Those of us who occasionally look into Gregory Kohs's activities on Wikipedia are often rewarded with some very disturbing revelations.

Mr. Kohs recently added himself to the list of Wikimedia Public Speakers, probably just to see what would happen since nobody ever actually asks anyone on the list to appear somewhere to make a speech. (To be fair, by all accounts Mr. Kohs is a fine public speaker.)

Anyway, this naturally got a reaction from David "The World's Nemesis" Shankbone, who posted this frightening bit of info:

The link in the quote is to a photograph Shanky took of a classroom, presumably somewhere in Colorado, full of impressionable kids to whom he'd just given a little "talk."

Later in the quote, he concludes:

Which, I suppose, means that the people who don't know that the acronym for "Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game" is actually MMORPG are the ones who are most likely to post the incorrect acronym on a Wikipedia talk page?

After this, Mr. Kohs asks:

Apparently there isn't, as this question has so far been completely ignored by Shankers. We can only imagine what sorts of things he told them about his WP-related activities...

Dunno about Calhan High School, but the school one of my kids goes to has a strict policy regarding taking photographs, especially of the kids. Not everyone wants their child's photograph on-line, especially not on a free license.

I've no idea as to what that could refer to

Our schools have policies on mobile phones in the classroom too, and given their likely attention span, I think they are safe

Also on that list: Piotrus. Wasn't he just temporarily desysoped because of his involvement in that mailing list debacle? Why yes, yes he was...

If Mr. Miller's photograph of his audience is any indication - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cal...d_Shankbone.jpg - it would appear that some of the kids were more interested in text messaging, some were bored out of their skulls (check out the youths in the back row) and no one found him worth quoting (check the absence of open notebooks -- nobody was preserving Mr. Miller's words of wisdom).

And that photo gets used on Wikinews to illustrate an artcile about teens and high risk behaviour involving sex and drugs.

Ah, so you're the one reader a day of that article!

I try to read it every day, but I've been busy lately.

Ironically, this thread has probably raised that article into Wikinews's top 10, since 22 hits appears to be the current rate. Go on, everyone visit Sinkhole reported in Buffalo, New York and see if we can get it to #1.

More probably His Own Private Idaho school.

David "Shankbone" Miller at a High School?

Did he show them how to upload photos of erections and middle age queers cruising naked on Fire Island?

Or did he focus on how to extract funding from Israeli government to pay for Mediterranean holidays by promising to fluff biographies of consulate members and rig the Wiki?

Presumably the first thing any school age kid does nowadays is Google the name of any speaker? Even if their teachers don't. I wonder what they found?

More presumably ... did the school have to pay for his traveling expenses.

Do they have to disclose the likes?

He was in Colorado a while back. So it's not as if they were flying him in from New York or whatnot.

Well, my old middle school in Florida is very actively engaged in collaborative efforts with Wikipedia. I'm very proud of this ongoing relationship with the world's largest knowledge base.

Wow, you have to follow the diffs from there. Some classic activity on Wikipedia! I wonder if this sort of tom-foolery would have happened if ArbCom hadn't banned me again?