User:CWO

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I discovered Wikipedia from searches for information in Google that repeatedly showed results in Wikipedia. After reading a number of articles and discovering what the nature of Wikipedia is, I realised that my own professional skills of proofreading, editing and, as a native speaker of English, translating from German into English and revising non-native English, and my interest in general knowledge could be of use to, and find a creative outlet in, Wikipedia. I am glad to be part of an online international community helping to disseminate knowledge throughout the world. Some people wonder what they will do when they retire from their jobs, but I'm looking forward to being able to devote much more time to Wikipedia.

After over a year's involvement, it has become clear to me that some areas of Wikipedia technical formatting are going to take more time and effort to master than I feel like giving, and that the time I give to Wikipedia can be better used mostly as a WikiGnome using the skills mentioned above.

As a translator, I hold the standard British qualification, the Institute of Linguists Diploma in Translation (in my case, from German into English). However, I have not listed my name in the list of translators, as the process of producing a translated article now seems rather more technically complicated than I have the patience for. I remain willing, as I did in the case of translating the German Wikipedia article on Carinthian Slovenes into English, to produce a translation as a Word document for others to convert into an article in the English Wikipedia.

My interests in reading are mainly in European (which also includes English) and American literature, and in the minutiae of European culture to be found, for example, in the combination of information about history, geography, literature, ethnography, languages and politics that one finds in such books as Journey through Europe by John Hillaby, Time of Gifts and Beyond the Woods and the Water by Patrick Leigh Fermor, Black Sea by Neal Ascherson, Europe by Norman Davies and Danube by Claudio Magris. From 1998 to 2004, I lived in the best-preserved Roman city north of the Alps, Trier (Germany), and since then I have lived in Sheffield (England). CWO 21:30, 13 October 2007 (UTC)



Wikipedia:Babel
en This user is a native speaker of English.
de-4 Dieser Benutzer hat Deutschkenntnisse auf muttersprachlichem Niveau.
fr-2 Cet utilisateur peut contribuer avec un niveau intermédiaire en français.
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Image:WikiGnome.png This editor is a WikiGnome.
This user is proud
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This user remembers when
television programming was only in black-and-white.
This user is or was a student at the University of Sheffield.
This user enjoys classical music.
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UK This user uses British English.
they This user considers the singular they to be substandard English usage.
which & that This user knows how to use which and that correctly.
less & fewer This user understands the difference between less & fewer.
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