Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-07-17/Obituary

David died on November 25, 2022, at the age of 83. He was a prolific editor and a self-declared gnome who added to articles on Philadelphia, United States, and created many new articles. David lived in Fairmount, Philadelphia. After earning a degree at Lafayette College and serving for two years with the US Army in West Germany, he worked for 27 years as a computer programmer for Sunoco.

David began his post-retirement Wikipedia career on March 13, 2008; five years later, he had made 100,000 edits, mostly through wikignoming. As of this issue, he is the 52nd-most-active editor in Wikipedia. David was a member of the Guild of Copy Editors, and took part in its monthly drives and blitzes. He was also part of the Article Rescue Squadron, saving uncited-but-promising articles from deletion. David was openly proud of his Wikipedia-editing activities, and he even designed his own Wikipedia-themed caps, which he wore to Philadelphia wiki-meetups and gave away to his fellow Wikipedians. Outside Wikipedia, David was a member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Dthomsen8 has left an indelible legacy at Wikipedia, and the encyclopedia and editing community are poorer for his loss. Messages of condolence can be left on his talk page.

Wikimedia Tanzania and Jenga Wikipedia ya Kiswahili have published a tribute to User:Kipala, a much-loved German Wikimedian who – as a fluent Swahili speaker – was particularly active in the African Wikimedia community (see also Wikimedia-l thread).

– AK