New Year, new Wikipedia list.
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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.
@jessamyn that's an *excellent* author photo
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@jessamyn Can I just confirm with you that that fish owl actively has a fish in its mouth at time of portrait
@jmac YES. It looks like such a house cat, I love it.
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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.
@jessamyn ooh, I didn't even think he wasn't on Wikipedia yet. I loved Owls of the Eastern Ice!
Thanks for your efforts! (Even if it breaks my heart a little that those have been licenced to AI companies now...) -
@jessamyn ooh, I didn't even think he wasn't on Wikipedia yet. I loved Owls of the Eastern Ice!
Thanks for your efforts! (Even if it breaks my heart a little that those have been licenced to AI companies now...)@gmachine Honestly, while I really don't care for AI, the relentless hype around it, or the effect it has on the environment, I can see it from the WMF position which is that the AI companies were scraping this (free) content already and thrashing their servers so I see this as the "least harm" position. The content was already free. Do I hope all these companies fold after losing every single righteous lawsuit against them? Sure do. For now I'm also okay with WMF getting paid.
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@gmachine Honestly, while I really don't care for AI, the relentless hype around it, or the effect it has on the environment, I can see it from the WMF position which is that the AI companies were scraping this (free) content already and thrashing their servers so I see this as the "least harm" position. The content was already free. Do I hope all these companies fold after losing every single righteous lawsuit against them? Sure do. For now I'm also okay with WMF getting paid.
@jessamyn Ok, that's good then! I of course also fully understand WMF's pragmatism behind the decision, I'm guess I'm just a bit worried about creating a financial dependence on these exploitative big tech companies.
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@jessamyn Ok, that's good then! I of course also fully understand WMF's pragmatism behind the decision, I'm guess I'm just a bit worried about creating a financial dependence on these exploitative big tech companies.
@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 $$$-wise.
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When Helen Macdonald says you've got the best author photo she's ever seen and gives your first book a glowing review, people take notice. But maybe not Wikipedia people. Now that Jonathan Slaght's got a second book about Amur tigers (and the first one about fish owls won a lot of awards) it's high time he was in Wikipedia.
@jessamyn oh snap I know Jonathan… well not him really, his kid, who is in my sons scout troop. He’s a cool kid. For some reason he knows a lot about owls!
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@jessamyn oh snap I know Jonathan… well not him really, his kid, who is in my sons scout troop. He’s a cool kid. For some reason he knows a lot about owls!
@drnixon Hahaha. I told Jonathan on Bluesky that I liked the book (which I did) but stopped short of telling him "SO I WROTE THIS WHOLE WIKIPEDIA PAGE" Maybe someday...
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@jessamyn To any book critic, "So you don't like my book? The Owl might differ with you. So be careful walking at night. His friends will find you."
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@gmachine I hear you. The vibe I get, and I may be wrong about this, is this is more about diversifying their revenue stream than any specific cash flow problems. Despite their annual urgent-feeling fundraisers, I feel that the foundation is doing okay $$$-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
