Jason Scott Sadofsky

Jason Scott Sadofsky (born September 13 1970 in Hopewell Junction, New York), more commonly known as Jason Scott, (also known by the pseudonyms "Sketch", "SketchCow" and previously "The Slipped Disk.") is an American weblogger who is the creator, owner and maintainer of textfiles.com, a web site which archives files from historic bulletin board systems. He is also the creator of a 2005 documentary film about BBSes, "". [ [http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/ BBS: The Documentary ] ]

In 1990, along with John Anthony Rescigno (who was known by the pseudonym "Trout.Complex"), Sadofsky started TinyTIM, a popular MUSH. He resigned in 2000. [ [http://ascii.textfiles.com/jscott.html ASCII by Jason Scott ] ]

In 1995 Jason joined the video game company Psygnosis as a technical support worker, before being hired by a video game startup, Focus Studios, as an art director. After Focus Studios' closure, Jason moved into UNIX administration, where he has remained. [ [http://www.cow.net/jason/employ.htm Jason Works for a Living ] ]

He has been a speaker at DEF CON, an annual hacker conference, the first time at the 7th conference in 1999, then again in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004 and 2005. Scott also spoke at PhreakNIC 6 and 9, Rubi Cons 4 and 5, the 5th H.O.P.E. conference in 2004, Notacons 1, 2 (as a backup), 3 and 4, Toorcon 7, and beta premiered his documentary at the 7th annual Vintage Computer Festival, where his screenings have become an anticipated staple. Most of his talks focus on the capturing of digital history or consist of narratives of stories relevant to his experiences online. [ [http://audio.textfiles.com/speeches/ T E X T F I L E S ] ]

In 2007, he co-founded Blockparty, a North American demoparty. For their inaugural year, they paired up with Notacon which takes place annually in Cleveland, Ohio. This collaborative effort allowed the fledgling party to utilize the existing support structure of an established conference.

He currently resides in Massachusetts, and is filming a documentary about text adventure games, called GET LAMP, [ [http://www.getlamp.com Get Lamp: The Text Adventure Documentary ] ] as well as a documentary on Arcades, called ARCADE, [ [http://www.arcadedocumentary.com Arcade: A Documentary ] ] in 2006.

Education

Jason Scott graduated from Horace Greeley High School in Chappaqua, New York and served on the staff of the school newspaper under the title "Humor Staff". He later earned a degree in Mass Communications (Concentration in Film) from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. While at Emerson, he worked for the school humor magazine, school newspaper, WERS 88.9 FM radio, and served as art director on several dramatic plays. After graduating from Emerson, Jason lived in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was employed as a Temp worker while also drawing caricatures for pay on the streets of Cambridge. [ [http://www.cow.net/jason/person.htm The Life and Times of Jason Scott ] ] In 2007, he was awarded his LL.B. from Harvard Law School [ [http://www.notaconmedia.com/2007/video/Wikipedia_Brick_by_Brick-Jason_Scott.avi Public Announcement of Law Degree] ] .

Wikipedia criticism

Scott has written a number of times about Wikipedia, its structure, and his opinions on the environment, including essays on his ascii.textfiles.com weblog. Some of these include [http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/000060.html The Great Failure of Wikipedia] , [http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/000067.html A Criticism of Wikipedia Now Exceeding a Scream] , [http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/000100.html Swastikipedia] and [http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/000329.html Wikipedia: J.S. on Essjay] .

Scott has also publicly criticized Wikipedia at many conferences in 2006, notably Notacon 3, where he looked at [http://www.archive.org/details/20060408-jscott-wikipedia The Great Failure of Wikipedia (April 8, 2006)] from a different angle than his original essay. In 2007 he gave yet another Wikipedia related talk at Notacon, entitled [http://www.archive.org/details/20070427-jscott-brickipedia Wikipedia, Brick by Brick. (April 27, 2007)] .

peeches

Speeches and presentations given at conventions:

*TEXTFILES, G-PHILES, AND LOG FILES: Remembering the 1980s Through ASCII "DEF CON 7", July 10, 1999
*TEXTFILES.COM: One Year Later "DEF CON 8", July 29, 2000
*So You Got Your Lame Ass Sued: A Legal Narrative "DEF CON 9", July, 2001
*Documenting the BBS "Rubi-Con 4", April, 2002
*History of Phreaking 101 "PhreakNIC 6.0", November 1, 2002
*Keynote: The Future is Now "Rubi-Con 5", March 28, 2003
* [http://www.archive.org/details/Apple-II-Pirate-Lore Apple II Pirate Lore] "Rubi-Con 5", March 29, 2003
* [http://www.archive.org/details/notacon-artscene-2004-04-24 100 Years of the Computer Art Scene] (with RaD Man) "Notacon 1", April, 2004
* [http://www.archive.org/details/2004-h2k2-digitalhistory-jasonscott Saving Digital History: A Quick and Dirty Guide] "H2K4", July 11, 2004
*BBS: The Documentary: A Preview "DEF CON 12", August, 2004
* [http://www.notacon.org/media/audio2005/notacon-2005-jscott-coleco.mp3 The History of the Coleco Adam] (mp3) "Notacon 2", April, 2005
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1275502615219932166&hl=en Why Tech Documentaries are Impossible] (And why we have to do them anyway.) "DEF CON 13", July 31, 2005
*Fidonet Presentation and Q&A "ToorCon 7", September 17, 2005
*BBS Documentary Presentation "PhreakNIC 9.0", October 22, 2005
* [http://www.archive.org/details/200601-shmoocon-hackercons ConCon: A History of Hacker Conferences] "Shmoocon 2", January 13, 2005
* [http://www.archive.org/details/20060407-jscott-podcasting Your Moment of Audio Zen: A History of Podcasts] "Notacon 3", April 7, 2006
* [http://www.archive.org/details/20060408-jscott-wikipedia The Great Failure of Wikipedia] , "Notacon 3", April 8, 2006
*Retrocomputing (with Sam Nitzberg, Cheshire Catalyst, Sellam Ismail) "H.O.P.E. Number Six", July 2006
*Underground Documentaries: The Art of the Interview and the Access (with Julien McArdle) "H.O.P.E. Number Six", July 2006
*Wheel of Internet Knowledge "Phreaknic X", October 2006
* [http://www.archive.org/details/20061202-jscott-mythapedia Mythapedia] "STM" (Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers) Innovations Seminar, December 1, 2006
* [http://www.archive.org/details/20070427-jscott-brickipedia Wikipedia, Brick by Brick] "Notacon 4", April 27, 2007
* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8078899470064976819&hl=en T536 - The Edge of Forever - Making Computer History] "DEF CON 15", August 4, 2007

References

*Jason Scott, "The Defendant" (July 2001). [http://audio.textfiles.com/cons/dc08/disc_2_of_2/AUDIO/037/037.MP3 So You Got Your Lame Ass Sued: A Legal Narrative] . DEF CON speaker. Retrieved 2004-11-19.
*Jason Sadofsky, [http://www.textfiles.com/humor/jason.fun The Tribune Articles, 1987-88]
*Jason Scott, [http://www.cow.net/jason/person.htm "The Life and Times of Jason Scott"]
* [http://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-13/dc13-speakers.html#top DEF CON 13 (2005) speakers] , including Jason Scott's "Why Tech Documentaries are Impossible"

External links

* [http://www.cow.net/jason/ Jason Scott] — Personal homepage
*imdb name|id=1926421|name=Jason Scott Sadofsky

* [http://ascii.textfiles.com/ ASCII — Jason Scott's weblog]
* [http://www.textfiles.com/ textfiles.com] — BBS archive project
* [http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/ BBS Documentary] — Web site for the documentary
* [http://www.getlamp.com/ Get Lamp]
* [http://www.demoparty.us/ Blockparty]
* [http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67689,00.html Collector's Trove of Podcasts] , an interview with Jason Scott in Wired magazine online
* [http://www.harvardnetsucks.com HarvardNetSucks]
* [http://www.archive.org/audio/audio-details-db.php?collection=textfiles_audio&collectionid=2004-h2k2-digitalhistory-jasonscott&from=collectionSpotlight Saving Digital History: A Quick and Dirty Guide, by Jason Scott (Hope 2004 Conference)]
* [http://www.harvardnetsucks.com/legal.html The Whole Lawsuit Thing] — "HarvardNetSucks" account of the lawsuit.
*http://www.sadofsky.com/
* [http://leahpeah.com/blog/interviews/jason-scott/ leahpeah interview with Jason Scott]
* [http://smallworldpodcast.com/?p=558 "small WORLD" interview with Jason Scott]