posted 10-08-2006 10:51 AM               

I was over on the Wikipedia yesterday checking the meaning of "outgroup" (which I discovered is one word in sociology). It occurred to me that there's no entry on the Wiki for collectSPACE.

I have very modest experience with editing a Wiki entry. The tools are pretty simple to use But I have no experience with constructing an entry ex nihilo or with submitting an entry to the Wiki editors.

Now I suppose Robert can help here. He's a writer, after all. But why not make it a group effort and make a submission on his behalf?

The entry should probably describe the origins and growth of collectSPACE, extending to breaking news stories, spaceflight history discussions, content partners, etc. It could describe the audience--how much traffic does the site get, for example. Stuff like that.

Any volunteers or other ideas?

Kris

On edit: There was this interesting take on the Wikipedia in the NYT's "Week in Review" today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/weekinreview/08word.html?ref=weekinreview

Looks like about 4,000 new articles are submitted to the Wiki each day, and editors debate the merits of all entrants, deleting about half of the newbies. An entry devoted to all songs featuring cowbells, for example, was debated by editors and eventually deleted. Another entry on Pooky (Garfield's stuffed bear) was subsumed under the article on Garfield (the cartoon cat).

C'mon. If Pooky deserves Wiki mention, then certainly collectSPACE merits an article!

posted 10-09-2006 12:08 PM               

Have fun improving it!

posted 10-09-2006 12:46 PM               

You ARE the wordsmith, after all..

( and a darn fine one, I may add )

......"Little Red Hen..??" One of father's descriptions??

posted 10-09-2006 01:05 PM               

John, Little Red Hen is a little obscure. In this context, our leader Rob is the industrious Little Red Hen of childhood fable:
http://www.bres.boothbay.k12.me.us/wq/nnash/WebQuest/little_red_hen.htm

Me, I prefer editing to the hard work of writing!

posted 10-09-2006 01:22 PM               

I took the liberty of building the redirect pages (for a couple of the spelling variants of cS), as well as referencing the article, since after I posted it, someone came by, and {cn}'ed the heck out of it.

Best Regards, -C6

posted 10-09-2006 01:24 PM               

My enlish grammer isn't the quality standard on, so is the reason this farm animal wasn't vocalizing a farm sound of input until now.

posted 10-09-2006 02:55 PM               

Obviously, I could sit down and write the entire entry — being the defacto Red Hen - but as this site has grown as a result of readers and members contributions, I think its only right that our wiki entry be created similarly.

I also do not want to violate — or provide the appearance of violating — any self-promotion or advertising restrictions set forth by wikipedia, which might lead to the entry's deletion.

Therefore, I am happy to offer factual corrections and information about our history that others can then add to the article as they choose or see fit. To begin, here are some standalone 'factoids' about the site, from which those inclined might pull content.

• collectSPACE came online on July 20, 1999, the 30th anniversary of the first moon landing.

• The original name of the website was planned to be spacememorabilia.com (a logo with that name had already been designed). That particular URL however, was owned (but not yet in use) in 1999 by astronaut Pete Conrad, who died in July of that year. An alternate was therefore sought: collectSPACE.

• The original website contained a gallery of the editor's collection, a calendar of astronaut appearances, a poll question about Hallmark's final space history-inspired Christmas ornament and a short article about Apollo 11 anniversary toys (written four days before the site came online).

• The original tagline for the website was "memorabilia from the conquest of the final frontier". The current tagline is "The Source for Space History & Artifacts".

• The title for the astronaut appearance calendar, "Sightings" was chosen purposely to divert traffic and meaning of the term from a popular TV show about UFOs.

• collectSPACE is abbreviated 'cS'

• collectSPACE: Messages, the website's message boards, was added in November 1999.

• The first time collectSPACE was mentioned by national media was in December 1999 in connection with the site's role in ceasing an eBay auction for a "moon rock".

• The first space memorabilia auctions that were covered by collectSPACE were held at Christie's East (New York) in September 1999 and Superior Galleries of Beverly Hills (California) in October 1999. collectSPACE was the first to webcast space auctions, providing live audio (and one year, video) from Superior's auction floor. Later, the website provided live hammer results (when the auction houses began working with eBay for live online bidding, the collectSPACE webcasts became repetitive efforts and were canceled).

• The first collectSPACE Challenge (contest) was announced in January 2000.

• In the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, collectSPACE organized Heroes Helping Heroes, a charity auction benefiting the American Red Cross. In partnership with Yahoo! Auctions, collectSPACE offered bidders the chance to have an item of their choice be signed by one of 22 retired astronauts, who volunteered to participate. Bidding was open for ten days, October 1 - 11, 2001, during which five autographs from each astronaut were auctioned. $12,686.10 was raised for the relief fund.

• Since 2003, collectSPACE has hosted an annual silent auction benefiting the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. The astronaut experiences and artifacts auction has raised over $180,000 for exceptional college students seeking degrees in science and engineering.

• collectSPACE has published articles by noted journalists, authors and writers including: Andrew Chaikin ("A Man on the Moon"), Kris Stoever ("For Spacious Skies"), James Oberg ("Red Star in Orbit"), Frederick Ordway III ("Imagining Space"), Francis French ("Into That Silent Sea"), David Hitt ("Homesteading Space"), Russell Still ("Relics of the Space Race"), Colin Burgess ("Fallen Astronauts") and Apollo astronaut Walt Cunningham, among others.

• collectSPACE was nominated for the Houston Chronicle's best blog in their Ultimate Houston Readers Pick for 2005.

• In 2003, collectSPACE introduced buySPACE, an online marketplace for space history related products and consigned artifacts, in partnership with Countdown Enterprises, Inc.

• In 2006, collectSPACE's buySPACE was selected by Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin to host a sale of memorabilia and documents from his personal archives.

• In 2006, collectSPACE was the first to reveal the name of NASA's next manned lunar-bound spacecraft, Orion. The website also exposed the project logo.

posted 10-09-2006 05:51 PM               

• collectSPACE: Messages, the website's message boards, was added in November 1999. Since then it has attracted a worldwide audience with members posting from all 50 states, 6 of the 7 continents and all spacefaring nations. Individuals of note who have made and responded to posts include former EECOM Sy Liebergot, Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter's daughter Kris Stoever, Gemini/Apollo astronaut Pete Conrad's son Pete Conrad, III, National Air and Space Museum curator Allan Needell, Who's Who in Space authors Michael Cassutt and Rex Hall, and The Surfaris former bassist Andrew Lagomarsino, among others. In addition, numerous astronauts are known to be readers.

• As a central meeting place for space memorabilia collectors, many of the hobby's well-known personalities are members. These have included: Space Coast Cover Service proprietor Ken Havekotte, autopen researchers Roy Gutzke and Simon Vaughn, Relics of the Space Race author Russ Still, Robbins Medals researcher and author Howard Weinberger, Novaspace Galleries founder Kim Poor, space memorabilia dealers Florian Noller and Steve Hankow, auctioneers Victoria Campbell, Alan Lipkin and Michael Orenstein, Yahoo Groups moderators Jurgen Esders and Al Hallonquist, and bloggers Noah Bradley and Larry McGlynn, among others.

posted 10-10-2006 12:30 AM               

I'd left the article set and simmer on Wikipedia for awhile, and then if one feels strongly enough, add it in.

Wikipedia is a fickle (maybe not the best word, but it will do) tool, but the article, as-written, stands a good shot at survival. But it'll now need to be monitered for vandals, updated as needed, and defended if selected for deletion (which I think we at cS could readily defend, right?).

Anything else?

Regards,

posted 10-10-2006 10:14 AM               

My previous appearance on Wikipedia was short-lived, so I hope I don't curse your entry.