Jimmy Wales founder of Wikipedia spoke at the Institute for International Economics today on the topic of “Wikipedia and Global Development.” It was a packed room- all I could see was the top half of the projection screen over the heads of the taller people in front of me.

It was an interesting presentation- there was a good chunk of introductory material towards the beginning, an overview of what Wikipedia it is and how popular it is for the non-geeks in the room (probably 1/3 of the attendees said they have edited Wikipedia articles). But then he got into a particularly interesting topic to me- the regulation of content and community. Not being a Wikipedia editor myself, I hadn’t realized that the vote-for-deletion and discussion pages are things that had grown out of the community and aren’t software-driven at all.

I’m a recruiter- how did I get into such an interesting event? For free, even? Like anything else in DC, it’s about who you know. Or in this case, which professional associations’ listservs you join. I think I count three DC Metrobloggers on the 501techclub list these days… Alas, my partner and I had to get back to work, so we didn’t get to hang out for the Q&A session afterwards, but it was a pretty worthy way to spend an hour out of the office.