Jason Scott Sadofsky

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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 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, BBS: The Documentary.^[1]

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.

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.

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, Notacon 1 in 2004, as a backup speaker at Notacon 2, 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.

He currently resides in Massachusetts, and is filming a documentary about text adventure games, called GET LAMP,^[2] as well as a documentary on Arcades, called ARCADE,^[3] in 2006.

1 Education
2 Wikipedia criticism
3 Speeches
4 References
5 External links

[edit] 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.

[edit] Wikipedia criticism

Mr. 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 The Great Failure of Wikipedia, A Criticism of Wikipedia Now Exceeding a Scream, and Swastikipedia.

[edit] Speeches

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
Apple II Pirate Lore Rubi-Con 5, March 29, 2003
100 Years of the Computer Art Scene (with RaD Man) Notacon 1, April, 2004
Saving Digital History: A Quick and Dirty Guide H2K4, July 11, 2004
BBS: The Documentary: A Preview DEF CON 12, August, 2004
The History of the Coleco Adam (mp3) Notacon 2, April, 2005
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
ConCon: A History of Hacker Conferences Shmoocon 2, January 13, 2005
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