I’ve corrected a couple of Wikipedia entries and notified some web sites of technical errors on their information (most often when some non-U.S. site has had a language confusion and placed erroneous information about aircraft or ships on their site).
I also notified Brewer’s Phrase and Fable of a typo that was twisting a definition all out of shape (for which they thanked me, correcting it), then provided a citation to an older (probably the oldest) written reference to the word in the English language (from Beowulf), for which they thanked me, but noted that they were simply reproducing Brewer’s 19th century work on-line, not actually accepting enhancements.
Way back in the early days of the internet I wrote up some articles about how various computer busses worked and posted them on my web site. I figured they would be useful to a handful of people, but they’ve really taken on a life of their own. They’ve been copied to dozens of sites all over the internet and a couple of them have been linked to in wikipedia. They have also been published as an appendix to a book and are used as part of a training manual by the department of defense.
It’s nothing on CNN and isn’t of interest to anyone who isn’t a technical geek, but it’s not an obscure college thesis or a myspace page either.
I was informed by several people last year that my Sims 2 MySims page is the first one to have any uploads of custom content. I still have no idea why people decided to figure out which page was first, but they did. You have to admire their persistence to figure out that the 933 people who registered their games before me never created MySims pages Given that the second lot I uploaded (I took down the first a long while ago) was uploaded the day after the game released, I guess it’s not surprising mine was first to have uploads.
My transcripts of various internet chats with celebrity guests, musicians, authors, etc are all over the place - its hard to pick them as me because I generally used the name of the person I was typing for. (People asked the questions in chat, guests were on the phone, I asked the guest the question and typed their answer in real time, back before this new-fangled video chat thing. Get off my lawn!)
I was a mod. I was not YOUR mod. I was a mod on AOL and on Lycos, until just after it was bought out by Terra. I moderated picture posts, and was helpful in getting some pedophiles busted by the FBI. (And have seen some things that haunt me still.) My message board, chat and other moderation changed the world no so much.
I have argued with “famous” creationists and evangelists on alt.atheism over the years. And I met my husband there!
Oh I thought of a different one: back when my then-husband worked at AOL, and I had a volunteer position with AOL, I actually had keyword “OpalCat” with a small amount of content on it.
When mp3.com was running strong I had several #1’s in the songs genre and held one song in the top teens for several weeks. This was right when mp3.com was paying royalties - a nice bonus. I made a ton of cash off that site. Funny because I almost didn’t upload music there.
I had the top selling #1 CD at ampcast.com (before it died) for about 6 months and it was in the top ten for several years.
Real.com, netscape and about.com have featured my music as well as many other websites.
I’ve corrected and added to Wikipedia entries and put several important quotes on the IMDB, including “Carl LaFong” and the final line of “Dinner at Eight.” The cast data for the TV show “Wish You Were Here” is from my information (the original entry lacked the name of the only recurring actor).
Some of my web pages – Albert Einstein’s Long Island Summer, Benjamin Britten and the Rothmans, Copyrights and Meteorites, and Getting an Agent are successful reference pages, while “A New Insight into the JFK Assassination” is quite popular.
As “Big Papa” I wrote dozens of humorous profiles of celebrities/historical figures for amiannoying.com. In addition to these profiles, I also created a few themed “collections” (here’s the index.) It’s hard to explain what amiannoying is - it seems kind of like bullshit at first, but it actually has a rather deep community of people who work on the site. I stumbled upon it by accident and was so fascinated with the concept I eventually joined the forum and started contributing to it.
Anyway, one of the collections I created was called Hebrew Hotties. It is a list of attractive women who are Jewish. (There are also similar lists for Black, Hispanic, Asian, etc people, both men and women.) The Hebrew Hotties collection was quite popular and wound up being mentioned on the Howard Stern show. Since I don’t listen to that show, I had no way of knowing this until I read it on the website. Furthermore, the mention of Hebrew Hotties on Stern was discussed by Debbie Schlussel on her blog (link). It’s also discussed on the Cory and Joel Radio Show. I only know about the last two references because I was just searching for them, so it’s not exactly front-page material.
I never thought something I idly contributed to an obscure website would manage to reach so far.
Given that the second lot I uploaded (I took down the first a long while ago) was uploaded the day after the game released, I guess it’s not surprising mine was first to have uploads.