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tonight i'm thinking about wikipedia articles, and how i love them. there is so much niche information (albeit of questionable validity) you can glean from clicking through a few links and reading. sure, maybe i'll never have any use for any of this, but does everything need to have a use? i find it riveting anyway. a lot of people know wikipedia as the destitute pauper, grovelling at the feet of passerby to ask for a $2 donation so they can afford to keep their gazillion-page site running. at school we used to get lectures against using wikipedia as a source, because it was something anyone could edit and therefore unreliable. i always thought those primary school teachers were exaggerating. while it's obviously not a reliable primary source for anything academics-related, most wikipedia articles are around 90% correct anyway, barring a few small discrepancies to real events. usually, those are marked with 'citation needed,' and for better sources you could always turn to the references section at the bottom of every page. all that aside, there's an unbridled sense of community on that site that's endearing to me. i can't help but admire the dedication people have to creating and consistently updating this publicly accessible information source, however inaccurate it may be. apart from that, i love wikipedia for its vandals, its daily featured pages, and the personal footnotes left on images. to me it almost feels like opening up an old math textbook that's full of drawings and notes left by other students. i've read a litany of different articles on that site, but i find reading about historical figures particularly interesting.
a while back i read about an 19th century scottish writer by the name of walter sholto douglas. he was christened mary diana dods, adopting male identities throughout his life. he was a close friend of mary shelley, famed novelist and author of frankenstein. many of douglas' works appeared under his first identity-- the pseudonym david lyndsay. he created this pseudonym to support himself as a writer while living with his sister, and during this time he would often write criticism pieces and translations to be published in magazines. then there's his second identity-- one of a scholar and diplomat and the spouse of a woman named isabella robinson. their marriage was concocted as a veil for robinson's illegitimate pregnancy. now here's where his friendship with mary shelley comes in. in 1827, shelley helped the two of them forge false passports with which they could use to travel to paris as a married couple. douglas is thought to have died in a debtor's prison sometime around 1929-1930, and memory of his life had all but faded into time until his three identities were pieced together through his correspondence with mary shelley.
there's also another article a friend of mine showed me last year, about a street cat from istanbul named tombili (that's turkish for chubby!) he was popular among the residents of the neighbourhood for his friendly nature, and he rose to international fame when a picture of him reclining on some steps was uploaded onto the internet. he died sometime in 2016, and a statue was erected on the streets of istanbul in his honour. a month later, this monument went missing, which prompted a public outcry. turkish mp tuncay özcan was quoted as saying, "they stole the tombili statue. they are enemies of everything beautiful. all they know is hate, tears, and war." the famed tombili sculpture was returned safely on its brass plaque only two days later.
i also know of some niche controversies surrounding some specific articles. on the wikipedia page for the class of armoured prehistoric fish known as placodermi, there are a few reconstructions made by a now-deleted user by the name of entelognathus. now from what i remember this user actually used to have a sizeable following online before it was revealed in early 2022 that he was generally a pretty abhorrent person who had stalked his ex and frequented shady forums, among other things. a pretty wild thing to be associated with a wikipedia article about some fish from way back then, yeah? there's also the old picture for the sandwich article, which used to be a real monstrosity-- containing hard boiled eggs, lettuce, and a mysterious orange sauce. apparently one wikipedia user was so pissed off at this fucked-up sandwich that they filed a complaint. the default image for the sandwich wikipedia article is now of an inoffensive bologna sandwich, which has angered measurably fewer people.
a while back i read about an 19th century scottish writer by the name of walter sholto douglas. he was christened mary diana dods, adopting male identities throughout his life. he was a close friend of mary shelley, famed novelist and author of frankenstein. many of douglas' works appeared under his first identity-- the pseudonym david lyndsay. he created this pseudonym to support himself as a writer while living with his sister, and during this time he would often write criticism pieces and translations to be published in magazines. then there's his second identity-- one of a scholar and diplomat and the spouse of a woman named isabella robinson. their marriage was concocted as a veil for robinson's illegitimate pregnancy. now here's where his friendship with mary shelley comes in. in 1827, shelley helped the two of them forge false passports with which they could use to travel to paris as a married couple. douglas is thought to have died in a debtor's prison sometime around 1929-1930, and memory of his life had all but faded into time until his three identities were pieced together through his correspondence with mary shelley.
there's also another article a friend of mine showed me last year, about a street cat from istanbul named tombili (that's turkish for chubby!) he was popular among the residents of the neighbourhood for his friendly nature, and he rose to international fame when a picture of him reclining on some steps was uploaded onto the internet. he died sometime in 2016, and a statue was erected on the streets of istanbul in his honour. a month later, this monument went missing, which prompted a public outcry. turkish mp tuncay özcan was quoted as saying, "they stole the tombili statue. they are enemies of everything beautiful. all they know is hate, tears, and war." the famed tombili sculpture was returned safely on its brass plaque only two days later.
i also know of some niche controversies surrounding some specific articles. on the wikipedia page for the class of armoured prehistoric fish known as placodermi, there are a few reconstructions made by a now-deleted user by the name of entelognathus. now from what i remember this user actually used to have a sizeable following online before it was revealed in early 2022 that he was generally a pretty abhorrent person who had stalked his ex and frequented shady forums, among other things. a pretty wild thing to be associated with a wikipedia article about some fish from way back then, yeah? there's also the old picture for the sandwich article, which used to be a real monstrosity-- containing hard boiled eggs, lettuce, and a mysterious orange sauce. apparently one wikipedia user was so pissed off at this fucked-up sandwich that they filed a complaint. the default image for the sandwich wikipedia article is now of an inoffensive bologna sandwich, which has angered measurably fewer people.
