Meet the 24-Year-Old Defender of DC History
By MIKE TUNISON
Updated 1:30 PM EST, Fri, Oct 23, 2009
Adam Lewis will not stand idly by as vandals and nitwits besmirch the Wikipedia entry of his beloved District of Columbia. The 24-year-old Dupont Circle resident, who grew up in Potomac, often labors into the late night hours making fixes and alterations to the District's page.
What began as a curious glance at the page last spring has become an all-consumming obsession for Lewis. Once riddled with errors, the entry has since been a "featured article," the highest status a page can boast.
As a local, Lewis cares deeply about how the city is represented to the Wikipedia-reading world at large. Because you want people who are looking up the Defenestration of Prague to know that a 2007 study found that a third of D.C. residents are functionally illiterate (higher than the national average!).
Fortunately, Lewis has parlayed this fixation into some regard from the local historical community. According to The Washington Post, he's now a membership coordinator for The Historical Society of Washington, D.C., where other volunteers refer callers to the page for basic information on the city.
He's a star! Quick, now someone whip up an Adam Lewis Wikipedia entry.
First Published: Oct 23, 2009 11:42 AM EST
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