Caveat: From Behind the Redwood Curtain

I love wikipedia.  I spend at least a few minutes there almost every day, and sometimes several hours.  I love it the same way I used to love reading those big hefty paper encyclopedias as a child – it's a great way to learn new, random things. 

Way back when the wikipedia was young, I actually edited a few articles there – most notably, I was proud of efforts I made to expand the entry on my hometown of Arcata, California.  Most of what I wrote has subsequently changed and been improved upon many times (as is only right and good).

Earlier tonight, I was surfing the wikipedia using the "random article" button and ended up by pure chance on Humboldt County, Iowa.  This prompted me to go to the Humboldt County, California, entry, to see what was there nowadays.  And I noticed that there was a reference and link to a non-existent article on the "Redwood Curtain." 

At first, I thought, "they definitely need an article on the Redwood Curtain."  This is a frequently used term for the three most northwestern counties in California:  Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte, and is meant to suggest the ways in which the region's isolation is comparable to that of those Eastern European countries under Soviet hegemony during the Cold War, behind the Iron Curtain.

But upon reflection, I decided there wasn't enough interesting and notable information to merit a separate wikipedia article.  But I hated to see that "broken" link in the Humboldt County article.  So on second thought I decided to attempt a "redirect" – something that would point the missing "Redwood Curtain" article to something else.  And in the end, that's what I did:  now, when you go to "Redwood Curtain" in wikipedia, you get redirected to the "North Coast, California" article, where I added a single clarifying sentence that explains that Redwood Curtain is an alternate term sometimes used for the region.

And I've blogged the whole thing here, too.  After more than ten years, I'm back in the wikipedia editing biz – ain't that simply fabulous?

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