
Wikipedia’s resident shipwreck aficionado - The_ed17
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/09/27/peter-isotalo-vasa-mary-rose/
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fapjacks
The Vasamuseet (the Vasa Museum) is one of the most awesome museums I have
ever been to. Also the War Museum, which is also in Stockholm. If you ever get
to Sweden, those two are certainly worth a visit. If you can only go to one,
definitely make it the Vasa, but if you like museums, you will really enjoy
both.

~~~
lisper
This. The Vasa museum exceeded my expectations more than any other tourist
attraction I have ever visited.

~~~
dcminter
Likewise. People frequently told me to go see the Vasa and I rather expected
it to be something like the Mary Rose; historically interesting but the bare
shell of part of the hull of a boat. Basically some wet wood.

When I went inside the museum in Stockholm and saw the ship my reaction was
essentially "OMG that's f'ing HUGE!" so it really is worth making time to see
it.

~~~
mstade
Reading this thread of comments make me feel like an idiot.

I live in Stockholm and curiously enough – if I read the map correctly – I'm
even very close to where the Vasa sank. My favorite means of transport into
central Stockholm is via ferry. One of the stops is a very short walk from the
Vasa museum. It takes me probably all of 30 minutes door-to-door to get there.

I love museums. I love history. I love anything maritime. One of my favorite
museum visits when i lived in London was the national maritime museum in
Greenwich.

Alas, I've never been to the Vasa museum.

Fortunately, it's an easy problem to solve – I'll go next week. Thanks for
(unintentionally) kicking me into gear, much obliged!

~~~
kevinskii
I lived in Los Angeles for more than five years before accidentally seeing the
Hollywood sign. (The Vasa is much better.)

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ethbro
Has Wikipedia ever pursued the idea of giving scholarships on important
articles?

Seems they're perpetually short of funds, but a "funded by X" tag at the
bottom and some branding of the effort might make a go of it. And Wikipedia
seems weaker on the "History of the Roman Empire" type of articles that you
need to spend time in dead-tree libraries to do correctly.

... sad to say, history majors who didn't go into law aren't exactly
expensive.

~~~
sandworm101
I was on an ABA panel discussion once that debated whether lawyers should
contribute to Wikipedia. The irony is that while lawyers use wikipedia for all
sorts of things, experienced lawyers rarely contribute. (Wikipedia's legal
pages are full of inaccuracies inserted by well-meaning but naive law
students.) The thought was to have certain articles written and maintained by
lawyers, or an ABA committee, with perhaps an ABA logo attached. The problem
was that as soon as anyone else makes an edit, that badge of respectability is
meaningless. An article curated by an expert also runs contrary to the purpose
of a wiki.

I would caution against many of these articles so dominated by a single
person. They may be great. They may be 100% accurate and full of lots of
interesting detail, but they do not necessarily have a broad base to support
their upkeep once that one person moves on. I've also seen some rather messy
arguments where the original author takes subsequent edits very personally.
There is advantage to not allowing one person or group to become too attached
to a particular article.

~~~
GauntletWizard
I really think that Wikipedia needs a "Golden" overlay; The ability to select
to see the last revision marked as good by some 'authority' instead of the
'live' version by default. This would be a good mix of the benefits of a wiki,
and the assurances of authority.

~~~
sandworm101
Ya, but at some point that turns wikipedia into encarta. The power of wiki is
the ability for the crowd's opinion to dominate. But where the crowd is just
plain wrong on a subject the expert must swim again against the tide. They end
up lecturing to a bunch of people who really don't want a lecture.

Say "I'm a fighter pilot" and you can edit the F-15's page to your hearts
content. But "I'm a lawyer with 40 years constitutional law experience" means
nothing if you plan on contributing to anything on the "landmark decisions"
list. That is the domain of law review students and their pet cases.

I cannot count the number of times I've found myself typing out half a
lecture's worth of information in reply to an online article, only to delete
the entire thing before posting it. Certain subjects just cannot be taught in
a public forum. That's why lawyers discuss such things in special schools and
private email lists. (Email lists are like 90+% of what the ABA does.)

