Interesting Links for 21-09-2012

[andrewducker]

• MSPs hear UK welfare reforms are forcing a blind man to beg. (And the assessments are full of lies)
  (tags: uk welfare disabilities )
• The people tattooed with ads for websites that no longer exist.
  (tags: tattoos adverts web )
• Mobile phones and wireless networks: No evidence of health risk found
  (tags: phones health wireless

Comments

[makyo]

It's hard to say, and I don't pretend to fully understand what's actually going on. Maybe he actually was up to no good, but the rest of the board seemed to be content with the way he was proceeding with things, he'd apparently made numerous statements to clarify the situation before and after he was elected to the board earlier this year, and the people at the Gibraltar end of things issued a statement yesterday afternoon to say "no, we're not paying him to write articles on Wikipedia for us".

I tend only to skim-read the messages on the list (which I only joined to find out about cool stuff like this and this) and it's more than possible that I've misread the situation, but I've noticed that the same four or five names seem to be responsible for most of the sniping. I did ask the other day what was going on, and whether it was really a productive use of everybody's time and energy, and one of the critics said he was genuinely just trying to get some clarification of the situation (which seemed fair enough to me), while a few of the others denounced it as the work of "trolls, nutters and stalkers".

If I were in that situation, and even if I'd been scrupulously honest and transparent (which I like to think I would have been) then I suspect I'd have quit sooner than this chap has, purely in the interests of a quiet life.

[snarlish]

i'm just commenting here to say this is all interesting and the two things you linked to are pretty cool.

[makyo]

the two things you linked to are pretty cool.
Yes, they were really interesting, and a lot of fun to take part in, and I think it's really cool that they happened/happen. I've lived in Coventry for about fifteen years now, on and off, and the photography scavenger hunt got me to go and really look at buildings and other things I've never properly looked at before.

There are about three people who tend to do most of the organisation - one was a student at Coventry University who stayed here after he graduated and got involved in Wikimedia outreach stuff, one is a member of staff at the Herbert Gallery and Museum (she's one of those people that's really good at making interesting things happen) and the other is about fourteen and is far more organised, motivated and confident than I was at his age (or, in fact, even when I was twice that age).

[snarlish]

Thanks for more detail on this. I find the whole aspect of communities forming to have fun and challenge themselves to be able to contribute more to a free source of knowledge really encouraging.