BoingBoing links to a story about a time travellers’ bulletin board that sounds a little too familiar…

Edit: fixed fried link

Long-time Fox community member Steven Black decided that I was abusing him on Wikipedia, and sent me an off-wiki message complaining that I was using his web hosting for my Fox Wiki GarrettFitzgerald page for free, and asking what I had done for him lately. Since my content was obviously unwelcome to him, I went up to the site and started removing any content which I was sure I had been the one to contribute, leaving other people’s content alone (for the most part — GarrettFitzgerald and GarrettFKBArticles came down in full, and I removed my name from a couple of lists).

As I was going through the list of messages with my name in them, I suddenly came to a dead stop. *screenshot of “you’ve been blocked” page snipped* When I checked my email again, I found a message saying that I couldn’t be trusted to remove my content from his wiki, but that in a few days, nobody would be able to tell I was there.

Fine by me.

Update: I had a mental shift and realized that what I was doing on the Fox Wiki was a textbook case of vandalism, so I wrote and apologized to Steve, and he promptly unblocked me.

While browsing the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee’s archive of rejected cases, I came across an interesting discussion. It appears that a fair number of Wikipedians wanted to use the International Symbol of Access (♿) to indicate handicapped accessibility on Wikipedia. However, it’s a copyrighted symbol. While it’s apparently licensed under a free-use/no edit license, Wikipedia prefers outright free licenses, that don’t restrict any future uses that people may come up with. A few users took the case to the ArbCom, hoping they’d rule that as an internationally-recognized symbol, it was an acceptable use on WP: others argued that there was no information conveyed by the symbol that couldn’t be likewise conveyed by non-copyrighted text. The ArbCom declined the case, apparently feeling that it wasn’t their place to override policy in this case.

Today, I decided to drag the girls down to the library to see Susan Lubner speak. I’ve been interested in her since I spotted Ruthie Bon Bair: Never Go To Bed With Wringing Wet Hair in a bookstore window. Unfortunately, I was lagging, and most of the event was over when we got here. They still had time to do some artwork and get cupcakes, though. :-)

While they drew up front, I discovered that the Wikipedia didn’t yet have an article on her, and attempted to remedy the situation.

Five years ago, an amateur astronomer discovered an asteroid he designated J0002E3. However, on closer investigation, it turned out to be an asteroid covered with titanium dioxide paint.

In other words, the third stage from the Saturn V that launched Apollo 12. :-)

Believe it or not, Wikipedia managed to come up with a Featured Article about the repeating decimal 0.999….

The things you learn from cleaning up address lists… I just ran across an address on the “State of Franklin Road”. Wikipedia tells us that “Frankland” seceded from North Carolina and attempted to join the United States in 1785, but it could not get the full number of votes required by the Articles of Confederation.

Scoble points at a BoingBoing post of Cory’s where he talks about the difference in correcting incorrect statements on the Wikipedia versus on the Register. On the Wikipedia, Cory was able to fix his article in five minutes, with all the changes exposed. When the Register made a mistake, it took five days, with behind-the-scenes negotiation needed.

Hmm, I seem to have broken into the list of top 2000 editors at the Wikipedia (strictly by count). The question is, is this a good or bad thing? :-)

When I lived in Bangor and worked near the airport, I loved to go park at the end of the runway and watch the C-5’s from New York practice their touch-and-goes. At the time, I didn’t realize that they weren’t really the biggest airplanes in the world. Wikipedia strikes again. :-)