Jess Wade is a scientist on a mission. She wants every woman who has achieved something impressive in science to get the prominence and recognition they deserve – starting with a Wikipedia entry.

“I’ve done about 270 in the past year,” says Wade, a postdoctoral researcher in the field of plastic electronics at Imperial College London’s Blackett Laboratory. “I had a target for doing one a day, but sometimes I get too excited and do three.”

That science doesn’t attract enough girls and has ground to make up in supporting and celebrating its women can feel like a tired refrain in academia. But Wade’s approach is refreshing and infectious.

“I kind of realised we can only really change things from the inside,” she says. “Wikipedia is a really great way to engage people in this mission because the more you read about these sensational women, the more you get so motivated and inspired by their personal stories.”

Full Report

Bubblecar said:

Jess Wade is a scientist on a mission. She wants every woman who has achieved something impressive in science to get the prominence and recognition they deserve – starting with a Wikipedia entry.

“I’ve done about 270 in the past year,” says Wade, a postdoctoral researcher in the field of plastic electronics at Imperial College London’s Blackett Laboratory. “I had a target for doing one a day, but sometimes I get too excited and do three.”

That science doesn’t attract enough girls and has ground to make up in supporting and celebrating its women can feel like a tired refrain in academia. But Wade’s approach is refreshing and infectious.

“I kind of realised we can only really change things from the inside,” she says. “Wikipedia is a really great way to engage people in this mission because the more you read about these sensational women, the more you get so motivated and inspired by their personal stories.”

Full Report

Wikipediholics_in_denial

• A Wikipediholic? Me? That’s ridiculous. Absurd. Come on, how long does this damn server take to load a page? I can quit any time. I could quit tomorrow. Today. Only there’s three articles I began editing two months ago and haven’t finished, and I’m just sweating because I’m worried someone might do it before me. Not that I need to worry about that, I mean it’s not like they’re going to do a better job of it, right? Oh, good grief, don’t say the stupid server’s deleted my revision AGAIN!!! No, no, it’s just a hobby. Just a chance to share some of the uselessful information I’ve gleaned over the years with the rest of the world and that’ll show that stupid bullying French teacher I’m not a stupid runt after all. OH, GOD, NO! NOT THAT! ANYTHING BUT THAT! IT’S… IT’S… ANOTHER GATEWAY TIMEOUT! NOOOOOOOOOOO

Bubblecar said:

Jess Wade is a scientist on a mission. She wants every woman who has achieved something impressive in science to get the prominence and recognition they deserve – starting with a Wikipedia entry.

“I’ve done about 270 in the past year,” says Wade, a postdoctoral researcher in the field of plastic electronics at Imperial College London’s Blackett Laboratory. “I had a target for doing one a day, but sometimes I get too excited and do three.”

That science doesn’t attract enough girls and has ground to make up in supporting and celebrating its women can feel like a tired refrain in academia. But Wade’s approach is refreshing and infectious.

“I kind of realised we can only really change things from the inside,” she says. “Wikipedia is a really great way to engage people in this mission because the more you read about these sensational women, the more you get so motivated and inspired by their personal stories.”

Full Report

Fair enough, lots of dross entries about sports people who’ve done nothing spectacular except that and often barely even did that.

More seriously, I note the wikipedia is being updated less and less often by scientists these days. Eg. It was way behind the times in its listing of the known isotopes of calcium. The article on island of stability is just plain wrong.

What I hate most about wikipedia is what I call “bitch tags”, by that I mean prominent statements of scores of different types that are all exactly synonymous to “I don’t like this article but I’m too lazy to fix it” that appears prominently on about 50% of the darn articles. Bitch tags should all time out and permanently vanish after 3 months if not earlier.

What is your most recent change to wikipedia?

Cymek said:

Bubblecar said:

Jess Wade is a scientist on a mission. She wants every woman who has achieved something impressive in science to get the prominence and recognition they deserve – starting with a Wikipedia entry.

“I’ve done about 270 in the past year,” says Wade, a postdoctoral researcher in the field of plastic electronics at Imperial College London’s Blackett Laboratory. “I had a target for doing one a day, but sometimes I get too excited and do three.”

That science doesn’t attract enough girls and has ground to make up in supporting and celebrating its women can feel like a tired refrain in academia. But Wade’s approach is refreshing and infectious.

“I kind of realised we can only really change things from the inside,” she says. “Wikipedia is a really great way to engage people in this mission because the more you read about these sensational women, the more you get so motivated and inspired by their personal stories.”

Full Report

Fair enough, lots of dross entries about sports people who’ve done nothing spectacular except that and often barely even did that.

For example

Leslie “Les” Jones (25 March 1905 – 5 December 1993) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Hawthorn in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

Jones, who was from Foster, made five appearances for Hawthorn in the 1929 VFL season.

Was it Meg from SSSF who was doing genetics research into twins, she’d be a good entry

Cymek said:

Was it Meg from SSSF who was doing genetics research into twins, she’d be a good entry

Steady lad.

Peak Warming Man said:

Cymek said:

Was it Meg from SSSF who was doing genetics research into twins, she’d be a good entry

Steady lad.

No double entendre intended

mollwollfumble said:

More seriously, I note the wikipedia is being updated less and less often by scientists these days. Eg. It was way behind the times in its listing of the known isotopes of calcium. The article on island of stability is just plain wrong.

What I hate most about wikipedia is what I call “bitch tags”, by that I mean prominent statements of scores of different types that are all exactly synonymous to “I don’t like this article but I’m too lazy to fix it” that appears prominently on about 50% of the darn articles. Bitch tags should all time out and permanently vanish after 3 months if not earlier.

What is your most recent change to wikipedia?

Cruithne is  incorrectly described as a second moon of Earth.

It’s amazing how people sit on their precious articles to protect them from any corruption. I made an edit to the description of this object an it was it was immediately reverted with attitude. However, my effort may have stimulated a rewrite of the first paragraph.

A browse through the edit history is a hoot.

Ian said:

mollwollfumble said:

More seriously, I note the wikipedia is being updated less and less often by scientists these days. Eg. It was way behind the times in its listing of the known isotopes of calcium. The article on island of stability is just plain wrong.

What I hate most about wikipedia is what I call “bitch tags”, by that I mean prominent statements of scores of different types that are all exactly synonymous to “I don’t like this article but I’m too lazy to fix it” that appears prominently on about 50% of the darn articles. Bitch tags should all time out and permanently vanish after 3 months if not earlier.

What is your most recent change to wikipedia?

Cruithne is  incorrectly described as a second moon of Earth.

It’s amazing how people sit on their precious articles to protect them from any corruption. I made an edit to the description of this object an it was it was immediately reverted with attitude. However, my effort may have stimulated a rewrite of the first paragraph.

A browse through the edit history is a hoot.

Just had a look.

It currently says it is NOT a moon of Earth.

How can a continuous orbit be horse-shoe shaped?

mollwollfumble said:

What is your most recent change to wikipedia?

I think I did one about 10 years ago, pointing out that there was no reason to believe that the concrete used in the Pantheon had any magical qualities.

Jolly good, it’s still there:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantheon,_Rome#Rotunda

The Rev Dodgson said:

Ian said:

mollwollfumble said:

More seriously, I note the wikipedia is being updated less and less often by scientists these days. Eg. It was way behind the times in its listing of the known isotopes of calcium. The article on island of stability is just plain wrong.

What I hate most about wikipedia is what I call “bitch tags”, by that I mean prominent statements of scores of different types that are all exactly synonymous to “I don’t like this article but I’m too lazy to fix it” that appears prominently on about 50% of the darn articles. Bitch tags should all time out and permanently vanish after 3 months if not earlier.

What is your most recent change to wikipedia?

Cruithne is  incorrectly described as a second moon of Earth.

It’s amazing how people sit on their precious articles to protect them from any corruption. I made an edit to the description of this object an it was it was immediately reverted with attitude. However, my effort may have stimulated a rewrite of the first paragraph.

A browse through the edit history is a hoot.

Just had a look.

It currently says it is NOT a moon of Earth.

How can a continuous orbit be horse-shoe shaped?

My version says “Cruithne appears to make a bean-shaped orbit from the perspective of Earth.”

Ian said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

Ian said:

Cruithne is  incorrectly described as a second moon of Earth.

It’s amazing how people sit on their precious articles to protect them from any corruption. I made an edit to the description of this object an it was it was immediately reverted with attitude. However, my effort may have stimulated a rewrite of the first paragraph.

A browse through the edit history is a hoot.

Just had a look.

It currently says it is NOT a moon of Earth.

How can a continuous orbit be horse-shoe shaped?

My version says “Cruithne appears to make a bean-shaped orbit from the perspective of Earth.”

Sounds much more reasonable :)

“it takes 770 years for the series to complete a horseshoe-shaped movement around the Earth.”

I assume this bit refers to the long-term cumulative shape of old bean’s orbit, old bean.

Michael V said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

SCIENCE said:

JudgeMental said:

lol.

Yeah But Who Are The Fascist Billionaires Now

For the benefit of anyone else out there who forgets stuff that really deserves to be remembered:

Hedy Lamarr

TIL.

Thanks.

(y)