Chriswaterguy

putting myself in boxes

This user is a Wikipedian.

Wikipedia:Babel

enThis user is a native speaker of the English language.

id-3Pengguna ini mampu bersumbangsih dengan bahasa Indonesia tingkat mahir.

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I'm a utilitarian, social liberal, Green, yoga-practising, Wikipedian development engineer and Indonesia-phile with an advanced case of wanderlust who holds a naturalistic worldview with Buddhist sensibilities.

My personal page describes where I am now and what I'm up to.

Subpages:

• User:Singkong2005/Appropriate technology for developing countries. For the time being this project is my personal focus. I'd be glad of others' contributions & feedback.
• Ideas - my scratchpad

A handy link: your complete watchlist.

Picture of the day

Olivia de Havilland (1916–2020) was a British, American and French actress. A member of the de Havilland family, her younger sister was the Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine, with whom she had a noted rivalry well documented by the media. During her career, de Havilland appeared in 49 feature films. She first came to prominence with Errol Flynn as a screen couple in adventure films such as Captain Blood (1935). Departing from ingénue roles in the 1940s, she went on to win two Academy Awards for Best Actress, for her roles in To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). She received honours in the United States, the United Kingdom and France, including appointments to the Légion d'honneur and the Order of the British Empire. At the time of her death, she was widely considered the last surviving major star from the Golden Age of Hollywood. This 1985 photograph of de Havilland was taken by the Polish-born American photographer Bernard Gotfryd.Photograph credit: Bernard Gotfryd

A quick intro

Real name: Chris Watkins.

Born: Sydney, Australia, 1970.

Contributing to: mainly the English language site, but also [id.wikipedia.org the Indonesia wiki]

Contributing since: 2005.

I started in Wikipedia by contributing on Indonesian issues. I'm also interested in language learning - I plan eventually to do something in Wikibooks on the topic.

I spent two years total in Indonesia (in 1995-96, and 1998-2000). Having realised I like it there more than here, I am buying a one-way ticket to SE Asia in early 2006. Starting in East Timor & Indonesia, then on to new horizons. I expect I will learn many interesting things which I can share through the wonderful world of Wiki (though where it is personal experience and not verifiable, I will share it through other sites such as Wikibooks or Wikinfo.

Major interest

Appropriate technology for developing countries & the category of the same name.

Recently (November 2005) I joined Engineers Without Borders (Australia) and am looking forward to doing volunteer work in the water and sanitation. Developing relevant resources in Wikimedia is one way I like to contribute to development work. If people - development workers & residents of developing countries - have access to information and ideas, it improves their chances of finding solutions to their problems.

Secondary interests

All things related to development, such as

• Microfinance

  Development assistance and Aid

  Development charities

  The use of the internet to develop free social networks and information sources. This includes Wikipedia, and also networking sites such as Couchsurfing.com and internet dating sites such as OkCupid. Haven't done anything on this yet (as at December 2005).

Minor interests

I find myself doing edits on all kinds of pages, but these are some particular ones I'm interested in. I try to limit myself here though, so I can focus on my main and secondary interests, above.

• Language learning

  Mnemonics in learning and learning, including language learning

  Teaching English as a foreign language (for the search engine: TEFL, TESOL, ESL). The differences between teaching English as a foreign language and English as a second language.

  Indonesian language

  I find mnemonics very effective in language learning, and would like to collaborate with others to make lists of words with easy-to-remember images to help language learners such as myself. This might be a project for Wikibooks. I also like to do the same for people learning English.

  I have started to learn, or am interested in learning, languages including Javanese, Mandarin, Thai, Arabic , Hindi. I wish to learn these as well as I can as I live and work in various countries in the next few years. The following languages I wish to learn at least well enough to make basic conversation: Japanese , Tagalog, Dutch and German.

  Good design in Affordable housing and Prefabricated housing.

  Energy-efficient housing, including passive solar.

  Urban design and its social, environmental and economic impacts. New Urbanism, Traditional Neighbourhood Design, Transport Oriented Development.

  The outcomes of complex Urban planning regulations compared to a laissez-faire approach - the problems and benefits of each.

  Social capital

I don't claim to be an expert in all these areas. However I do my best to be informed, and will contribute to Wikipedia where I can. I also hope to learn about Economics and History - so expect questions rather than contributions from me on these subjects.

Wikipedia

I love Wikipedia. Great stuff.

I accept that I won't agree with everything I see done in Wikipedia. But one thing that I don't like is excessive linking. Links should be relevant to the context. E.g. dates:

(S)imple months, years, decades and centuries should only be linked if there's a strong reason for doing so. See Wikipedia:Make_only_links_relevant_to_the_context for the reasons that it's usually undesirable to insert low-value chronological links; see also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Internal links. -- from Wikipedia:Dates

Other Wiki sites

Interesting: Proposals for new projects. Including this one: Wikireason

Quotes (Thanks Cyrius)

"On Wikipedia, there is a giant conspiracy attempting to have articles agree with reality."

-- Seen on the Bad Astronomy Bulletin Board [1]

Re NPOV:

Saying that they killed someone for not helping them put an anti-tank explosive outside the person's house ... does such an action really need a great big "AND PS IT WAS BAD!"? I maintain that it does not, and that it does the page discredit to do so.

-- David Gerard on WikiEN-l

Translating

I speak fluent Indonesian... but translating written text is more difficult. Next time I'm in the same room as an Indonesian speaker and a computer, I want to initiate some translations from English into Indonesian, focusing on articles that I think are very relevant to Indonesian development, such as Hernando de Soto (economist).

When the articles on Appropriate technology are more developed, these will be my main priority for translation.

Apropos of nothing...

Some quotes I like:

... There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. ... - Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (play) IV.iii, (c. 1599)

Edit this user page

Please! Make it pretty, make it readable, fix the formatting... I'm an engineer, and making things look nice is not my strong point. Don't vandalize, but have fun! A list of colors may help.