I found some of Slim's User_talk archive pages. I don't know if they've been purged of interesting information. I do know that this stuff is disappearing quickly. I don't know why these survived. Maybe they were considered innocent, or perhaps it was a screw-up. There seems to be a couple of different filenaming conventions in use on Slim's archive files, which makes the "screw-up of a cover-up" theory possible.

From 2004-11-10 to 2005-03-29:
Archive 01
Archive 02
Archive 03
Archive 04
Archive 05
Archive 06
Archive 07

From 2006-05-29 to 2007-06-14:
Archive 31
Archive 32
Archive 33
Archive 34
Archive 35
Archive 36
Archive 37
Archive 38
Archive 39
Archive 40
Archive 41
Archive 42
Archive 43

One hilarious correction: I don't know if Slim herself did this, but I don't think it was an innocent overwrite. On Archive 02, there is a picture of a saxophone player labeled "Playing.jpg" with a caption of "My dogs." That's how I found it today. But I just happened to have a copy of the original pic that was there, before some witch turned her poodle into a saxophone player, and her other dog into a saxophone:




Later: Found some more (slightly different filename format was used)
From 2005-03-23 to 2006-05-29:
Archive 08
Archive 09
Archive 10
Archive 11
Archive 12
Archive 13
Archive 14
Archive 15
Archive 16
Archive 17
Archive 18
Archive 19
Archive 20
Archive 21
Archive 22
Archive 23
Archive 24
Archive 25
Archive 26
Archive 27
Archive 28
Archive 29
Archive 30

The quickest way to see if Slim replied to any of these comments might be to consult the chronological listing of her contribution history. It doesn't have links in it, but for a quickie lookup to see if there's anything listed that's worth pursuing, here's a repeat of a post I made three weeks ago. (Even if it had links, they probably link to the non-archived talk page of that user, which means they won't work now, and you have to go digging for it the hard way.)

________________


There's a one-meg zip file, 59,002 lines long, of Slim's complete edit history, as it appeared this morning on Wikipedia.

It's at http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/slimedit.zip (that filename is pronounced SLIME - DIT, by the way). There are no links; it's a text file with Unix-style line endings. The date format was changed to save space and make it easier for parsing.

Here's a six-line sample:

Here's a great post from the first page. Dr. Adam Carr from way back in 2004. It sets the stage for so many future battles.



Carr eventually went completely off the rails and disappeared to some other outlet, shrouded in ignominy having launched too many ridiculous failed campaigns, then getting caught editing his politician boss's bio. Though his vanity article remains.

*****
I didn't realise that Slim wrote a featured article on Cambridge University philosopher Sir Bernard Williams. Who was the big wig at Kings college Cambridge from 1979 until 1987.

Jayjg's comment on the featured article page is a treat

It's so bloody obvious that a number of editors already knew SV before she joined Wikipedia from looking at her first talk archive.

I don't know when Slim got into the habit of replying to these comments on that user's own talk page. Was it from the beginning, or was it later? In any case, if you see some interesting comment on these pages, you may want to check that user's own talk page archives for a reply from Slim, probably within a few days later.

I'm happy I found that second dog pic — I downloaded it into the wrong directory on my computer 15 months ago and thought for the longest time that I had accidentally deleted it. Now there's a better chance of finding Slim. Imagine a reporter following a lead, and he finds someone in central Canada who looks about 46 years old, and looks like that pic we have of her, and is seen walking two dogs that look like that, after a long session in front of her Mac. That would be SlimVirgin. She no long has any "plausible deniability" at that point, to use some spy terminology.

Of course, assuming that the 2 dogs are still alive, and she doesn't now have other dogs as well/instead of. Dogs live for what? 10-15 years?

Good pick by Kato that others knew her, and also that she obviously liked one of her professors. All professors have their favourite students, so that's a lead. And it may be worth looking in to what Jorge said, that some people knew her before she started editing.

"
Jonny

Knowing Virginia Slim to be quite meticulous with regard to style and grammar, I'm going to suggest that the correct reading is "Slimed it."

I agree. Slimed It sounds much cooler.

Did I ever tell anyone about one of the games that I wrote for our old chat site? It was quite a well known game, calling Slime. Perhaps I should start it up again, so that Slime Virgin can play.

Where is the second dog pic? I only see the poodle one on wikipedia watch.

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