Steven Pruitt, a big free contributor to Wikipedia, says he is fascinated by idea of making it all (knowledge, information) free!

Last updated on 11th Feb. 2019

Fascinating video about Steven Pruitt of Virginia who is a very big contributor (free contribution) to Wikipedia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhNczOuhxeg, around 6 mins, published by CBS This Morning on 26th Jan. 2019.

Here's an article on him which mainly talks about this video: http://mentalfloss.com/article/572219/steven-pruitt-wikipedia-editor-writer. The article says that Pruitt has a day job (paid job, I guess) at the records and information governance department at U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Washington, D.C. and Pruitt believes that his wikipedia work helped him get that job.

The article states that over the past 13 years, he has made 3 million edits and authored 35,000 articles, about which the article says, "meaning that he has helped shape up to a third of all English-language content on Wikipedia".

The video states that Wikipedia is one of the top 5 most visited websites in the world among Google, Youtube and Facebook. 6000 people visit the site every second.

Time magazine in 2017 had named Steven Pruitt as one of the top 25 most influential people on the Internet.

On being asked why he does this free volunteer Wikipedia work, Pruitt responds, "The idea of making it all free fascinates me. My mother grew up in the Soviet Union. So I am very conscious of what it can mean to make knowledge free, to make information free".

Ravi: I have benefited enormously from Wikipedia over the past decade, especially since I started my social media writer work (free contribution and freely accessible work) from mid 2011. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Pruitt and other volunteers at Wikipedia as well as the Wikipedia management and staff teams for their fantastic contribution to the world. May God bless them all!

I just love the idea of free knowledge and free information for all in the world (who have access to the Internet).
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Given below are some comments from my Facebook post,  https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7/posts/2404553536427876, associated with this blog post:

In response to comment that partly said, "Thank you Ravi A very informative article. Opens up a whole area of information that I was not paying enough attention to.", I (Ravi) wrote (slightly edited):
Thanks --name-snipped--. Sorry I forgot to tag you in the comment. Your reply is much appreciated.
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A person commented:
Wikipedia is really God’s gift to those thirsting for information. No doubt it may have led to decline of the old printed encyclopedias bought on installment basis, with annual update additions.
RaviSir,
I think this is really the Golden Age. Philosophers are yet to proclaim and guide us how to use the IT enabling tools to further advance the dynamic shift in our level of consciousness.
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I responded:
Interesting view sir. A Golden Age powered by the infrastructure of Computer, Internet & Telecom revolution (smartphone being a computer and a telecom device) and the content creators and content consumers of the Internet - a vast repository of knowledge and information! Perhaps that's what it is!
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[I thank CBS This Morning and mentalfloss.com, and have presumed that they will not have any objections to me sharing the above short extracts and quotes from their video and website on this post which is freely viewable by all, and does not have any financial profit motive whatsoever.]