IMPORTANT: Please note: other members of my family (ThatNiceChap and Kanga Ro) may at times edit from the same IP address as myself! Our accounts are not shared in any way.

This user is principle-centred and wishes everyone else was, too!
ISTJThis user's MBTI type is ISTJ.
NGThis user's alignment is Neutral Good: the "Benefactor."
Kindness CampaignThis user is a member of the Kindness Campaign.
This user is not an administrator and does not wish to be one.
       
This editor is a Most Perfect Tutnum and is entitled to display this Book of Knowledge with Coffee Cup Stain and Cigarette Burn.
Take note: there is no fine dividing line between genius and lunacy.
It is, in fact, a large nebulous area, and surprisingly densely populated.
Trust me on this - I live there.

I'm a New Forest Commoner with a small herd of my own ponies, and lucky to be able to have hands-on access to the largest herd of semi-feral animals in the UK (the several thousand ponies which run out on the beautiful New Forest). I have school-age grandchildren, have no idea what my IQ is apart from "very high", and I am a high-functioning autistic. (The main reason I have no idea what my IQ is stems from the fact that the majority of tests I've done, for my own amusement, are designed so that nobody is supposed to be able to answer all the questions in the allotted time, and the scale only generally runs up to 150 ... and that's for those who run out of time. Hmmm. So – just take a wild guess, yes? Very scientific!)

Genetics is a subject which has had me 'hooked' for some decades now, and I have a particular interest in the genetics of equine coat colour, with a passing acquaintanceship (and understanding of the concepts involved) with this at the molecular level, but far more knowledge and experience of the many ways the genotype affects the visual appearance of the phenotype. Being able to observe closely (during the drift season) a vast number of animals, their parents, offspring, and siblings, enables me to spot colour and pattern relationships and variations, see how colours and patterns influence and affect each other in combination, and pick up on oddities.

As far as the genetics goes, I'm on the 'field vole' side of the team, and not the 'lab rat' side of the team; I'm addicted to (OK, obsessed with!) the real minutiae of phenotypes, and I ask niggly questions of the lab people and hope that I can get someone to 'bite' on a so-far-unresolved question to investigate it at the molecular level. Sometimes it works.

I'd like to be able to do a complete and thorough survey of phenotypes in the Forest (recording every animal in terms of whether it displays characteristics of the influence of sooty, pangare, classic roan, rabicano-type roaning, flaxen, sabino-type or splash-type variations in white-marking patterns such as the precise nature of leg and facial markings, any and all dilutions, and so on, as well as the more obvious basic coat colours), but this could be very hard to achieve as for the majority of the time they are out there 'wild', and the round-up ('drift') season is the only time one can do any hair-by-hair analysis on them. There seems to be a small (very small) number of equines out there with an apparent dilution which does not fit any so-far named-or-known classification; related animals are presenting with a more 'golden' body coat in appearance than non-dilutes, but it is clear that their colour is not champagne, cream, or dun-based. They have simply the wrong characteristics.

I'm also interested in (and reasonably clued-up on) saddlery work.

I have to admit that I am probably an absolute vile horror to work with. Obsessives often are.

 
My IRC alter-ego
I climb trees for fun ....
I lurk around on IRC, too ....

Little Snippets of info about me

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I am interested in ...

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  • Working on creating an excellent, interactive "How-to-do Wikipedia" set of tutorials for new users
  • Making our policy and instruction pages really, really clear for everyone who's directed towards them, with no room for misunderstanding, and removing fluff and extraneous verbosity from them
  • Improving, clarifying, and civilizing some of our automatic interactions and user-talk-page templates
  • Brainstorming any kind of improvements which would help to attract more good-quality editors and retain same
  • Civility in Wikipedia

I am NOT interested in ...

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  • Becoming an Admin. Never. Not just "not now", but never. So if you feel like nominating me, I'm intensely flattered and it's very sweet of you - but it ain't gonna happen!
  • Vandal fighting, recent change patrolling, and all that jazz. Though I do play with NPP sometimes!

At-a-glance editor profile

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Barnstars and other stuff

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This one lives here :o)

  The Original Barnstar
You are, without exception, the nicest person I have met on this wiki.  Chzz  ►  22:53, 21 November 2011 (UTC)


Funny Things

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... and here's my message to the obvious copyvio: "He tasks me! He tasks me, and I shall have him! I'll chase him round the Moons of Nibia, and round the Antares Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up!" (Courtesy of Khan, of course!)

Possibly handy stuff

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