Yesterday I was at a meet of the Israel Innovation Forum hosted at IBM, and over coffee I notice this guy whose name tag reads

David Shay

Wikipedia

At first I thought he must be one of the few people who actually work at Wikipedia as employees; but he assured me there are only 15 of those, all in the US. No, he told me, he simply writes for the Hebrew Wikipedia. I asked whether he’s part of some special group appointed to manage the local version, and he said no, he simply writes and edits articles, like anyone else. I do that occasionally myself, but David does a lot more of it.

When we exchanged business cards I found that he actually has a regular day job at a regular company; he just felt good proclaiming himself on his badge as a Wikipedian. And maybe he’s right – though people seldom bother to check who wrote the article they are referencing, the impact you can make on humanity by writing online can be much greater than whatever you can do in a regular job (well, unless you’re a major inventor, scientist, or world leader, I suppose).

Wayda go, David!