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I started editing on 3 October 2003 (the first article I created was
Greenwich Park), and have drifted away from time to time, only to find myself drawn back for sometimes quite intense periods of editing. My edits total passed the 10,000 mark in May 2009, 20,000 in February 2016, 30,000 in April 2018, 40,000 in May 2020, 50,000 in August 2021, then 60,000 just twelve months later[1] – I was clearly accelerating. I passed 70,000 edits in December 2023.
My interests mainly relate to:
the geography and local history of places in south-east
London, and the people associated with them (particularly
civil engineers and
architects, but also artists, writers, politicians and others)
cycling (I am a former member of Crewe Clarion Wheelers, Zenith Road Club and
Woolwich Cycling Club)
construction - working in the construction industry (since 1987) often gets me delving into
architecture and
civil engineering, particularly
tunnels,
dams and
bridges, both recent and historic, in the UK and overseas. More recently, I have tried to expand Wikipedia's coverage of industry membership and trade associations, and construction companies (contributing extensively to pages on
Carillion and
Interserve, among others) and have contributed on construction computing topics, such as
building information modelling. Outside of Wikipedia, I have written a book and journal articles and I write a blog about certain niche areas of construction ICT; I was on the information systems panel of the
Institution of Civil Engineers (2010-2020), a member of the Government & Industry
Interoperability Group (2021-2023), and am currently a volunteer in the UK BIM Alliance - which rebranded as 'nima' in October 2022 (I became a vice-chair of nima in August 2023).
I worked for the
Halcrow Group (1987- 1994), Tarmac Professional Services (1994-1998; TPS later formed part of
Carillion) and
BIW Technologies (2000-2009) as a marketing and PR professional (I am a Fellow and past council member of the
Chartered Institute of Public Relations, and was a board director in 2016 and 2017). From 1998 to 2000 and since 2009, I have worked as an independent consultant. I have been a visiting lecturer at the
University of Westminster (two short-term contracts in 2015-16 and 2016-17).
For disclosure purposes, I maintain a list of current and recent clients on my website (see External links below - look at my 'About' page). I have edited pages about my former employers (after I left their employment), and about organisations of which I am a member. There have been past occasions when I had conflicts of interest in editing articles, but as have I learned more about Wikipedia and as COI policies have developed, I have - I hope - learned where not to tread (or, at most, where to amend minor factual inaccuracies, revoke vandalism, and/or provide verifiable, independent references).
I am an occasional photographer and have
contributed photographs to Wikimedia Commons (sometimes using the now-discontinued Flickr Upload Bot - now do so via
Commons:Upload). I have also added
Voice Intros to three biographies of living people.
Wikipedia community activities
I'm a member of
Wikimedia UK We are a group of local Wikimedians helping to create "a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge". Love Wikimedia? Live in the UK? Donate, Volunteer, and Get Involved!
I was formally accepted as a member of Wikimedia UK in February 2011.
In April 2012 I arranged for a volunteer (
Andy Mabbett) to facilitate a workshop at the Institution of Civil Engineers, followed by a
GLAM Editathon at the ICE in July 2013.
gave a talk, at the request of Wikimedia UK, to staff at a London-based marketing/PR agency outlining key principles of Wikipedia (June 2016)
helped at a
BBC 100 Women Editathon in London (December 2016)
helped at a
Women in Classics Editathon at University College London (January 2017)
been a Wikipedian spokesperson on
BBC Radio 4's Law in Action programme (March 2017; an opportunity that enabled me to update
Joshua Rozenberg's Wikipedia profile)
helped at a women in chemistry event at Northwood School for Girls (June 2017)
helped with a Wikipedia session at a UK universities sustainable transport conference, DecarboN8, in September 2021
helped with a Wikipedia editathon at Google UK, London, in November 2022
CIPR-related Wikipedia activities
In 2010, I met two WMUK members who contributed to a 'social summer' event at the
CIPR; I subsequently wrote about the CIPR, PR and Wikipedia during development, with Wikimedia UK, of the CIPR's first
guidance notes (published June 2012).
In 2014, I contributed to two guidance updates (the
second update); in guiding PR people in their interactions with Wikipedians, I stress I am first and foremost a Wikipedian.
In 2018, I contributed a chapter about Wikipedia to Platinum: Celebrating the CIPR at 70 (
Amazon), a collection of essays marking the 70th anniversary of the CIPR.
I agree to
multi-license all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:
Multi-licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License versions 1.0 and 2.0
I agree to multi-license my text contributions, unless otherwise stated, under
Wikipedia's copyright terms and the
Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license
version 1.0 and
version 2.0. Please be aware that other contributors might not do the same, so if you want to use my contributions under the Creative Commons terms, please check the
CC dual-license and
Multi-licensing guides.