Check out the Global Voices/Reuters teamup
tonight — starting right now — as seven mainstream media panelists
are joined by five Mid-east GV bloggers to discuss whether the “:real” Iraqi story is being told by the media.  There will be streaming audio and a live online chat available for the two-hour special discussion.

Reuters calls it the “Reuters Iraq Newsmaker debate“.  I’m guessing the MSM will be taken down a few notches, but I would love to hear what Reuters’ Iraq bureau chief Alistair MacDonald and Guardian photojournalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad have to say.

Come wikify your night with a [local group] of entrepreneurs and wikiphiles.  The second Boston Wiki Wednesday gathering is happening tonight, properly the first week of the month this time.

Where : at Smile Thai in Harvard Square (12-14 Eliot St).
When : at 7pm
Who : anyone who has ever contemplated deleting an entire wiki page.

Call to RSVP, or for more information.    529 4266 (617).

One cannot put too high a price on not sucking.

Writeboard : those 37signals lads have a sense of humor, oh but they do.

Writely : It really is that good. What do we (as a society, as inventors, as knowledge stewards) do with great tools like this? When the marginal cost of creation and distribution is around a penny, it’s an awfully tough decision…

Inside a game, life and value and equivalence are quite different than
they are outside.   If one could turn one’s perceptions
inside out, and somehow look out of a local game, the value warping
would be visible as a certain colorful rainbow effect…

Consider a classroom, or a staged event, or a casino.  Or
something complex, such as a social group.  Value can be locked up
in any number of things…  People act differently about what they
want when they have access to a pantry of free food, or when they have
to pay for it on the spot; when they are freerolling, or when they’ve
paid some small amount for something; when they are being Instructed,
and when they are learning with an extra understanding of free choice.

Perhaps the most obvious examples are people who process large
quantiitiies of goods, money,
and people.  Captains, freight
shippers, stocktraders, gamblers, train conductors,
pilots…    Inside one such game, I possess a year of
tournament fees.  Inside another, partial ‘ownership’ of several
spectacular dwellings and constructs, and a local title.  In a
third, original-authorship of a widely-referenced and updated dataset;
in a fourth, position in a world-famous clan.  Attempting to
translate any one of these into any other, or to compare their values -
hundreds or thousands of hours, dollars, connections – across the
prismatic boundaries of their games…  would be difficult and
inaccurate at best; impossible or dangerous at worst.

An online complaint forum about all things Wikipedia, called the Wikipedia Review, has recently gone live. 
It has a thriving community, and is about real experiences more than
rants or insults, which makes it fascinating to read.  I’ve
learned interesting things from one or two honest contributors there;
though there is a lot of ranting that must be waded through.

There’s something refreshing about seeing a variety of complaints in
one place, somewhat organized.  And in most complaints, a kernel
of truth.  Now if only that forum would morph into what its name
suggests, and become an ambivalent review of all parts of the spectrum of WP experiences…

Snapshot, less than a week out:

• Wikipedia:List of known defamation incidents
• John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy and its deletion debate (conclusion: an overwhelming keep)
• a Wikifanatic’s very own transcript of the interview
• an entire subsection in the History of Wikipedia article

Both hcs and I have had disk troubles a little more often than one
might like over the past few years.  I’m on my fourth drive now in
3 years.  Is this oiverheating?  Shared karma?  that
beantown vibe?  I don’t overclock, play 52-part pickup, or do
other extravagant things, on bluesky or metamorph.  I do regularly
give thanks for my Lacie backup drive, and have even purchased
commercial Win-partition rescue software, which was useful on more than
one occasion.  I’ve looked around to see if this is a common
Thinkpad problem, but it doesn’t seem to be.  At any rate, I live
my computerized life lightly, expecting to leave it at any
time…  For a moment I even considered shifting to ‘online
storage’ systems before regaining my presence of mind.

Then today I realized that the drive in my desktop machine has been the
same for six years.  Six.  With a noisy, balky fan that’s
been replaced at least once.  Funny, that… and I’d better make
extra sure to have spares for that baby on hand.

Through their fine reporting on the media bazaar.  
I have many posts to make and images to upload myself; for the moment
you will have to be content with theirs. 

Today I scoured the city for internet cafes (les publinets). 
I found two, of varying quality and elegance; charging $1-2/hr. 
both suffered from a “lack of resource” over the course of two hours –
the satellite connections through which their landline providers
connect to the internet were down.  Apparently this happens
often… I had heard rumors of it, but most telling was the acceptance
of others in the cafe who simply hung around waiting for the connection
to return.

I ended up finding access at a 4-star hotel with its own private
connection to the rest of the world.  Unfortunately, I don’t have
a room here, and have to leave the comfort of their lobby presently…

Rory O’Connor, of Hole in the Wall fame, posts today on pbs.org about the wiki footage he shot at Wikimania,
his take on wiki media, and ideas for a wikmientary mashing together
his 13 hours of raw footage (soon to be compressed and posted to
 archive.org for public delectation).