j's scratchpad

I joined the men representing Wikipedia and sj’s terrific bird project at the Boston Cyberarts Festival Opening Night Party. Because of a snafu at a copy shop, I was two hours late getting there with all the brochures in several languages explaining Wikipedia. I heard part of a speech, but chose not to wander through the few projects on display.

I really enjoyed talking to the people who came to the booth and watching sj–who is a world class networker and socializer–work the crowd. It was fun to watch people’s expressions change as they learned about Wikipedia and sj’s project, then made some edits.

Several people were thrilled to make corrections and contributions to the encyclopedia in real time.

One of the guys at the booth–known for his strong interest in Wikinews–demonstrated how vandalism gets corrected by placing some erroneous information in the article about the new pope. He told the people, who were skeptical about how long an error could last, to return a while later. When they came back, he showed them that the change had been corrected and that the wrong information lasted only two minutes.

I got to talk to a man responsible for Yellow Arrow, a project similar to something about which Lisa Williams dreams. The idea is to relate a text message receivable by a device, like a mobile phone, to a yellow arrow sticker that gets attached to a geographic landmark. The message can contain a variety of information. To access the message, someone dials a number on the sticker and enters an alphanumeric code. While this project’s purpose seems to primarily be artistic, Lisa has suggested such a device for useful information, like revealing the location of a restaurant that moved. I wondered, too, if they might be useful for networking at a conference. Could someone use the message to list his/her interests and let others access that information from a distance? Sure, he admitted.

He gave me a few yellow arrows to use. They come on yellow squares approximately four inches long. There’s a phone number and alphanumeric code on the arrow, along with the URL for the project. The back has a description of the project and instructions for using the arrow. It’s interactive: through the system, it’s possible to comment on someone’s arrow and have the message go to him/her.

There’s a Wikinews article about the opening event. Since it doesn’t contain information about the Yellow Arrow project, I suppose I could add some of that to the article. Other exhibitors who weren’t mentioned could edit the article to add their own details. Attendees could add their own quotes, too.

When I explained Wikinews to someone a few weeks ago, he jokingly said, “Does that mean if I get quoted and I don’t like how I was quoted, I can go in and rewrite my quote?”

Three brief Wiki-esque notes:

1. I heard a rumor that Wikipedia won an award from MySQL recently. I need to find more info about that and haven’t yet.

2. I have lots of posters to distribute for Jimmy Wales’ talk on Tuesday, April 26, at 8:30 pm. If you are near me and would like a poster or some posters, drop me a line.
3. I don’t consider myself to be a Wikix contributor or community member. I’ve been following Wikimedia and its projects for a while now (maybe a year or longer) and have become quite knowledgeable about the projects and how they work. I’ve been attending local Wikipedia gatherings and have met a few local Wikimedians. sj asked me to assist him tonight because of my knowledge and interest in Wikipedia. I’m still rather undecided about the whole thing. I can see its drawbacks and merits. I will still try to present a neutral viewpoint (NPOV) concerning it and its projects in this space. I realize that irks a few of you, but that’s my aim.

Addendum 6/25: The radio show Weekend America aired a segment on Yellow Arrow and some of its participants in New York.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 22nd, 2005 at 3:25 am and is filed under Wikis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.