Wikirama: September 2013

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Famous Wikipedian: Roger Ebert

Uploaded by Rebert himself

Although I can't find the exact column, the late film critic Roger Ebert discussed personally editing Wikipedia a number of times. It didn't take Wikipedians long to discover the username of Ebert: not an anonymous ten-digit IP address, but an account with an actual name, User:Rebert. From his user contributions page, we can tell Ebert made 22 edits over a period of five years, mostly related to himself, the film industry, or films he liked. Some of his edits included self-promotion, but very possibly he didn't know that was taboo. It's not like he was struggling to get noticed in the world of film critics
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Ebert died this past April. He joined that solemn club of Deceased Wikipedians, and there's a banner at the top of his talk page saying it's preserved as a memorial. Someone even put a touching "See you at the movies" at the end of the banner.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Voyager 1 and a Featured Picture

According to scientists, the space probe Voyager 1 -- launched in 1977 to study the solar system and possibly introduce Earth to aliens -- has finally left the solar system. They mean it. They're for real this time. This isn't like all the other times this year when the probe was said to have left the system.

Maybe. Possibly. Trust us.

In honor of this event, here is yet another nice picture. Nine years ago this month it was selected as a Picture of the Day, and soon it became a Featured Picture. The image is of the Sombrero Galaxy (aka M104), a picturesque galaxy some 28 light years away that would take about 491,820 years for the Voyager 1 probe to drift to. Give or take a year, of course.