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The Quicksilver Wiki

Introduction to the Quicksilver Wiki by Neal Stephenson Superficially, this site looks like a set of FAQs about a novel that I wrote entitled QUICKSILVER. As time goes on, we hope that it will develop into something a little more than that. We don't know how it will come out. It's an experiment.

Why put the information on such a complicated system, when a simple FAQ is easier? Because we are hoping that the annotations of the book on this site will seed a body of knowledge ... which will eventually be something more generally useful than a list of FAQs about one and only one novel. The idea of the Metaweb was originated by Danny Hillis. more

We are currently working on 1078 articles. See the community section at the bottom of this page to learn more. | | Selected Articles

|Call for admin volunteers with MediaWiki experience by Patrick Tufts, 25 Apr 2006

We've registered a new domain, quicksilverwiki.com, and will be moving the server over to this domain soon. We're going to take the site down this Friday, 28 Apr 2006, to prepare for the move, and it may be down for a while to give us a chance to upgrade the server software. If you experience with MediaWiki installations and are willing to volunteer your time to help, send me an email (patrick@metaweb.com) if you're interested ...more

Site renaming by Patrick Tufts, 14 Mar 2006 In the coming weeks, this site will be moving to a new name and, potentially, a new domain as well. The site name is changing from The Metaweb to the Quicksilver Wiki. I'll post updates on the move here.

Photo annotations on Flickr (Patrick Tufts) by Patrick Tufts, 23 Feb 2006 Flickr user notlikecalvin has made a photoset of Tower of London locations mentioned in The System of the World. More inside

Metaweb:Mo' Metaweb (Patrick Tufts) by Patrick Tufts, 3 Oct 2005 Wanted to give you an update on the site. AMI produced a database backup of the site which several active users are now looking at installing on another machine. There are no guarantees, but there are several efforts to bring this site back up elsewhere. It won't be called the Metaweb, but it will hopefully be running on a more modern version of MediaWiki.

So long, and thanks for all the fish by Patrick Tufts, 13 Sep 2005 A few years ago, Applied Minds created this site with User:Neal Stephenson to make a collaboratively edited collection of annotations, initially for Neal's book Quicksilver, and later, for other works as well. We called this site "The Quicksilver Metaweb."

More recently, I and my co-workers at Applied Minds have begun a project called "The Metaweb" which bears little resemblance to this site. Applied Minds will soon remove the link from metaweb.com's front page to here. If you wish to reach this site, you will need to use the URL www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page ... more

Discussion: Dealing with spam by Patrick Tufts, 21 Jul 2005 Death, taxes, and Wiki spam. The Metaweb is currently being "edited" by a persistent vandal. Come in to the discussion to organize a response.

Slashdot: Ask Neal Stephenson updated 20 Oct 2004 Slashdot readers posed a series of questions to Neal Stephenson to celebrate the completion of the Baroque Cycle with the US publication of The System of the World on September 21, 2004.Here are the top ones with Neal's answers.

The Confusion, p. 1, Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Careri by Neal Stephenson, 11 Aug 2004 Briefly, he was a Neapolitan lawyer who in the late 1690's circumnavigated the world eastwards ...

This is an opportunity for Metaweb users to research and document the life of Gemelli Careri. --Patrick Tufts The Confusion by Patrick Tufts, 13 Apr 2004 User:Nealstephenson's book Stephenson:Neal:The Confusion was released today. For any users new to this site, please take a look at our FAQ and the existing annotations on Stephenson:Neal:Quicksilver. And please consider creating an account on this site (this helps with tracking article changes). All of us at the Metaweb welcome your participation. Site improvements by Patrick Tufts, 13 Feb 2004 (updated 20 Feb 2004) We'll be making some improvements to the layout of the Metaweb over the coming weeks ... more Cool projects by Patrick Tufts, 29 Dec 2003 Metaweb contributor Chris Swingle (User:Cswingle) has done something particularly neat with the Quicksilver annotations page. Chris has created a printable PDF of all the Quicksilver annotations. The really cool thing is that it's automatically generated from ... more

Carl Linnaeus by Andrew Berry, Nov. 11 2003 One visiting naturalist described him as “somewhat aged, not a large man with dusty shoes and stockings, markedly unshaven and dressed in an old green coat from which dangles a medal.” more

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