[WikiEN-l] [Wikimediauk-l] BBC Newsnight tonight! re: flagged revs

[David Gerard]

2009/8/26 Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com>:

> How do you think it went, David? I like the bit you said right at the
> end about how it was a surprise that Wikipedia became so popular, but
> though I've got it recorded on DVD, I haven't re-watched it yet. I got
> the impression the presenter (Paxman must be on holiday) and the
> Guardian guy were saying quite a bit, and you were wanting to correct
> them on some points, but didn't get much of a chance.


They had me on with Kevin Anderson from the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/kevinanderson
http://strange.corante.com/

I actually met him at a London wikimeet a few years ago (at that
horrible noisy football pub James F. had suggested) with his fiancee
(now wife) Suw Charman, who at the time was executive director of the
Open Rights Group. Thus demonstrating that everyone knows everyone.
(After the interview, Kevin and I geeked about how both our first
computers were TRS-80s :-D )

Kevin is someone who Knows His Shit about the Internet. Basically we
sat there agreeing on everything. Kirsty Wark was somewhat surprised
to have two guests furiously agree ;-)

I really couldn't fault anything he was saying. In the context of that
*horrible* intro it didn't sound great, but he basically really does
get it. He spoke of the "elites" a lot (meaning the top editors),
which is technically correct but will fuel the conspiracy
theorists.(The connotations of the word as "pretentious" or
"oppressors". I'd *hope* the hours-a-day editors don't act like
pretentious oppressors ...)  Oh well.

And I got to call my fellow Wikipedians "encyclopedia nerds" on
national television ;-p


- d.