In Reader's Digest, there's this article on a project to collect six-word autobiographies. It gave a few examples, and lucky for funniness, Jimmy Wales was given as one.

Now, I could see if it said "Yes, you can edit this article". At least then it is a clearly accurate summary of what he's done. But this implies that he finds Wikipedian treatment of biographies to be the most important accomplishment of his life.

For his sake, I hope it isn't.

For our sake, I hope he figures this out. I have a very self-recursive fantasy of Jimbo Wales' tombstone in a cemetary, with dates, and

"Yes, you can edit this article"

as an epitaph. And in front of the grave marker, a marble recepticle of chisels and hammers available for the use of anybody from the visiting public with a momentary interest in the alteration of lapidary inscription.

If all of this isn't enough to teach a lesson, there will be some deep, deep cognitive dissonance. For not only is BLP policy one of the cankers in the bloom of Wikipedia, it's also the mechanism for the founder's worst personal nightmares. I mean, you've heard of people having their dirty laundry opened to the public, but this is one of the few men of our times it has literally happened to. AND because he was trying to circumvent the automated dirty laundry generating system he himself had set up, for the sake of somebody he was going to have sex with. AND that this episode is duly going to be inserted into HIS biography. Via his own rules. With not enough people available to bribe or hump to stop it from happening, eventually. The levels of recursive justice here boggle the mind. I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't actually a God. There's certainly karma.

-Milton

The post immediately above is brilliant.

Dammit, I'm using a laptop at the moment and don't have my trusty photoshop tools to hand.

A free pack of Wikipedia Review Wotsit Nibnobs for anyone who can make Milton Roe's fantasy a visual reality in a jpg.

You mean something like the Tombstone Generator?

Damn! The power of collaborative thought and action! It took three of us, but there it is. A work of moderate originality, and not without humor.

Now, what the hell do we DO with it?? Can't just let it sit here. Gotta post it on Wikipedia someplace...

--Milt

Somey: "Yes, you can edit this tombstone".

That was too good to pass up, I had to blog it too.

Jimbo Wales: "Biographies edited if you blow me"