Linda's Blogspot

 A children’s story. The Town That Music Built ​Once upon a time, in a sunny valley in California, there was a tiny town called Russell City . It wasn’t a town with huge skyscrapers or giant shopping malls. Instead, it was a special place where people built their own homes, grew gardens, and cared deeply for one another. ​Welcome to Russell City ​In the 1940s, families came to Russell City from all over the world. Black families traveled from southern states to find good jobs in shipyards, while Latino families moved in from Mexico and Puerto Rico. Other neighborhoods nearby didn't allow these families to buy homes, but Russell City opened its arms to everyone. ​Because the big government leaders nearby didn't give Russell City basic things like paved roads, water pipes, or a fire department, the people decided to take care of things themselves! ​ The Firefighters: The neighbors chipped in their own money to buy a shiny fire truck. Almost all the men in town volunteered ...

  The Case of the Missing History: A WikiExplorers Mission ​The afternoon sun streamed through the grand windows of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Inside, surrounded by rows of tall oak bookshelves and the quiet rustle of old manuscripts, the WikiExplorers gathered around a large wooden table. ​At the head of the table stood Ms. Rivers , holding a brightly glowing tablet and a folder filled with yellowed newspaper clippings. ​The Assignment ​"Explorers," Ms. Rivers said, gathering everyone's attention. "Today we have a very important mission. History isn't just something written in old books long ago—it's happening right now, and it's up to us to make sure the world knows the truth." ​She tapped her screen and brought up a Wikipedia article titled Russell City, California . ​"Who remembers what we learned about Russell City?" Ms. Rivers asked. ​Maya raised her hand immediately. "It was a communit...

  Preserving Knowledge: A Beginner’s Guide to the Wayback Machine on Wikipedia ​Every article on Wikipedia relies on verifiable sources. However, the internet is constantly changing. Web pages move, news sites update their stories, and blogs shut down entirely. This problem is known as link rot . ​To ensure Wikipedia remains a permanent, reliable repository of human knowledge, editors use the Wayback Machine . ​ What is the Wayback Machine? ​Run by the non-profit Internet Archive , the Wayback Machine is a massive digital library that takes "snapshots" of web pages across time. When you enter a web address into the Wayback Machine, it shows you how that exact page looked on a specific day in the past. ​ Why It Matters for Wikipedia ​ Fixing Broken References: If a link in a reference list leads to a "404 Not Found" error, you can swap it with an archived version so readers can still verify the facts. ​ Preventing Source Drift: Websites often change t...

  How Wikipedia Uses Automated Bots to Cure Link Rot When a web page cited as a reference on Wikipedia disappears or changes its address, the encyclopedia faces a serious challenge known as link rot . To keep its massive network of citations reliable, Wikipedia relies on an automated system of specialized bots working alongside web archiving databases. ​Here is how Wikipedia systematically prevents and repairs link rot across its platform. ​Phase 1: Preemptive Archiving ​Rather than waiting for a link to break, Wikipedia attempts to preserve external sources the moment they are cited. ​ Instant Detection: When an editor adds a new web address to an article, an automated program called NoMore404 (operated by the Internet Archive) detects the change in real time via Wikipedia's public event stream. ​ Immediate Snapshot: The program triggers the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine to immediately crawl and save a permanent copy of the source page. ​ Built-in Safety Net: By p...

Find where you want to add or update information into an existing Wikipedia article.  ​Type your sentence, followed immediately by your source code: Source-Editing Rules ​ Placement: Place reference tags immediately after punctuation (like periods or commas) without leaving a space before the opening <ref>. ​ Close Your Tags: Always include the trailing slash in </ref> It is important to know that there are two ways to edit content to Wikipedia articles.  I use source code. Which is a very modified version of HTML which I learned many years ago. I thought it was obsolete till I started doing Wikipedia articles. I don't use the visual editor. . Editing the Source Code (Wikitext vs. VisualEditor) ​To use <ref> tags, you must edit in Edit source mode (wikitext code), not the VisualEditor interface. ​VisualEditor: The default point-and-click editor that works like a standard word processor (Word or Google Docs). In VisualEditor, you add citations using a ...

Ralph Ellison and the “Laughing Barrel”: Black Laughter as Resistance Ralph Ellison is best known for Invisible Man, his groundbreaking 1952 novel about race, identity, and American society. But one of his most provocative discussions of race appears in a much less frequently discussed essay, “An Extravagance of Laughter,” included in his 1986 collection Going to the Territory. In this essay, Ellison turns something seemingly ordinary—laughter—into a way of thinking about racial power, segregation, stereotypes, and freedom. At the center of the essay is the extraordinary image of the “laughing barrel.”  The strange story of the laughing barrels Ellison tells a story about the Jim Crow South in which Black people supposedly had to place their heads inside barrels when they wanted to laugh loudly in public. The story is presented as a kind of racial folklore or joke rather than as a literal historical institution. Its absurdity is precisely what gives it power. The imagined purpose o...