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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
Tony Rees Key folk figures absent from Wikipedia? (124* d) RE: Key folk figures absent from Wikipedia? 03 Apr 21


Just to show how this stuff can be mildly addictive (in a good way, hopefully), here is a possibly diverting aside. ALERT: no folk music content here - if that bothers you, do not read any further!

Years ago (1999 or so), in my "scientist" persona (my then day job), I encountered a US-led project that was starting up, then called the "Census of the Fishes", which morphed shortly after into the "Census of Marine Life". Its key backer and proponent, one Jesse Ausubel, used to refer to it as "looking at the ocean through a macroscope". I did not exactly know what he meant but sorta guessed: you use a microscope to look at something too small to comprehend, a macroscope for something at the other end of the scale, i.e. too big.

Fast forward to last year (June 2020) and it idly occurred to me to look up "macroscope" (in that sense) in Wikipedia to find out more about the concept, and discovered that such an article did not exist; so I did the required research and decided to create one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroscope_(science_concept) ... Actually I found the process and challenge quite enjoyable. However, there was a fly in the ointment, as I also remembered from my science background that there was a laboratory instrument called a "Macroscope", not for looking at the world writ small but for viewing (and in particular, photographing) flies, etc. So to complete the picture, and to permit users to find what they were looking for in either case, I then had to create that article as well, now done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroscope_(Wild-Leica) .

All going to show that wikipedia contribution can take you to some unexpected places on occasion, but you do end up knowing some things that you did not before, plus get an odd sort of "warm fuzzy " feeling when your work is done -- except that it never is!!

Regards - Tony


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