That said, I avoid most vegetables, eat lots of fried food, drink at least a litre of Fanta Orange per week, consume liberal amounts of junk food, and shall forever treasure my passion for milk chocolate. In addition, I am rather picky when it comes to cooked food, though I have been improving on that front in recent years, and I have convinced myself to try new things regularly.

I am something of a natural devil's advocate, often exhibiting contrarian tendencies in conversations, so I may end up supporting the underdog in a dispute in spite of my better instincts. Natural curiosity, a sense of humour and good conversational skills are amongst the traits I value in people. I do not frequent night-clubs or bars because they do not offer one the ability to talk, preferring cafeterias and restaurants instead, as well as home gatherings. Although I rarely view films or play board games with friends, they are activities I enjoy. I also like reading Agatha Christie books, listening to music on the radio and watching documentaries and films on television, while my current favourites with regards to TV series include Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, The Good Wife and The Killing. Older favourites are Early Edition, Fringe, Life on Mars, Monk and The X-Files.

Travels

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I have not travelled extensively in my life, but I have had my breaks. I've seen glimpses from many Greek towns and cities, as well as a few European ones, but I have only extensively seen the places I have visited on holidays and the longest of my school trips: Corfu, Kavala, Xanthi, and parts of Athens and Chalcidice. Furthermore, I had the chance to go sightseeing in Venice with my father in 1999, as part of a month-long tour of central-west Europe during which I saw much of the road network of Italy, Austria, Switzerland and Germany, as well as some of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. I have never flown, and I have only ever left continental Europe when visiting the islands of Corfu (twice), Thasos and Venice, perhaps including the ferry trip to and from Italy and one passage across the Gulf of Corinth a few years before the construction of the Rio–Antirrio bridge. (The Peloponnese itself does not count as an island, being separated from the rest of the Greek mainland only by the Corinth Canal.)

My desire is to see more of Europe in the future, especially the United Kingdom—and London in particular—which I have for a long time been intent to visit, as well as Germany and Austria. I should also be delighted to cross the Atlantic and visit New York City and potentially other places in New England (including Boston), the part of the United States that I like the most. Finally, a trip to Australia would be of great interest to me, though I'd probably avoid going to most places in Asia, Africa or South America, a result of my immense appreciation for, and extreme dependence on, the Western civilisation.

Interests

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I have a lot of interests, and that is probably an understatement. Although, as is natural, they don't cover all areas (I'm blissfully unaware of most of the world of sports, to furnish an example, though I do enjoy watching the Olympics), they extend to many areas of human civilisation. Too many, actually, as my heavy schedule will leave me little time to pursue even a few of them. If I had one wish, it would be for the day to comprise 36 hours as opposed to 24 (with the corresponding requirements for sleep remaining stable at eight hours, of course). Nonetheless, I seize every opportunity for study that crops up (to the detriment of my success at school), and can get easily carried away when clicking my way through Wikipedia, learning new things and acting my WikiGnome part in the process.

The subjects which follow are the ones that appeal to me the most. I have "capped" this part so that it won't occupy a disproportionate length of the page; not all are interested in what interests me, after all.

More details on my interests

Heraldry

For the last few years, heraldry has been my first and foremost interest outside Wikipedia. This is not saying much, as Wikipedia has taken up most of the time left over by my studies, my limited social life, and my biological needs of food and sleep, but it's still notable. I had attempted several times to create coats of arms, with varying results, until in 2005 I took up the subject more seriously and searched the Internet for relevant information, which I promptly found. I do not own books on the subject (although I'd like to); all I know is thanks to the free knowledge of our times. One of the reasons, I suppose, why I like Wikipedia so much. I am mostly interested in British heraldry (basically English, as Scottish heraldry has certain notable differences), for several reasons, primarily because of my Anglophilic sentiments and because I don't have enough knowledge of either the French or German language to sufficiently comprehend non-British blazons. Plus, it is the first kind of heraldry I have ever heard of, and the one heraldic tradition that still remains very alive today, to a great extent due to the continued existence of the British Monarchy (of which I am a supporter, and say whatever you want—I live in the cradle of democracy and I have seen the "perks"). I know little about family coats of arms, as I find civic arms both more interesting and more easily accessible through the Internet. I shall recognise quite a few of them on sight, and I even have a list of personal favourites somewhere in the back of my head. Yet, I find it unavoidable that I'll deal with the subject later on, as well as with genealogy (which is intimately connected with heraldry); interesting as it is, I know for a fact that my selective memory will impede me a good deal in actually memorising a lot of coats of arms and their owners, although I shall certainly be better at it than at many of my school lessons.

Personal arms

One of the products of my heraldic knowledge is my own coat of arms, which I have designed and drawn myself; its blazon and image can be found in my main user page. The quarterings are quite plain in order to look old (it is a rule of thumb that the simpler the design, the more ancient the arms). The first quartering is the one I actually started with, and features towers, one of my favourite charges; the second and fourth are modified versions of real coats of arms (Humberside and Cleethorpes respectively); the third I have created with several criteria in mind, mostly in order to balance the rest of the design. The bordure was added shortly afterwards, and I find that it greatly improved the final outcome, mixing the colours and balancing the shield. The supporters are sea-lions, one of my favourite heraldic beasts along with griffins, and one with heavy symbolisms. The crest is a winged boar, derived from the old Grimsby coat of arms, and intended to create several puns (as well as to hint to my fondness of Harry Potter). The basic colours ("tinctures") are blue and white, a reference to Greece; blue is also my favourite colour. The Dukes of Waltham's traditional sources of wealth are supposed to be real estate and the food industry, and that is reflected in the punning motto. There are strong marine themes throughout the achievement: from the colours and motto to the supporters and their wavy compartment. Finally, there are a couple of references to England, the most obvious being the boar's wings.

History

I have always held high the view that if one is not aware of one's history, one is doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. I would even expand this to include those who are aware of their history, but take it too lightly. They also say history goes in circles. I've heard, on the other hand, about a more interesting theory: history follows the course of a spiral. That is, certain motifs are repeated but manifest themselves differently each time, based on the geopolitical, social, economical, and technological state and situation of the world and of the people leading it. To me, this makes more sense. Every event is unique, after all. In any case, I like history for its own sake, and I enjoy studying about eras and nations, great leaders and celebrated intellectuals, the rise and fall of empires and the timeline of the ever-shifting borders of states, social revolutions and technological breakthroughs, wars and treaties, alliances and backstabbings, artistic movements and political parties, military campaigns and major sieges, epic exploration expeditions and spectacular sea battles, devastating calamities and admirable reconstructions. These examples can only hint at the diversity of events and personalities one can encounter during an examination of any history, be it the history of a nation, of an era, or the biography of an influential person. Life is often even more interesting than fiction, and the latter is inspired by the former anyway. My fondness of history is one of the reasons why I like fixing succession boxes: I have the chance to skim through multitudes of articles I should normally have never seen, and travel through chains of succession of titles and offices occupied by important or, at least, interesting personalities. And even the viewpoint can be intriguing, as history looks very different indeed when one looks at it in reverse (I have to work on many chains from the present backwards). Instead of seeing events unfold, one keeps being surprised by developments one has been taking for granted. As a Greek, I am naturally interested in the history of Ancient Greece. Even so, I think I would like to study it anyway and irrespective of descent, as I find Ancient Roman history equally intriguing, yet I am no Italian. On the other hand, my Greek ancestry does seem to cause in me a mild interest in Byzantine history, which might have been absent otherwise. Most fascinated I am, however, by later British history, from the Tudors onwards. The Victorian era and the years of the British Empire are, as my userboxes testify, my favourite time periods, and I read for them and seek to learn more about them at every opportunity. By the way, knowledge of history can be more useful than one can imagine in some areas that initially seem completely irrelevant, like cinema. I am referring, of course, to period films. And I have been able to appreciate some of the jokes in Blackadder that I should have been unable to had I not known what little I know about English history.

Geography

I love knowing the world around me. All the different places, with their names and histories, and the connection of each place with a wider network of rivers, mountains, seas, or cities, and a patchwork of nations and civilisations covering from centuries to entire millennia, is something that fascinates me, and in my opinion is worth studying. I have always believed that everyone should have at least a basic understanding of their homeland, its place in the world, and the various continents, countries, and oceans. Needless to say, I have been disappointed. The educational systems in general, and that of my country in particular, do not instil into the students the desire to learn, and they all tend to forget the little they have been taught in school, which usually encourages nothing but pointless memorising. I find the basics not enough for myself, however; I want to have perfect knowledge of the oceans, seas, and large or important bays, of the location of each country on the globe (even though I cannot memorise all the state capitals in the world, especially those with names too difficult to even pronounce), the basics about all the great rivers, mountains and mountain ranges, islands, peninsulae and capes, and I'd like to know the historic names of most regions. I want to know which are the largest forests, what is the shape of the most important lakes, and how the greatest cities of the world are laid out. Though I know much already, I still have many things to learn (maps are very useful in this process, as visual teaching means are often the best—I also happen to love maps). And I will not rest until I manage to remember the relative positions of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia, which I always confuse. At least I haven't forgotten where Indonesia is! Most importantly, I very much want to have a perfect knowledge of European geography, much more than that of Asia or America. As I am very fond of the Old Continent, as it is known, or the garden of the world, as I like to refer to it, where everything is in the human scale and there is the most amazing variety of elements both natural (landscapes, flora and fauna) and human (nations, histories, customs, art, languages). Though my knowledge about European mountains is a little lacking, and I still occasionally confuse the capitals of the Baltic states, Europe is the area of the world the geography of which I know best and I am most interested in being further educated in.

Architecture

[...]

Work in Wikipedia

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I used to identify myself as a WikiGnome and Metapedian, who avoided contributing content or meddling with images and references. This is no longer true, as my work on the Palace of Westminster has led me to embark on the long journey of mastering citation styles and templates and improving my skills in searching, researching and sifting sources, while I have also purchased some specialised books for the first time and become acquainted with the ways of on-line commerce. Thus, many of my edits now concern said article and others closely linked to it, as part of a long-term master plan.

Nevertheless, the WikiGnome in me lives on, and I often like to fix typos and technical errors in articles which I happen to read. Aside from improving the style of articles, I am particularly drawn to disambiguation pages, which are gateways to many busy or important articles, and I enjoy streamlining them. Navigation in general is of great interest to me, and two other areas in which I work are redirects and linking—see also WP:SILLIWILI, where I judged the entries in early 2010. I am also well-versed in succession boxes; I used to be actively involved with WikiProject Succession Box Standardization, and I still occasionally edit succession boxes in articles, as well as contribute to the project. I often think about resuming my active role in the future, and indeed I very much want to, but a trickle of edits punctuated by short bursts of more intense activity are all I can manage.

For a full list of my edits, I refer you to the usual place. An edit count is also available; both of them can be found in the navigational template which graces the bottom of my userspace pages.

Compulsions and linguistic preferences

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When editing pages, I usually also make a few invisible cosmetic improvements: changes which are not obvious to readers, and which I shouldn't dare spend edits for—I always do something more substantial at the same time—but which I think improve, and bring some order to, the edit window. These are mostly:

  • more spacing (for clarity)
    • a space after bullets, colons, and semicolons in lists, and between a heading and its equal signs
    • an empty line before and after every heading, hatnote, table, and image
    • a second empty line before the succession box or first navbox, so that it won't stick to the last line of text; I make exceptions for navboxes when the visual result is good without the extra space
  • less spacing (when completely useless)
    • I cannot stand double spaces in prose, and I tend to convert them to single
    • I remove spaces in empty lines or at the end of paragraphs when I spot them (not easy but wikEd helps); this often kind of made up for the spaces I added, though I don't see them as much nowadays
  • links
    • if the first part of a piped link does not start with a capital letter, I make it so (a lower-case initial is not as invisible as some prefer to think; it shows in pop-ups)
      • similarly, if I see many templates use a capital first letter, I apply this consistently, but I rarely do it if there is no precedent there
    • one of my worst pet peeves is a piped link with a plural s or something similar trailing it—I've made it my mission to change every [[Blah|Bleh]]s I see to [[Blah|Blehs]]
  • dashes
    • I very often change HTML dashes to their Unicode counterparts, which are far less intrusive (if someone is in doubt about what they see, they can always check preview)
  • redirects
    • always in capitals, and the target link with a capital first letter

Some of these are simple, harmless quirks of mine, but I find that most of these changes make editing a tiny bit easier. Spacing, especially, can help one without the experience of veteran editors or the privileges of wikEd's colour highlighting find their way through otherwise crowded pages and confusing lumps of Wiki-code. I think it's worth the few extra bytes.

All this applies to the mainspace. I shouldn't change anything in user pages but the most blatant of errors, and that with the permission of the pages' creators, but pages in the project namespace are not safe from me. In talk pages, I generally only insert empty lines between posts in conversations using colons (and remove them in conversations with bullets).

Language and punctuation
UKThis user uses British English.
This user is not British, but can speak with a British accent.
AmE-0 This user dislikes American 'English' (common grammatical and spelling errors mistaken for dialect).
to¦goThis user chooses to sometimes use split infinitives.
byThe passive voice may be used by this user.
with, at, in, for, to...This user has no opinion about ending a sentence with a preposition.
Latin Plurals: "Data is are..." This user uses "data", "media", "memoranda", "criteria", and "agenda" as the plurals of "datum", "medium", "memorandum", "criterion", and "agendum".
alternate
alternative
This user does not alternate between "alternate" and "alternative" because he or she knows that the former is not an alternative for the latter.
firemanfighter
mankind
This user supports the use of gender-neutral language when it reasonably exists as an alternative to a common gendered word.
theyThis user frequently uses singular they as it is a handy gender-neutral pronoun.
whomThis user insists upon using whom wherever it is called for, and fixes the errors of whomever he sees.
which
that
This user typically uses "which" and "that" interchangeably.
snkdThis user does not generally use the word sneak, but if he did he would use sneaked as the past tense.
you oneThis user knows that one should not use "you" in encyclopedia articles or other formal works.
if & whetherThis user knows how to use "if" and "whether" correctly.
“,;:’This user is a punctuation stickler.
,This user fixes comma-splices; they are annoying.
;This user is addicted to semicolons; he uses them frequently.
"…"!
US vs. UK
This user uses "logical quotation marks". Forcing internal punctuation leads to factual errors. It's not a nationalistic style issue!
A, B, and
A and B
This user prefers to use the serial comma only when its omission can be confusing.
. TheThis user does not put two spaces after a full stop.

Awards

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The distribution of barnstars is not something I spend much thought on, and I was quick to disable WikiLove when it appeared on my interface; I prefer simple politeness in my everyday interactions with fellow editors, and I consider it more effective in most cases than posting bulky boxes on talk pages. This, combined with the nature of my contributions (which were generally minor even in my more prolific days) means that I do not receive many barnstars either. I used to care more about my mantelpiece, but I suppose I have matured since 2008, or I'd still have that secret page around. Here they are all:


The Excellent Userpage Award
To His Grace: to His superior User page and all its content we must kowtow. If there is a place in royalty for a sense of humor, the Duke certainly sets a new standard it in the best possible way, and may a thousand suns expire before that valuable quality does. ALTON .ıl 09:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


The Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar
A peace offering, to mend any broken fences in your estates. Tim Vickers (talk) 15:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


The Excellent Userpage Award
I, Mr. Old-Skool, award you this barnstar for excellence in user-paginess. (talk) 01:18, 28 September 2008 (UTC)


The Super Hidden Barnstar Collection
The Duke of Waltham has successfully located the secret pages of the following editors:
Ajdlinux, Aliasd, Chetblong, Chris G, Cinnaspice, ComputerGuy890100, D4g0thur, Destructo 087, Domthedude001, ElisaEXPLOSiON, Hmwith, IXella007, Keeper76, Lights, LordSkane, Mack-the-random, Maddiekate, Meldshal42, Sean gorter, Penubag, Scientizzle, Selfworm, Thedeadmanandphenom, Uchiha23, Vintei, and Zanewolf.

His Grace used to have a secret page of his own, but it has since been dismantled. Three people managed to locate it in the two or so years of its existence.

Accounts and contribution history

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This account is my unique login for all public Wikimedia projects. With very few exceptions, I edit only in the English Wikipedia and to a much lesser extent in Commons; my user ID here is 3078442.

The first Wikipedia article I've ever seen is the one on Agatha Christie; the way I discovered it is rather clear in my mind, and although my memory has betrayed me before, I believe it is through a mirror called "Fact-index", and more specifically through this article, which was a Google hit in a search for information on a specific book of the great author. My doubts mostly arise from the fact that there is no picture at the article and I remember seeing one at the time, but there could be any reason for that.

I initially contributed from an account named after a silly nickname I used in high school in the few times I played Counter-Strike with my classmates: "Bill the Greek". My contributions were scarce from that account and were spread throughout a period of around three years (mostly the summers of 2004–06, during which I chiefly used Wikipedia as an information source for the pursuit of my hobbies). After several strategic errors, including my first and only involvement in a dispute as a member of the late AMA and the creation of an unrelated sub-page to function as a general-purpose discussion forum, I wanted to get rid of both the name and the unpleasant luggage of the account. Add to this my ignorance of the username policies (although I am not 100% certain that one could actually move one's account to a different name at the end of 2006, I believe it was possible), and you have the reason for the creation of this account. I used as a name a title which I had created for myself the summer before, when I joined an Internet forum playing the same part of the ridiculous aristocrat that I do here.

My first edit with this account was this, which took place on 22 January 2007, at 16:12 UTC. Probably a bad idea, that one, but I didn't know any better back then. I don't have data on any other of my milestones, as I did not pay attention at the time and it would be impossibly hard for me to acquire that information now. There is one exception, however: this was my carefully planned 4000th edit, which was to edit my user page to display the service award signifying 4000 edits. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

In November 2007, I started looking for potential sources of trouble as far as my name and noble titles are concerned. Aware of the policy for Doppelganger accounts, I did some experimenting and realised that most of the names similar to my account's name could not be used anyway, so I created the account "The Duck of Waltham". The rationale behind this choice of name is that one could create it as a (potentially malicious) joking response to my name; it came to me as an idea from the aforementioned forum (Sarcasm Society; see the links below). It also serves as my on-line pet: Duncan the Ducal Duck. I might use the account in the future if I want to edit at a very high speed, e.g. with AWB.

Sub-pages

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Here follows a list of the most important sub-pages in my userspace:

  • "Auto-formatting is evil" – An essay listing the problems caused by the practice of date linking and auto-formatting, and explaining the validity of the (ultimately successful) movement to deprecate this practice and remove such links from articles.
  • /Palace of Westminster workshop – The place where I organise the effort to improve the coverage of the Palace of Westminster in Wikipedia. It houses sources and check-lists, and the drafts for new articles will be sub-pages of it.
  • /Palace of Westminster watchlist – A list of articles (existing and planned) relating to the Palace of Westminster, categorised and quality-rated; also listed are all their redirects. The page further includes galleries of images which are or can be used in the main article—organised by licence—and provides the ability to keep track of changes to all the listed pages through a custom watchlist.
  • /SBS – My personal workshop for WikiProject Succession Box Standardization. In the future it may also serve as a repository of propositions for succession-box forms and project-page reforms, as well as ideas, essays and other interesting or useful things concerning the WikiProject. Currently inactive.
  • /Peerages – A page tracking, by means of slightly complex but highly useful tables, my progress in the task of ensuring that peerage succession chains are up to scratch.
  • /Navbox – A template I have created to supply my main user page with an index of my small page network (and a quick link to the edit counter) in a way that would help it resemble a true article; due to problems with the naming, I have been forced to disable the small links usually present in the headers of navboxes. I also use it on several of my sub-pages and, thanks to a little trick, on my main talk page.
  • /Navbox tiny – A more compact box with most of the links of the proper navbox. I use it for my lesser talk pages, and it is smaller in order to conform to the limits of the special code that produces it and keeps it at the bottom. Many thanks to BrownHairedGirl for creating it for me.
  • /Sig – My alternative signature; see relevant section below.

Userboxes

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This page is full of userboxes, as you might have noticed, so it is only fair that they should be given a section for their own statistics (after all, I do like statistics). Actually, I only learned how to use them around February 2007, and have retained the status of "Userbox Newbie" ever since. I did study them rather extensively at the time, and I think I have managed to acquire a rather advanced knowledge of the way they are created and used, even if it would need some dusting to yield anything useful now. In any case, I do not feel like creating userboxes for others to use (not that I should have any great ideas for that); I prefer converting other people's userboxes for my own personal use. The ones that used to be in my main user page are, I believe, characteristic of this tendency of mine.

Theft, you say? Nah, really, I think you are just being harsh. After all, what is the GFDL for if we cannot be, erm, inspired by our fellow editors?

Currently, there are 2 userboxes on my talk page and 73 userboxes on this page, the sum reaching the nice, round number of 75. All rights reserved, i.e. absolutely none.

More userboxen may be added in the future. No, wait, make this a "shall". I will definitely add more userboxes. How else are people supposed to be able to learn all the important information about me?

Signatures

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So far, I have had one and only one signature: Waltham, The Duke of. An original idea, I adopted it on 7 April 2007, after a couple of months of using a simple "Waltham" as signature (it doesn't count, as it was entered in the preferences as "nickname"), and the code is the following:

[[User:The Duke of Waltham|Waltham]], <small>[[User talk:The Duke of Waltham|''The Duke of'']]</small>

Although rather simple, it comprises 102 characters (including spaces). I like it because its design is plain yet rather unique; I have seen thousands of signatures so far, and none like it. Therefore, it is distinctive without using any colours or different fonts, which I wanted to avoid.

I take the term "signature" quite literally, so I want mine to remind of one as much as possible, using standard Wikipedia font and colours, and having the name "Waltham" being the first and primary element (peers sign with their title only). I completed the title with a smaller and italicised "The Duke of", which serves as the talk page link, and ensures that most people will know me with my full alias and not simply as "Waltham" (some do refer to me this way, but I do not mind it, as they are still aware of my "title"); the general impression is that of an entry in a genealogy book. I am very satisfied with the result, and have no intention of changing it. The only problem is that I have sometimes been called "Waltham, The Duke of", which sounds stupid in normal speech—thankfully, this has only happened a couple of times, and I have no problem with it if it is done jocularly, anyway.

Having discovered this article, I came up with an alternative signature on 8 July 2012: Waltham, per pro. H. Cartwright. The main (and automatic) signature remains in regular use; the new one, 11 characters longer but using essentially the same code, is meant to identify Harold Cartwright, my long-suffering private secretary. This persona of mine is generally active only on my talk page, but I've kept the link in case I use the signature elsewhere, and to reinforce the resemblance with the main signature. To avoid the need to copy the code, I have created the template {{User:The Duke of Waltham/Sig}}, which can be substituted to produce the full signature (including time stamp). Such use is allowed by the guideline on signatures, and the specific template does not meet the criteria for which substituted signature templates are normally discouraged.

Internet and communications

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People tend to lose track of their e-mail accounts, forum memberships, and newsletter subscriptions, as one often signs up in a whim for things that one later forgets about. This is illustrated by the 90–9–1 rule, and it is yet another exhibit that testifies to the unequivocal application of the second law of thermodynamics in electronic communications. "Entropy will always increase." And chaos shall forever rule the Internet.

And Wikipedia—but thankfully in a much more organised form. (Except for the few occasions where "organised chaos" is all but a euphemism, like a few deletion votes I choose not to mention.)

Fortunately, I am not that eager to add my name to forums and mailing lists, and I have been keeping my glorious alias rather contained. However, I do have a small problem. Apart from my main e-mail account and the old one that I still check once in a while, I have recently acquired another two of them, the first in order to access an array of services and the second for the sake of experimentation. I have already forgotten the password for the latter.

Wikipedia "must see"

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This is a list of pages which I consider exceedingly interesting and/or useful. It shall grow along with my experience. I warn you that there might be a heavy bias towards humour-related pages.