Mary Wakefield: Wikipedia doesn't have all the answers
The Independent

So Wikipedia is dying, scuppered by its power-hungry editors who guard their turf too zealously and delete new entries. It was (is still) such a noble project, it should be a tragedy that people have stopped contributing to it.

It should be a tragedy, but for me I'm afraid it's been a relief...

View the article

What if you don't actually read the articles, but just pore through the edit histories looking for the specific edit in which someone inserts something bad about someone else?

There's some info on WP about Proust and the Squid here, but shockingly, nobody on WP has written a separate article about it. I guess one of them would have to actually read it...

There was some discussion on this thread.

For those who read …

Jon

C'mon, that was a whole year-and-a-half ago! Besides, I was totally on vacation that week. (Wasn't I?)

Anyway, I might have to get myself a copy of that. I've actually been trying to shed myself of some of my massive library recently, but I usually get one or two bookstore gift certificates for Christmas...

Books can be put in the trash, but it's rather like taking your pet to the pound.

You can take them into the bookshop or library or various other places, but that's also like the pound. You can't leave the one you took and you see two you have to have. The public library here has the habit of "remaindering" big old hardback bios and histories since nobody ever checks them out. God knows what they do check out (I suspect the sort of bodice-rippers one finds at the dollar store).

But you get this book with a glue-in library card pocket with a few checkout dates stamped on it, just like the good old days before computers, and then a REALLY BIG ASS stamp that says in effect:

THIS BOOK WAS NOT STOLEN FROM THE SO-SO LIBRARY

What's not to like? Put it in one more Ikea shelf that is due to fall on you, when the big California Earthquake comes. Google books will probably get to most of it in a few years, but by that time the Earthquake may have gotten me anyway, so what the hell.

I've read it. But you'd need someone who (a) reads (b) understands © can be arsed to make the effort. I claim (a) and (b) but maybe not ©!