I have lost my wiki-virginity

I just edited a page at Wikipedia. I have never done this before. But gosh, it was fun. I just might do it again some day. And the weird thing is, the page I edited concerns a subject I know and care almost nothing about. That subject is “Lilith Fair“.

But, see, here’s the thing. I was the culture editor at the Ubyssey when we ran a couple photos (on page 8 of this PDF file) of the “Lilith Fair” that took place in Vancouver in September 1996; performers included local girl Sarah McLachlan as well as Paula Cole, Lisa Loeb and Michelle McAdorey of Crash Vegas.

So whenever I read stories that say the Lilith Fair began with a tour in 1997 — and I have seen this asserted many times — I get this itch to raise my hand and correct everyone, like Hermione Granger in potions class. I think I even wrote a letter to the editor of some publication a while back, which of course was ignored.

Today, however, while looking up information on the mythological Lilith, I came across Wikipedia’s page for the Lilith Fair. And I suddenly realized that I had the power to do something about this for once — and I could even footnote it by linking to the specific issue of the Ubyssey in which we ran those photos.

Now I wait nervously to see if my contribution sticks.

OCT 20 UPDATE: And today I discovered that this post has been linked to at Wikipedia itself, on the ‘Wikipedia in blogs‘ page!