Deletionpedia

Deletionpedia is a machine-generated website, built entirely from Wikipedia articles that have been deleted. It itself is not a wiki, even though it copies Wikipedia's page layout. The result is somewhat fantastic.

Its current featured article is this exhaustive list of all the weapons found in the tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000, complete with what appears to be meticulously fan-made illustrations, many with labeled parts and exploded views. Someone put a hell of a lot of work into this. While I can see why the WP hivemind would give it the boot (WP is famously tolerant of nerdwank, but still has its limits), I'm oddly relieved to know that it's preserved elsewhere.

And there will be a lot of pages like this guy's, a short biography of "a British-based Starship captain, commentator on society and volunteer ticket collector on a steam railway". Or the sad tale of List of Films with Monkeys in Them, which was cut down before it could even grow past three items.

The list of magical things goes on, preserved forever. I am glad this exists.

Just sent emails to Kerry, Kennedy, and Capuano

I urge my fellow Americans to join with me on this action. You can find your state's senators here and find your district's representative here.

I dashed this off myself in a minute. You can copy it if you'd like, but I encourage you to come up with your own words, too.

Dear $TITLE $LASTNAME:

I urge you to oppose the proposed $700 billion bailout of foundering financial companies through a massive federal purchase of bad mortgages and other assets.

I am dismayed and disgusted at the idea of using, all told, $1.8 trillion dollars[1] of taxpayer money in order to rescue private-sector firms from their own greed-driven mistakes, and hope that you consider this issue worth fighting.

I look forward to learning of your position and actions regarding this matter.

Sincerely,

Jason McIntosh
Somerville, MA

[1] Source: http://www.cnbc.com/id/26808715

Conventional wisdom is that email, while it does have mass, still carries a fraction of the weight of snailmail or phone calls, so I plan on printing these out and mailing them to the same folks' offices.

Honest question: what is the experience of phoning your senator or representative like? I'm not sure that I want to have a two-way conversation with someone about this - I just want to make my stance and desires known, and then get out. The one time I phoned a senator's office, like four years ago (I don't even really recall what the issue was), I called off-hours and left a voicemail. That was OK. Rattling off a screed to a live human would be a tad more awkward, though.