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Monthly Archives: November 2013

Red link lists on steroids

I have long been a fan of red link lists, collections of topics that ought to have a Wikipedia article. Often, these are complied from other sources, such as the public domain 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, or the Dictionary of National Biography. Such lists often give a good overview over an area of knowledge such as […]

Wikidata, or: Wikipedia, the other 60%

As Gerard has so eloquently described, over 60% of Wikidata items have no corresponding article in the English Wikipedia; once we leave the “top five”, this exceeds 90%. The shoot-from-the-hip response would be: write more articles! While there is no issue in principle with this approach, it might not scale well, even with all our volunteers. […]

The Apple Tax Dare

So yesterday, October 31, I experienced the ultimate Halloween horror: My 5-year-old 24″ iMac died. It was my primary machine, and, while occasionally a little sluggish, worked quite well. Five years lifetime is acceptable these days, but now I need to get a replacement. I like the form factor of the all-in-one machine, and shudder […]