New Year, new Wikipedia list.
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@jessamyn oh snap I know Jonathan… well not him really, his kid, who is in my sons scout troop. He’s a cool kid. For some reason he knows a lot about owls!
@drnixon Hahaha. I told Jonathan on Bluesky that I liked the book (which I did) but stopped short of telling him "SO I WROTE THIS WHOLE WIKIPEDIA PAGE" Maybe someday...
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@jessamyn To any book critic, "So you don't like my book? The Owl might differ with you. So be careful walking at night. His friends will find you."
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@gmachine I hear you. The vibe I get, and I may be wrong about this, is this is more about diversifying their revenue stream than any specific cash flow problems. Despite their annual urgent-feeling fundraisers, I feel that the foundation is doing okay $$$-wise.
"Patrons" always impact the editorial decisions of public interest information institutions.
Examples:
1. David Koch joining the PBS board of directors.
https://truthout.org/articles/the-corporate-dictatorship-of-pbs-and-npr/Nova & Frontline never did another hard hitting expose of Koch Network's anti-democracy, policies of immiseration, & climate denial again.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/a-word-from-our-sponsor
https://www.pbs.org/publiceditor/blogs/ombudsman/global-warming-koch-and-nova/
https://harpers.org/archive/2014/10/pbs-self-destructs/
https://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/pbs_pulls_ads_from_harpers_mag.php
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"Patrons" always impact the editorial decisions of public interest information institutions.
Examples:
1. David Koch joining the PBS board of directors.
https://truthout.org/articles/the-corporate-dictatorship-of-pbs-and-npr/Nova & Frontline never did another hard hitting expose of Koch Network's anti-democracy, policies of immiseration, & climate denial again.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/05/27/a-word-from-our-sponsor
https://www.pbs.org/publiceditor/blogs/ombudsman/global-warming-koch-and-nova/
https://harpers.org/archive/2014/10/pbs-self-destructs/
https://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/pbs_pulls_ads_from_harpers_mag.php
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2. Bill Ackman & Harvard University -- The destruction of reputation at elite universities
The venal think their megadonations gives them control of legacy admissions, partisan slant, management, and endowment fund looting.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/jan/03/bill-ackman-billionaire-attacks-claudine-gay-harvard-twitter-xThe White Supremacist curriculum...
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/arts/national-humanities-endowment-grants.htmlhttps://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/1/2/ackman-backs-gino/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/bill-ackman-war-harvard-mit-dei-claudine-gay.html
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/university-news/trump-admin-appeals-funding-restoration
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/business/bill-ackman-harvard-antisemitism.html
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2. Bill Ackman & Harvard University -- The destruction of reputation at elite universities
The venal think their megadonations gives them control of legacy admissions, partisan slant, management, and endowment fund looting.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/jan/03/bill-ackman-billionaire-attacks-claudine-gay-harvard-twitter-xThe White Supremacist curriculum...
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/arts/national-humanities-endowment-grants.htmlhttps://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/1/2/ackman-backs-gino/
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/bill-ackman-war-harvard-mit-dei-claudine-gay.html
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/university-news/trump-admin-appeals-funding-restoration
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/business/bill-ackman-harvard-antisemitism.html
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3. Nikole Hannah Jones, Tenure, and UNC's donor Hussman.
Billionaires think their money gives them hire, fire, retire control of supposedly autonomous organizations.
https://zora.medium.com/unc-threw-shade-on-nikole-hannah-jones-1619-project-denying-her-tenure-78f0767f37aehttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/business/media/nikole-hannah-jones-unc.html
Institutions get bullied to abandon DEI, ESG, climate research
https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2025/02/03/koch-spent-91-million-to-influence-higher-education-in-2023/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/harvard-claudine-gay-bill-ackman-diversity-and-inclusion/
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/15/investing/bill-ackman-harvard
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/13/how-larry-ellison-worlds-richest-man-buying-oxford/
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When Helen Macdonald says you've got the best author photo she's ever seen and gives your first book a glowing review, people take notice. But maybe not Wikipedia people. Now that Jonathan Slaght's got a second book about Amur tigers (and the first one about fish owls won a lot of awards) it's high time he was in Wikipedia.
Bobby Gosh was a local musician and producer who you may know from such hits as Dr. Hook's song "A Little Bit More" or Bjork's music box pieces on Vespertine. He may or may not have opened for Streisand during her happening in Central Park. He definitely wrote the Honeycomb Hideout jingle. He was an art collector. An unapologetic weed eater, Gosh's life is full of amazing facts and what I suspect are some embellishments. Definitely a local legend who will be well missed.
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Bobby Gosh was a local musician and producer who you may know from such hits as Dr. Hook's song "A Little Bit More" or Bjork's music box pieces on Vespertine. He may or may not have opened for Streisand during her happening in Central Park. He definitely wrote the Honeycomb Hideout jingle. He was an art collector. An unapologetic weed eater, Gosh's life is full of amazing facts and what I suspect are some embellishments. Definitely a local legend who will be well missed.
When I started this article about Rice Estes, it's because I thought he was a Black librarian raised in South Carolina committed to ending segregation in public libraries in the South. As it turns out, that article was wrong and he was all those things, except he was white. He was married to well-known author Eleanor Estes. She had a long Wikipedia page, he had none. He did not do a lot of public activism after the 60s (that I found) but what he did then was important.
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@wcaleb Well, if the image isn't in the public domain, then there's a pretty narrow set of fair use reasons. One thing Wikipedia allows is fair use for an image of a deceased person (a few others you see a lot are book covers and album covers) AS LONG AS you include a fair use justification. This is one of those things where it's complex enough (but not difficult, just fiddly) that it's worth having someone step you through it. I wrote this thing up a few years ago
https://www.librarian.net/stax/5200/how-to-adding-fair-use-images-to-peoples-wikipedia-pages/
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@wcaleb Well, if the image isn't in the public domain, then there's a pretty narrow set of fair use reasons. One thing Wikipedia allows is fair use for an image of a deceased person (a few others you see a lot are book covers and album covers) AS LONG AS you include a fair use justification. This is one of those things where it's complex enough (but not difficult, just fiddly) that it's worth having someone step you through it. I wrote this thing up a few years ago
https://www.librarian.net/stax/5200/how-to-adding-fair-use-images-to-peoples-wikipedia-pages/
@wcaleb I would be happy to answer any other questions about this. I often, when I'm avoiding doomscrolling (as you mentioned in your blog post - relatable!) will look into public domain image archives which haven't been wholesale added to Wikimedia Commons to see if any of them could illustrate Wikipedia pages. I work on biography mainly so I will often do a keyword search for "portrait" for example and go from there. Here's another thing I wrote, a long time ago
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@wcaleb I would be happy to answer any other questions about this. I often, when I'm avoiding doomscrolling (as you mentioned in your blog post - relatable!) will look into public domain image archives which haven't been wholesale added to Wikimedia Commons to see if any of them could illustrate Wikipedia pages. I work on biography mainly so I will often do a keyword search for "portrait" for example and go from there. Here's another thing I wrote, a long time ago
@wcaleb I used a Wikipedia tool called Petscan (I am not a programmer, this was just clicking and typing) to generate a list of all Wikipedia bios of deceased librarians that did not have a picture. Then I put it in my sandbox and I work down it when I need to lose myself in something compelling but also not too difficult. Then I just go looking for pictures, make them small, and work on my fair use justifications for them. I think bio articles pop a lot more with images
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@wcaleb Looks like there's a free to use image of him here. Gosh the Schomburg Center is so good. You could download that image, re-upload it to Wikimedia Commons (a different place from Wikipedia images, it's more confusing than it needs to be) and crop it and put it in the article. Feel free to try it and ask me if you wind up in a dead end. I'm jessamyn@gmail if email is easier than Masto.
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/71997eb0-c5b3-012f-9422-58d385a7bc34?canvasIndex=0
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@wcaleb Excellent. Be aware that if a free image exists, even if it's a crummy one, sometimes the nerds of Wikipedia will insist that one gets used instead. I think your fair use rationale looks pretty solid, so I hope it sticks. That's a good picture of him.
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When I started this article about Rice Estes, it's because I thought he was a Black librarian raised in South Carolina committed to ending segregation in public libraries in the South. As it turns out, that article was wrong and he was all those things, except he was white. He was married to well-known author Eleanor Estes. She had a long Wikipedia page, he had none. He did not do a lot of public activism after the 60s (that I found) but what he did then was important.
Alexs D. Pate wrote a NYT bestseller in 1995 (the novel Amistad, based on the movie screenplay, I know, it's confusing) and many other award-winning books. There was some drama about his original WP page (deleted because it was thought to be advertising/promotion - I never saw that version) but the WP editor did not contest the speedy-delete tag, so speedy-deleted it was. I've got some questions about Pate's life story (hard to find cites), but not about his notability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexs_Pate -
Alexs D. Pate wrote a NYT bestseller in 1995 (the novel Amistad, based on the movie screenplay, I know, it's confusing) and many other award-winning books. There was some drama about his original WP page (deleted because it was thought to be advertising/promotion - I never saw that version) but the WP editor did not contest the speedy-delete tag, so speedy-deleted it was. I've got some questions about Pate's life story (hard to find cites), but not about his notability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexs_PateLeo Manso designed some exceptional paperback and hardcover book jackets. He was also an accomplished artist and helped get the Provincetown MA arts scene going in the 1940s. No idea why Wikipedia didn't have an article about him but it does now.
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Leo Manso designed some exceptional paperback and hardcover book jackets. He was also an accomplished artist and helped get the Provincetown MA arts scene going in the 1940s. No idea why Wikipedia didn't have an article about him but it does now.
Community Auditions was a Boston area tv show which ran for 37 years. It featured live performances of local folks doing talent show stuff. Dave Maynard, local radio legend, hosted. It was very "of its time" and totally imprinted itself on my partner while I had never heard of it. In the early shows people would vote for their favorite performer via postcard and the results would be announced the following week. In the reboot of the show, you voted via social media.
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Community Auditions was a Boston area tv show which ran for 37 years. It featured live performances of local folks doing talent show stuff. Dave Maynard, local radio legend, hosted. It was very "of its time" and totally imprinted itself on my partner while I had never heard of it. In the early shows people would vote for their favorite performer via postcard and the results would be announced the following week. In the reboot of the show, you voted via social media.
@jessamyn I remember watching that sometimes as a kid but had totally forgotten about it until now.
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Community Auditions was a Boston area tv show which ran for 37 years. It featured live performances of local folks doing talent show stuff. Dave Maynard, local radio legend, hosted. It was very "of its time" and totally imprinted itself on my partner while I had never heard of it. In the early shows people would vote for their favorite performer via postcard and the results would be announced the following week. In the reboot of the show, you voted via social media.
@jessamyn Oh my god. I never watched it much but just reading that post unraveled a whole corner of assorted local tv memories.
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Community Auditions was a Boston area tv show which ran for 37 years. It featured live performances of local folks doing talent show stuff. Dave Maynard, local radio legend, hosted. It was very "of its time" and totally imprinted itself on my partner while I had never heard of it. In the early shows people would vote for their favorite performer via postcard and the results would be announced the following week. In the reboot of the show, you voted via social media.
Frederick W. W. Howell was a schoolmaster in Birmingham who summered in Iceland in the late 1800s. He was an explorer & outdoorsman and while he was a product of his time (which I've tried to approach honestly) he took some amazing photos of an Iceland, (as reported back home) "on the edge of modernity." The photos got a new life when they were collected and annotated by Cornell librarians. I can find ONE BLURRY PHOTO of the guy, but I wrote this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_W._W._Howell
#photography #iceland -
@ben_hr Thanks. I'm a sucker for early photographers even though it's not a particularly diverse bunch of folks. But the stuff they were able to capture is really nifty and not the usual stuff. Here's the whole set which Cornell uploaded to Flickr Commons. For some reason a slightly smaller set of those images are on Wikimedia Commons and the Cornell website is good for metadata but also a very old interface.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cornelluniversitylibrary/albums/72157623945632982/
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Frederick W. W. Howell was a schoolmaster in Birmingham who summered in Iceland in the late 1800s. He was an explorer & outdoorsman and while he was a product of his time (which I've tried to approach honestly) he took some amazing photos of an Iceland, (as reported back home) "on the edge of modernity." The photos got a new life when they were collected and annotated by Cornell librarians. I can find ONE BLURRY PHOTO of the guy, but I wrote this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_W._W._Howell
#photography #icelandI know Fraser Metzger's great grandson who lives up the road from me. He has talked to me about his ancestor's role in the town. I'd been meaning to look him up and wow, that guy did a lot of stuff. Eschewed the family hardware business to go to divinity school, ran for Governor of Vermont as a Progressive and was the first Dean of Men at Rutgers. I started the article yesterday, ran out of steam and was delighted to see that someone else filled in the blanks overnight.
