Last week I wrote about an unknown user who first reported Tim Russert’s death on Wikipedia. That “junior-level employee” worked for the Internet Broadcasting Systems who provides web services to NBC affiliates, has been suspended (earlier reports said fired, but NBC disputes this) for updating the Wikipedia page. The employee thought the information was public record.

Henry Blodget of Silicon Alley Insider wrote:

It’s one thing for a news organization to decide to delay reporting news of a staffer’s death out of deference to his or her family (this makes sense). It’s another for the organization to expect other organizations to follow the same policy. And it is yet another thing for someone to deliberately strike accurate facts from a collective record to appease an upset client, which is what someone at IBS apparently did.

The world has changed in last 15 years, and the genie isn’t going back in the bottle. If NBC wants to maintain its tradition with respect to staffers’ deaths, that’s fine. In the meantime, it should recognize that its chances of controlling a story this big are–and should be–infinitesimal and that “citizen journalism” has long since gone mainstream. If the employee at IBS who updated the Wikipedia entry did not learn of it via a confidential NBC communication, moreover, NBC and IBS owe him or her an apology and a job.(Emphasis his)

As Mathew Ingram writes “The lesson is that as long as there is news, people will try to share it. (Note: The NYT story says that NBC tried to hold back the news).”

As I said last week, Wikipedia provided rapid information while NBC took 40 minutes after Wikipedia to report Russert’s death. Information thanks to the internet moves faster. NBC can try to keep its exclusive stories, but it can’t be surprised if some younger, sprier website scoops it.

Tim Russert, journalist and moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, died June 13th of a sudden heart attack, first reported on his Wikipedia page at 3:01 p.m. The New York Post had a short announcement half an hour later followed by the first televised announcement by Tom Brokaw on NBC at 3:39 p.m. The IP address of the editor came from Internet Broadcast Systems, an IT company that worked with NBC in the past.

Wikipedia’s scoop raises questions about its legitimacy as a news source. The ability for anybody to edit Wikipedia can and has led to abuses of the online encyclopedia and has hurt its credibility among educators, parents, and people who don’t understand the system. I won’t expect a reporter or user to trust Wikipedia absolutely just like I won’t trust the New York Times or a blog without some kind of citation or corroboration.

Wikipedia’s strength, as evidenced by the Russert edit, is the site can respond quickly to new information The risk is this information isn’t properly vetted, but that’s what the community is for - a community mainstream news organizations don’t have, leading even the most trustworthy sources to post incorrect information and take longer to correct it.

Wikipedia remains an encyclopedia, not a news organization (that’s what Wikinews is for). But can these lines blur?

I’m a fan of the game Six Degrees to Bacon, so when I find a new linking game to play I get excited. Stephen Dolan has put together the Six Degrees of Wikipedia, a handy gadget to see what Wikipedia pages link to each other. For instance, it takes four clicks to get from Batman to Law and Order:

Batman - Fox Broadcasting Company - Catherine Crier - Susan Polk - Law and Order

Or Pringles to Hillary Clinton in three clicks

Pringles - Cincinnati, Ohio - November 7 - Hillary Rodham Clinton

The system gets an easy route since Wikipedia keeps articles on every date with 2007 being the center of everything Wiki (3.45 average clicks). After all the lists, United Kingdom is the most centered article (3.67 average clicks) followed by Billie Jean King and the United States. No idea why.

More fun statistics, it takes 4.573 clicks on average to get from one article to another. Kevin Bacon averages 3.98 clicks.

Post some of your favorite links in the comments.

Sure the iPod is great for listening to music and watching movies on a really tiny screen, but why limit yourself.  The iPod is a powerful tiny computer and you might try using it as such.  Most of these tricks take some advanced computer skills, so if your iPod explodes, blame Microsoft like everybody else.

Install Linux

What free games and programs for your iPod?  The open-source miracle worker Linux has been developed specifically for the iPod and its handy click-wheel.  iPodLinux allows you to play more media files and you can still load the regular Apple firmware.  Unfortunately the newest iPods and some older ones are not supported.

Wikipedia on your iPod

If you get into a lot of discussions about the House of Burgundy but can’t remember the order of the monarchs, try carrying Wikipedia with you.  With no need for the internet, you can install almost 2 gigs of Wikipedia goodness onto your iPod for anytime viewing.  Now you always have something interesting to read on the train.

Change the iPod theme

For very advanced users (Windows only), use the iPodWizard to change the visuals of your iPod OS.  Tweak the colors, fonts, and maybe make your music sound better as a result.

Read a book

With a slight of hand, you can upload ebooks to your iPod.  Simply paste any text into a simple text file (.txt) and load it into Notes or Contacts on your iPod.  Files must be less than 4kb so novels need to be broken up between several files  Programs Text2iPod X and iPoDoc can help simplify the process.

You can even buy software

I know, who buys software these days.  Depending on if you want to learn a language, create flash cards, or listen to some female robot read your notes, you can find software for your iPod.  We are not here to judge.

Wikipedia has been a great tool for geeks to finally write down all the crap we used to have to remember.  And now we can share that knowledge with the world wide web.  Wikipedia allows anyone to not only edit articles, but to start their own speciality encyclopedias.  This list ranks the geekiest, most complete wikia dedicated to the topics geeks care most about.  It’s not simply which site has the most articles, but how deep into the subject did it take to find that many articles.  And how geeky those articles are.  That counts.

7. Transformers Wiki

Want to know how more than meets the eye the Transformers really were?  Check out the Transformers Wikia.  There are more than 5,500 articles to transform your thinking about giant robots, from the comics to the cartoons to the movies, in every generation of the series.

6. Doctor Who Wiki

The fan community of the longest running sci-fi series have written more than 7,600 articles about the ten different Doctors and all his enemies and friends.  It’s like time travel without the motion sickness.

Continue reading…

Officially launched on January 15, 2001, Wikipedia has ballooned into a massive online encyclopedia with millions of free articles in dozens of languages editable by anyone.  The resulting open source experiment has attracted geeks from all over the world to fill in the history of obscure kings and random Star Wars trivia, giving far more attention to the latter.  Wikipedia allows geeks to share their knowledge, no matter what topic, and the only editors are other geeks - people who share the same passion.  If you want to write 2,000 words about Númenor, then be Wikipedia’s guest.  Just don’t expect to launch your career in academia.

I love Wikipedia for many reasons, but possibly most for its lovely lists of random facts. Take for instance this article on failed predictions made by famous people about everything from the end of the world to the end of Mad Magazine. It’s funny to see how many people assume something popular is just a fad (though the real question would be how many popular things really were just fads).

Some of my favorites:

• “Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan.” - Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.
• “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” - H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927.
• “We will never make a 32 bit operating system.” - Bill Gates
• “A short-lived satirical pulp.” — TIME, writing off Mad magazine in 1956

Maybe now with Wikipedia keeping track of all our predictions, pundits and commentators will be more careful about what they say…yeah, well, as least with Wikipedia, if your insane prediction does come true, you can always edit it.

Don’t run. I might be the only person under 40 who currently watched the hilarious law drama Boston Legal, but I promise you, it’s brilliant. And better yet, it’s geeky. Starship, aliens, breaking forth-wall geeky. All at a respectable Boston law office.

The actual plot of the show follows a law office so quirk it could only exist on television, with the sensitive yet intimidating Alan Shore (James Spader) and the same description for Shirley Schmidt (Candice Bergen). But the best, and geekiest part is Denny Crane, none other than William “Captain Kirk” Shatner.

And Shatner isn’t all. Rene Auberjonois, Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was a regular character. Wikipedia devotes a section of Boston Legal’s entry to all the Star Trek references in the show, most of which are hidden and fun asides to the audience and all are hilarious, from guest-stars to teleporter jokes.

All this and the show is actual a creative law drama. The cases the lawyers take on are unique and tackle real issues with controversy by the score. Check it out, Tuesdays at 10pm on ABC (no HD, sorry).