User:Toniskids

Greetings, fellow Wikipedians!

I just realized a few days ago that I have absolutely nothing on my User page. So, I thought I would add a few items of interest for any of you who have felt the surge of curiosity to click onto this page.

Demographics. I am an American. I live in the western suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, and have lived in the Midwest/Great Lakes region (of the USA) for most of my life. I am married and am in the thirty-something age group. The first half of my Wiki username, Toni (female type), is also my first name. It's rather unusual (as a girl's name) - just like me.

Introduction. I LOVE Wikipedia. I have been absolutely entranced with it ever since I discovered it about 4 years or so ago. In those early days, I never dared to think that I would actually create or edit Wikipedia pages. After all, the articles I read here were clearly written by seasoned experts on the subjects - what contributions could I possibly have to offer?

Catalyst to Action. Needless to say, the site has grown by leaps and bounds since then. I began discovering pages that were badly written, poorly sourced, had false information, and worst of all, articles that were directly plagiarized from other websites. So I decided that, in certain cases, it was time to do something about it.

Clarification. I do not generally initiate new pages. (Got "burned" the first time I tried, when hours of typing and editing an article resulted in near-instant deletion by an administrator.) Mainly, I enhance existing articles, add references, and correct information I know to be wrong (and can cite the source information to back it up). This means that I usually stick to the subjects that I know. These Topics include:

• Food. Probably my favorite subject. Cooking, chefs, classic recipes, diets, ingredients, and TV chefs and their shows. Knowledge of edible plants - fruits and vegetables - and how to grow, choose, and cook them.
• Vegetarianism. I have been a vegetarian (ranging from lacto-ovo to vegan) for over 20 years, and have learned quite a bit about both the practice and the philosophy behind it.
• Genealogy, and genealogical research methods in the U.S., Britain, and several Western Europen countries. This includes major study on certain surnames and their histories in a particular country or geographical area.
• Music. I enjoy both classic rock of the 1960s and 1970s and classical music, among other types. I also sing, compose and play several musical instruments.
• History and geography, especially British. I also know a fair amount about selected American and British cities, towns, and villages, particularly those where my ancestors have lived.
• Foreign languages. I have varying degrees of fluency in German, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and Latin, and so I may add Chinese or Japanese characters or Cyrillic (Russian alphabet) spellings to an item even if I am otherwise not familiar with the subject.
• Linguistics. I majored in Linguistics and the Chinese language in college. From time to time I like to try to get some use out of that expensive education, since it certainly isn't terribly helpful in obtaining a job. ;-)

Closing: I will add other topics and remarks as they become pertinent. Now, enough about me - let's get back to learning on Wiki!!! :-) Toniskids (talk) 21:37, 4 October 2008 (UTC)