Saturday, August 20, 2005
Earlier in the week I had decided to do my best to really beef up a particular article on a king of ancient Egypt on Wikipedia. I settled upon Pepi II, who is the last attested king of the Old Kingdom, mainly because his existing entry was just over a couple of lines in length, and because I figured that with an attested reign of 94 years (the longest reigning monarch ever, if true), I figured that there would be plenty of information about him.
So I found scholarly pieces about him on the Web and printed them out so I could read them when returning home from work. I also looked up references about him in the several books I have in my library on ancient Egyptian kings. Then I sat down to put it all together this evening. In the end, I came up with a 1,000+ word piece on him and his reign, available here.
At the end of it I couldn't help but reflect at the amount of time put into it, which was the equivalent of a medium-sized article I would typically write for publication in a computer journal. At least that I got paid for. But still I can't help but think of this as being "community service"-type work in some way. Am hoping that this sort of thing will help somebody doing basic research on the king sometime in the future, probably for a homework assignment if not for a research paper.
Will see if I can whip up a fivefold titulary example next, maybe altering the templates to make the display of his full names and titles possible. Then will see if I can pull off an illustration of his pyramid complex.
With a bit more effort, I may be able to help bring this article to featured status. It's a goal to strive towards.
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