Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians/2013

Aaron Swartz ()
Aaron Swartz died in New York City on January 11, age 26. Among other achievements, he was a co-author of the RSS syndication standard, and known for his attempt in January 2011 to scrape large amounts of academic articles from the JSTOR online journal archive with the intent to freely distribute them (see Signpost article). According to close friends, he battled with depression late in his life and was to begin trial for his alleged breach of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Swartz made more than 5,000 edits to Wikipedia, and created or worked on a number of articles including George Gilder, Tom the Dancing Bug, and US Civil liberties. He was also known for his "landmark analysis" of this site, Who Writes Wikipedia.

His friend Cory Doctorow wrote a heartfelt tribute, and Erik Möller wrote a Wikimedia Blog post. Numerous Wikipedians left memorials on his English Wikipedia user talk page.

Roger Ebert ()


Though it was never fully confirmed that he was an editor, film critic Roger Ebert frequently cited Wikipedia in his reviews. Rebert's edits were limited, but support the assertion that he was an editor.

Atul Chitnis ()
Atul Chitnis, a Wikipedian and technologist, passed away on June 3, 2013, at the age of 51.

John T. Riedl ()
John T. Riedl was a computer scientist and professor at the University of Minnesota. On Wikipedia, he mainly edited articles related to science and mathematics.

Jackson Peebles ()
Jackson Peebles passed away in late October. Jackson was a "brilliant" Western Michigan University Honors student studying behavioral science and biology. He worked as an ice hockey referee and volunteered with the Red Cross. His Wikipedia efforts focused on counter-vandalism and adoption, "greeting new users, encouraging civility, and obsessively reviewing recent changes". His last edit to our site was on October 21, 2013, the day he died. Jackson welcomed an IP editor to Wikipedia.

''Please leave remembrances and condolences at Jackson's talk page. We'll try and contact the family and share your thoughts with them. You can read more reflections on Jackson's amazing life here. Donations to the Kalamazoo NAMI chapter would have made Jackson very happy and are the family's wish.'' Ocaasit &#124; c 14:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Jackson Peebles Obituary, Schoolcraft, MI
 * WMU students, professors remember Jackson Peebles, 21, Medallion scholar

Liam Segaert ()
Diamant was active on the Dutch Wikipedia, having started at the young age of 8 years old. He died on November 16, 2013, at the age of 13, 4 days after undergoing surgery for type II spinal muscular atrophy.