I am Ben, but known around here for some odd reason as Harrias. I first appeared on Wikipedia back in December 2005, when I voted to keep an article on a website that I was a member of. Not particularly big or clever, creating an account just to vote in an AfD, but it got my foot in the door! I then proceeded to make a number of ill-informed edits on ice hockey articles, changing a few formats and what not, which were all reverted. I moved from ice hockey to lower league English football, and hung around there until August 2009. At that point, my edits moved into cricket, more specifically, Somerset County Cricket Club related pages. From that point, I didn't really look back: in one month alone I more than doubled my edit count.
At the end of August 2009 I had my first DYK, Phil Slocombe. Four months later, I successfully got a Featured List promoted, and another four months after that, my first Good Article. I've rarely had the patience for the Featured Article process, but I have managed to get three articles promoted, the first of them, Herbie Hewett, in March 2011. Until 2014, all but four of my Good Articles were cricket-related, and only one wasn't sport related, but recently I have branched out a little more. In December 2012, I went through the rigours of an RfA, and got a mop, but my focus remains very much on content.
"When you win the toss – bat. If you are in doubt, think about it, then bat. If you have very big doubts, consult a colleague – then bat." —W. G. Grace
I hereby award you the oldest cricket bat in recognition of your excellent contributions to WikiProject Cricket. Keep up your good work, especially with women's cricket. Aaroncrick (talk) Review me! 09:58, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
thanks for your response. I appreciate your time and dedication to wikipedia. Your project should have a full list within hours, and the bot to update your list will go live hopefully very soon. Okip (formerly Ikip) 19:36, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
The 25 DYK Creation and Expansion Medal For your ongoing contributions to WP:DYK and active creation of new material on Wikipedia, I award you this medal - keep up the good work!
The Original Barnstar For diligence, kindness and energy, and for helping to make Wikipedia a good place to be. Johnlp (talk) 22:33, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
The Working Man's Barnstar For reviewing 5 good article nominations during the April 2010 GAN backlog elimination drive, I hereby present you The Working Man's Barnstar. Nice job! Wizardman 23:35, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
G'day, it gives me great pleasure to bestow the Triple Crown upon Harrias for your sporting contributions in the areas of WP:DYK, WP:GA, and WP:FA. cheers, Casliber (talk·contribs) 11:44, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
The 50 DYK Creation and Expansion Medal Quite the batsman! You have reached the milestone of 50 DYK articles featured on the main page. Topping! Binksternet (talk) 12:54, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
The Working Man's Barnstar For reviewing 5 or more Good article nominations during this past March 2011 GA backlog elimination drive, I hereby award you The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar. Good job! –MuZemike 17:25, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
Beautiful Bouquets From a Few Flowers Award What you did about reducing the backlog of old nominations for DYK is just amazing! Hope you like flowers, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:26, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
The 100 DYK Creation and Expansion Medal Well done, 100*! Your contributions, especially cricket ones are invaluable. Looking forward to you continuing upto the double ton now ;) Cheers, Around The Globeसत्यमेव जयते 13:51, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
The Invisible Barnstar Your recognition for 3 GA reviews at the last June-July GAN Review Round. Regards. . — ΛΧΣ21™ 15:19, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
The Steeplestarter Award Awarded to Harrias. For having submitted pieces of content from two different types of featured content during the Steeplechase. — ΛΧΣ21Call me Hahc21 16:24, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
The Running Man Barnstar Hey Harrias, just a quick barnstar to say thanks for the many reviews of Boat Race articles you've conducted over the past year. As of this morning, I completed my (initial) goal of ensuing that every Boat Race had, not only its own article, but one that was either of GA or FA status: we now have 158 GAs and 3 FAs that we can all be proud of! It doesn't stop here, for me at least, I'm going to keep up with improving the quality of the GAs and look for more FA opportunities. Plus, there's the small matter of 70 Women's Boat Race articles to get up and running! But thanks again, and for your recent help on the inaugural race article... I couldn't have done it without your help. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:42, 16 April 2015
I am very pleased to be presenting this Genghis Khan Edition Conquest of the Wiki World Triple Crown to Harrias, who is the seventh person to receive this award, for his outstanding contributions to cricket articles. Keep up the fantastic work! Freikorp (talk) 22:08, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
Military history reviewers' award On behalf of the WikiProject Military history coordinators, I hereby award you the Wikistripe for your contribution of 2 FA, A-Class, Peer and/or GA reviews during the period July to September 2015. Well done! Peacemaker67 (crack... thump) 10:49, 5 October 2015 (UTC)