The Wikipedia Story on Dead Tree
Just in the mail this past week: The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia by Andrew Lih.
![wikipedia-revolution-front wikipedia-revolution-front](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F53795831-6a3f-414f-9e49-9106f3fc0a5e_390x221.jpeg)
Lih appears on the Wikipedia Weekly podcast and has been on Wikipedia since 2003 as the user Fuzheado, so he's in a good position to be writing the first (to my knowledge) book-length history of Wikipedia. I'm only a couple chapters in as of yet, but I've already learned a few things I hadn't known before, like the Spanish Fork and WP co-founder Larry Sanger's Oregon connection. It also provides a useful overview of the encyclopedia market in the late 1990s around the time Jimmy Wales was running something called Bomis.com -- which I distinctly remember having visited and not quite understood what was it was all about, a circumstance Lih more than explains to my satisfaction.
On the other hand, it does seem at times a bit self-congratulatory, especially the opening chapter, covering the Wikimania 2005 conference, and including narration of the Wikipedians present giving themselves a round of applause. This may not be the most inviting introduction for the Wikipedia newcomer, but it's not a major distraction.
When I finish I'll probably have something closer to a real book review, but for right now let me approvingly point out the very clever back cover:
![wikipedia-revolution-back wikipedia-revolution-back](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7f3bf697-14de-4c80-9b98-4d645d173a98_450x322.jpeg)