Dedicated to my late brave, beautiful and silly mummy, Debra Ross. I love you mumster.

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Adeliade and Wichita, is it just me?

I was just browsing Wikipedia with a hot cocoa at 04:30. I happened across a picture of Wichita, a city in Kansas in the US, and in my sleep deprived state I thought I was looking at Adelaide, my home city in Australia:

Wichita, KS, USA
Wichita, KS, USA

Adelaide, SA, Australia
Adelaide, SA, Australia

Am I the only one who sees a resemblance? The skylines, the fact they’re both built close to one side of a river, both their convention centres are in the middle of town with white roofs… then to top it off their state flags are blue with circular emblem thingys… it is just me isn’t it.

For fun comparison:

Adelaide is the fifth most populous city in Australia with a population of 1.1 million in 2006, and is the capital and most populous city of the state of South Australia. It is a coastal city situated on the eastern side of Gulf St. Vincent.

Named in honour of Queen Adelaide, the consort of King William IV, the city was founded in 1836 as the planned capital for the only freely-settled British province in Australia. Colonel William Light designed the city in a grid layout, interspaced by wide boulevards and large public squares, and entirely surrounded by parkland.

Adelaide is known for its many festivals as well as for its wine, arts and sports. As South Australia’s seat of government and commercial centre, Adelaide is the site of many governmental and financial institutions. Most of these are concentrated in the city centre along North Terrace and King William Street.

Well they may look the same, but they sound somewhat different!

Wichita, also known as the Air Capital of the World, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas, as well as a major aircraft manufacturing hub and cultural center. In July of 2006, CNN/Money and Money magazine ranked Wichita ninth on its list of the 10 best big cities to live in the United States.

The city is home to six major aircraft manufacturing companies and McConnell Air Force Base. Wichita is located in South Central Kansas on the Arkansas River, and is the county seat of Sedgwick County. It is also the home of a National Weather Service Forecast Office which serves portions of central, south-central, and southeast Kansas.

The city’s population was 344,284 at the 2000 census, and it was estimated to be 357,698 in the year 2006, making it the 50th largest in the United States.

Wikipedia reaches 10 million articles!

Big shout out to everyone at Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation for reaching 10 million articles! The record breaking entry was an article on English artist Nicholas Hilliard written in Hungarian. Hungarian of course being the language native to a country called Hungary. Sometimes I surprise even myself.

Wikipedia reaches 10 million articles!

I wonder what ol’ Nick who died in 1619 would think about being the 10 millionth article in a collaborative online encyclopaedia powered by electronic computers connected through a globally spanning network… makes you think.

Should Wikipedia be a time capsule?

There’s an interesting article kdawson brought up over on Slashdot about the future of Wikipedia and it’s seemingly conflicting ideas. From the summary:

“It can either strive to encompass every aspect of human knowledge, no matter how trivial; or it can adopt a more stringent editorial policy and ban articles on trivial subjects, in the hope that this will enhance its reputation as a trustworthy and credible reference source. These two conflicting visions are at the heart of a bitter struggle inside Wikipedia between inclusionists, who believe that applying strict editorial criteria will dampen contributors’ enthusiasm for the project, and deletionists who argue that Wikipedia should be more cautious and selective about its entries.”

I edit a few articles now and then on Wikipedia but for the most part I’m a fanatical reader; the first place I turn to when I’m researching anything is Wikipedia. Certainly it’s not the definitive word, and I’m not treating it as such, but it’s just so doggone useful for filling in the initial blanks.

The idea that there are people on Wikipedia who are judging the notability of articles and deleting them outright has always troubled me though because of the shaky foundation the idea of "notability" is based on. Aside from the fact we cannot even agree on a precise definition of notability in the first place, to me it makes far too many assumptions about subjects and material which in a global context with people connecting and editing from around the world is… iffy.

The other problem I see with this is that the idea of "notability" is incredibly short sighted. I wish I could claim to be the first person to have thought of it but someone on Slashdot beat me to it: imagine Vincent Van Gough. While he was alive he made very little money at all and frankly wasn’t known by many people; if Wikipedia existed back in these times he would not have warranted an article because of a lack of notability. His works now fetch millions. Imagine how fascinating it would then be to look at an article about him written when he was still relatively unknown.

I’m not saying Wikipedia should turn into a living, adapting time capsule where in fifty years we can read about what a particular pet ate for lunch on its third birthday, but I think we should be very, very careful about deleting articles just because the moderator at the time deems it not to be "notable". We risk destroying a part of our culture now that future generations might find fascinating; heck Wikipedia could even be one of those technologies that save us from the digital dark age!

Or maybe it’s because they deleted my New Time Radio and Audio Magazine articles and I’m bitter :-).

Wikipedia Error

Wikipedia

Is anyone else having trouble accessing articles in the English Wikipedia? Whenever I try accessing pages I get this long list of PHP errors: