forward to a good sendoff to me and the others -- i look forward to a good standoff between me and the others. >> give this a dramatic picture right here. >> this week option "q & a" william beutler creator of wikipedian.net discusses his blog as well as his consulting for the wikipedia web site.

>> why did you start wikipedian.net? >> it is a blog written by me. the goal is to explain wikipedia to people who read it but do not understand how it works. >> how did you get into it? >> getting into wikipedia has been a long process. i do not know the first time i first read it. by the middle of the last decade, i was spending hours and long weekends immersed in wikipedia. after a while, i was interested in editing. it started simple. i fixed minor things. then i got more confident and i read more about how wikipedia worked. i became more involved. then willing to share my knowledge is what led to that. >> do you work for wikipedia? >> no.

>> is it for profit? >> it is not for profit. there are no ads on it. i write about how i think it works, should work and try to explain interesting stories about wikipedia to people who might be interested. >> talk to people about wikipedia who do not know much about it. >> wikipedia refers to itself as a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. it is an encyclopedia. that is a little too limiting. it does things that a printed volume never could do. it covers many more subjects. wikipedia in english language has nearly 4 million articles at the moment. the wiki part is a unique characteristic of it. it is a key one.

the wiki refers to a software that allows covers of editing. and maybe is not the easiest thing to use. it allows that. it allows people to edit live pages on the internet quickly. >> i looked this morning on alexa. >> it is a ranking website that will tell you which web sites are the most highest ranked. >> wikipedia was no. 6. does that mean much? >> very much. being in the top 10 means you're getting hundreds of millions of users per day. wikipedia has been there for several years. in the second half of the last

decade there was wikipedia kept it out of that. it shows wikipedia is now bigger than this site or that site. it has now fallen into disarray. wikipedia's position is set for now. >> can you describe how many hours a week that you spend reading or working with wikipedia? >> i work with wikipedia in professional capacity. i spent a lot of time and doing research and writing articles that will eventually go on wikipedia. i spend less time just reading wikipedia all the time the way i used to. maybe that phase has passed. i am involved in betraying stories to go on it. when i am finished, i will make

it on wikipedia. that represents the smallest amount of our time. >> you did a couple of consulting work for us. that is when i first met you. i listened to you talk about wikipedia. i thought it might be interesting. i have some video recorded at in 2005 with jimmy wales. >> what does jimmy wales mean to you? >> he is the co-founder, spiritual leader, and "benevolent dictator for life." people look to him for leadership. i do not have a personal relationship with him. i have worked with people who have worked with the quite a bit. i am grateful for what he put together. i think he goes down in history as someone who has done one of

the truly amazing things in the last 10 or 20 years. that is about it. >> are there any people other than yourself that has a web site that deals with the world of wikipedia? >> there are a number of web sites written by people who are wikipedia editors. most are focused on their intended audiences, other wikipedia editors. i think they have a better leadership. it is sometimes futile what i tried to do, try to explain wikipedia to people. a lot of people read wikipedia. maybe they're curious about how it works but not so curious that they spend a lot of times to get out information. i occupy a unique niche there. it is my place to share my opinions. >> i have some video with jimmy

wales. what impact do you think it has had on politics? >> wikipedia? >> yes. >> that is a good question. it matters a lot to people involved. being able to say what its impact is. a lot of the impact are things that centers around wikipedia. if we go back to 2006, it was the first time that the public was aware that congressional staffers were editing wikipedia articles about their bosses. they were doing in a manner that they were trying to hide certain of comfortable facts for their bosses. it someone back on a pledge and they removed that from a biography. a representative from massachusetts, it was

whitewashed. that is a term editors will use. they were caught. >> how were they caught that's why is that allowed are not allowed to get in and help your boss? >> it is always got the same way. an editor happens to find it. in this case, they were editing from an ip address if you tried to edit wikipedia any do not create an account, wikipedia will still attract the edits you make that it will record your ip address as if it were your account. it was easily traceable. it was reported in the news. this is the first of many similar stories. >> what is ip? >> an internet protocol. it identifies your location on the internet with a particular web host. they often traced to geographic locations. >> you have a computer here.

why don't you pick that up? are you going to operate it on the desktop? talking about editing, call up any wikipedia site and show the audience how you can track the editing so people would know where to go. >> sure thing. i cued up this page on the charlie brown christmas. if you want to track it, we go to the history page. if you scroll down, you see wikipedia. when i say i'm surprised how

people understand it, very few people i find are aware of the fact that every added that is made to wikipedia is stored for posterity. >> what is that red? >> these are the user accounts. red means there is no page behind it. it means this person may not be the most committed editor. he did not bother to create his own page. this person added something about themselves to it. >> do you have to add it? >> you do not. >> do they work for anyone? >> they might. this is an active topic of dispute. >> scroll where it said

"protected." i wanted to ask you what that meant. it was on the edited page. >> this is the same thing. >> this is semi protected. it means you need to be -- >> what does that mean? >> vandalism is a problem on wikipedia. this is an amusing one. it means that it is about christmas time. the traffic probably goes up. whenever a page becomes more topical, it brings more people who are interested in vandalizing the page. >> go up and explain all of those little icons up there and what they mean. >> you got it. >> it is article discussion. >> the article, this is an

article. almost anybody, this is almost all anyone sees. when you search google for topics, it almost always drops to on an article page. that is probably what 99% only people only see. people do not know this is where editors and anybody can discuss changes to the article. it looks like we are scrolling here. several years ago people were asked questions about music. >> who is allowed to be on the discussion page? >> anybody. you can get there and ask a question. >> who will answer?

>> that is a good question. it could be anybody or nobody. some pages are very active. discussion pages have been active for years and are constantly updated. many articles do not have a discussion page. one could be created but has not yet been created. it runs the gamut. >> who decides that there is even an article on the wikipedia site? >> wikipedia is an encyclopedia. anyone can add it. the answer could be anyone. a very small amount of people visit and decide to admit it. a smaller percentage of people ever go so far as to learn enough to actually create a whole new page.

it is a very small community of people who spend time working with wikipedia pages and read articles. it is difficult. >> let's go back to the founder. 10 years old? >> is celebrated its 10th anniversary january of 2010. >> let's look at jimmy wales and what he said about wikipedia in 2005. >> there are lots of rules. no personal accounts. that has served as very well. a lot of internet communities are quite hot style and rough. almost everybody had the experience of seeing what sounded interesting and finding it was dominated by people who like to scream at each other. we tried to make wikipedia a safe place for the broad

spectrum of people. that is why we are successful in controversial topics. we keep them away from competitive editors and try to find common ground. it is very successful. i do not mean to paint it as a utopia. it is a human thing. we have achieved something in community in terms of getting together with people from a broad spectrum of political and religious backgrounds. we are still willing to give some other people. >> what do you think of what he just said? >> he was right to cover both ends of the spectrum. the squabbling and the fact that there are roles that are in place, and guidelines -- it is mandatory behavior to be civil to other editors. it does not mean that wikipedia is not often a contentious place. controversial topics will be

very heated. there are other topics where very few people are involved at all. i think it varies greatly. some editors can spend a lot time writing articles and never even run into other editors. some editors if they do decide to get into controversy may spend a lot of time arguing with editors. >> how many editors are there? >> if you want to describe the whole pool, let's say it is about 30,000 for the people that make a single at it every month. there is a top 20% make over 100 edits per month. that number is probably right around 3000. >> to the ever have to surface by name? >> wikipedia does require anyone to use their own name. there are rules against it. >> what do you think of that?

>> i think it is generally a good thing. what matters most is not who you are or where your expertise is but what facts you bring to the table. maybe you do not have any great expertise except you have read a lot. then you can bring your research to bear on wikipedia. this annoys people who are experts, professors who have spent a lifetime getting into a subject. when they tried to make an added in a do not bring a citation, they can find themselves at an advantage to a novice. >> here's more from jimmy wales. >> another example is of their verifiability. if you want to write about the street where you live, there is no information that other wikipedia people can verify. we have no idea.

those articles cannot stay. that is one way we do it. if you're notable in some way and there is press coverage, it is preferable you did not write yourself. that is tacky. >> how often do you hear people write in an article about themselves? >> it happens all the time. there is a place called the conflict of interest notice board were everyday editors will report people who seem to be writing articles about himself. that is a little bit likely than people admitting to editing topics. >> conflict of interest, coi, how important is that? >> the way that people often view it is common he was trying to discourage people from

editing articles about himself. the wikipedia community does do that. very few people have the wherewithal or deep understanding of wikipedia in order to do so in a good way. that is not to say it cannot be done. what the conflict of interest rules say is that where advancing outside interest is more important to you then advancing the aims of wikipedia, the editor is in a conflict of interest. you can balance the two and worked through the community. there is a place. it is contentious. it is a topic of discussion. it is something that is becoming a bigger deal over time

as wikipedia editors have started to realize that the number of editors has been dropping. some of the most motivated editors and knowledgeable editors may be those that have a close relationship to the topic. it is an evolving issue. >> you use the word 4 million to describe articles. how fast is that growing? >> it is not slowing down a lot. last year it just rounded 3 million. it'll probably past 4 million

around 2012. >> what is the biggest controversy you know of the? >> probably has to do with the hopes that occurred on the page of seigenthaler from 2005. an editor changes page to say that he was a suspect in the assassinations of the kennedy brothers. but i did not know you're going to say that. i have no idea. i have some video from an event that john seigenthaler, you used to be the publisher of usa today, where he explains this. this will work out. >> someone inserted a six sentence biography on me that

said in the early 1960's he was an assistant to robert kennedy. true. after the deaths of president kennedy, he was the suspect in the assassination. then it said nothing was ever proved. [laughter] he then defected to the soviet union for 13 years. [laughter] i did exactly what you did. i laughed. late in the afternoon, my son called on the phone. he said, "dad, you have to take this seriously. you're not the only john seigenthaler in the world. i am a john seigenthaler.

your grandson is a john seigenthaler. you have to do something to get that down." >> i should disclaim, it is odd that this all came together that you thought it was the most difficult time. john seigenthaler called me after that. he had seen the editor jimmy wales and wanted to know how we get a hold of him. i said don't worry about it. it will pass. clearly, he did worry about it. why was it that big of a deal? >> this is the point in which wikipedia became self aware and realized this was not just a fun project anymore of building an encyclopedia. this is the point of which wikipedia became aware of what people added to their encyclopedia had a material affect on the topics and

individuals especially he were covered. what happened after this, with in days the seigenthaler's became news, wikipedia introduced a guideline, a new policy that is important. it means that if you're going to add any information to any page that may affect the reputation of an individual one way or another, a living person, that it be accompanied with a citation, verifiable, and comes from a reliable source. a blog will not be a good source but a newspaper article will be. >> why would a newspaper article be thought to be true and we know there have been articles that are not and a blog not to be?

>> wikipedia has to play the odds. the idea that a newspaper has gone through editorial layers, that is a phrase that bloggers will laugh at. some have done a bad job. you are more likely to trust something from the "washington post" then something from a blogspot site. you usually need to a deeper media source to say so. wikipedia get into problems sometimes when reliable sources conflict. >> what do you do? >> wikipedia will choose to cover the disputes. wikipedia is not interested in the truth.

wikipedia is interested in what can be verified and reliable sources. >> can i go to a room somewhere and say this is wikipedia? >> you cannot. it is somewhat lazy to say wikipedia is this or thinks that. wikipedia is not a single organism. there is couple of different things they might be referring to. there is the volunteer of the wikipedia community that is around 3000 people that are most active and the 300 people you are the very, very most active. >> they are underpaid? >> the committee editor's donate their time.

it is really impressive. the wikipedia foundation is the parent organization for wikipedia the web sites and there are a number of sister website associated with wikipedia that run on similar volunteer values and wiki type software. wikipedia is the most important. they do not all agree. the wikipedia foundation has no sayso in editorial content or policy. that is all done in the volunteer community. >> let me complete the john seigenthaler story. subsequent to what he saw on the web sites and what his son saw, he was an anchorman at msnbc, he came on a show in 2005. i was the host of it. it played a role. i want you to see it.

i will tell you what happened after. >> more recently, my biography, and they made an effort to create a too long biography, it is flattering. it vandals invaded the process with some of the most vulgar, hateful, despicable, homophobic, racist commentary you possibly imagine. all of that was a bump into my history. i assume at some point they will kill it from a history. they put a lock on it. it is a free encyclopedia in which school children are vandals. they have thousands of writers and editors to volunteer to

come in and edit that stuff. >> assuming he says come in, they do not come in everywhere. they come to their home. what about this lot. is that what you saw us earlier? >> there is a semi protection. there is one where only certain editors could edit. wikipedia does try to keep all of his pages as open as possible. it will only add special protection if a page becomes very much in the news. so only established editors can contribute. >> it was about 30 but after this program at in 2005 at a gentle man worked in and handed a letter. in the letter, he admitted that

he was the one that have put the information in. would that have changed today? >> it happens all the time. if anybody can edit wikipedia, they do. there are other things that have developed. wikipedia as a group of editors called of the "recent changes patrol" colloquially known as "vandal control." they watched recent changes. he can view them all in one page. there are dozens of edits a minute. they look for problematic at it. there are bot programs that are looking for the most obvious stuff, george carlin's seven dirty words are on a blacklist.

>> you cannot read that in an article? >> certain articles, some of the words have their own wikipedia article. the word to do show up there. it matters about the context. wikipedia does not belong in an article about the oakland a's. somebody who is a fan of another team may go in there and say they suck or worse. overt vandalism is caught quickly in most cases. with mr. seigenthaler, an algorithm was not going to find that. you have to have a human reading that with comprehension and knowledge that it was not true. unfortunately, it is a process to be changed. there are a hoax pages. i have caught and reported them myself. they have happened.

wikipedia is aware of them. >> where did you grow up? >> portland, oregon. i went to school in eugene. i lived in washington the last two years. i got interested in political journalism while i was in college. i edited a libertarian campus magazine that was part humor, part news. it focused on politics. after that, i had friends who moved to washington, i got interested in that. i came to d.c. to become a political journalist in 2002. >> what does that mean to be a libertarian? >> university of oregon was not a liberal place. i grew up in portland. i drove liberal by default. i got to university of oregon and some of the assumptions i

have fell by the wayside. i moved right. i was a conservative by oregon standards. my political views are right libertarian. they fit well with the magazine. it is still being published today. i became the editor of that. i've always been riding in some way or another, they're writing that, editing that. i went into writing blocks. by the middle of the last decade as wikipedia became a big deal, that was maybe the next step. >> i noticed on your personal summary page that articles have included tom peterson. that cannot be a more liberal organization.

he was just profiled. >> i created his page as well. it is a several different locations. bus boys and poets. it is a restaurant and a community art space, a theater. it is a bookstore as well. it is run by an activist and member of the business community here. it happens to be that i have friends in common with him. they were interested in their being a page. i did some research about it. that is one of the earlier pages i created.

>> it is under "bus boys and poets." >> thomas adams is the youngest son. why did he do that? >> this is one way that i will come to edit a lot of articles. i will watch something on tv, and i will look it up to see what is there. i was watching the hbo miniseries "john adams" and noticed there is not one for his young this, ne'er-do-well son. i will create one. there is not a whole lot out there about him to be found on the internet. i put together what i could. i have not looked at him for a while. it is not longer than what i put together. >> the other is "british royal sandwich." >> it was a listing on a page called a desired article, articles people wished existed. the phrase amused me. i looked it up. it is a term from british humor

describing the on appetizing sandwiches on the british rail during the 1970's during the era of socialist era. it was a funny topic. there is enough reliable sources to create a good article. >> can you pick up your computer and type in "british rail sandwich?" >> it was not a great deal of it than the one i wrote. what i wrote it, it was a series of paragraphs without the section breaks. it has been improved since then. i believe there is information about france. i did not write that.

>> when you go down to references, they also have external links. what is that about? that only has seven references? >> the only way that wikipedia stays remotely verifiable is by including the references that were used to create the article. wikipedia does not care what is true as much as what can be proved. >> go down further. >> you usually need an official page. >> what do you say to someone right now? >> they are perfectly welcome to be skeptical. all wikipedia editors get involved because they're interested in topics. they find a gap of they can

fill. >> see what we can find up there. show us how many edits there have been on this. >> so far this year, and there has been maybe about a dozen so far. this is my primary user account. you can see what the very first version of the article looks like. >> what was the date? >> it was early 2009. this is the first version. this is what looks like when i first created it. >> how important is humor in your life? >> very important. i like to do things that entertain me as long as they are constructive.

>> you have a twitter account, and i was on it. explain twitter. >> it is a short messaging service, kind og like a blog, except all your blogs are 142 characters or a shorter. people can postings they are thinking about. they can engage in conversations with people who are also on there. >> here's one from december the eight. >> i got a shave and a year at this morning. i'm really had second thoughts. >> that is true. i took it off last week. when i stepped out of the barbershop, i noticed it was cold on my face. >> why would you tweet that? >> that is a heck of a question.

>> right before that is one of the seventh of december were you say [inaudible] blago sentenced to 14 years in prison. i would hate to see what his hair looks like in 14 months. >> i did not realize that i had two hair related tweets in a row. robert blagojevich is best known for his hair. i tweet less than i used to. i used to do more. now i do couple a day at most. if i'm traveling, and doing interesting things and i want to share that. >> on december the sixth, you

said "if i had known that fedex would robocall meet for signing up, i might add thought about it twice." >> it was not in welcoming thing. >> its circulation got to say if i would like all seven days for a few more cents. >> i decided i like to start getting the sunday paper. then they decided they would send me the daily paper, too, for free. what would also like to continue receiving for just a few since more? i said no.

they kept sending it anyway. they called me again. they asked if i wanted to start paying for the paper. i assume a 500 of them actually saw it. i like to tweet of things that are relevant to my life and others. in this case, it is commentary on the unfortunate decline of the washington post and other printed daily newspapers. i matter more to them as a circulation statistic then a paying subscriber. that is unfortunate and ironic. i keep considering calling them

and telling them to cancel its. >> people watching this right now who do not tweet or go on facebook or use wikipedia, what do you say to them? they think it is all a bunch of gibberish and that you are completely enveloped by this nonsense. what is the serious side of this? >> you are describing social media, and the fact that over the last 10 years starting with blogs and facebook, communication has got more frequent. this has all kinds of ramifications in in real world. twitter and facebook have played roles in helping revolutions happen in middle east and other countries. there is a lot of heat compared

to the spirit a lot is gibberish. a lot is people babbling. this is the world we live in now. people always entertain themselves and frivolous ways. this is the way they entertain themselves now. there's also the potential for -- not every tweet matters. there are some that are heard round the world. >> are you about 31? >> 32. >> what is about people your age than people my age where we are used to reading newspapers and hardbacks? what is happening in your age group? >> i feel like i'm in the middle ground. i am not old by any means. people who are 10 years under are now adults. i am now seeing these people.

i like to think i am of the last generation remembers what it was like before the internet. i have siblings who are about 20 years younger than me and they would not have any memory of what the world was like before that. there is a transition that is going on. i feel like i am part of that transition. we do not know what the world looks like in 10 years. for those who are older, i do not know what to say except take from it what you can that does interest. you are clearly interested in wikipedia. you followed these things. you get something from it. some may be a little bit overwhelming. it may also be amusing. i think people from the older generation are never going to understand it as well as those who grew up with it. both sides have interesting

perspectives to add. i think they look forward to seeing all of that as part of the record. both generations need to read what the other experience was in order to get a bigger picture. >> what did your parents do? >> my father is a mechanical engineer. my mother was a homemaker. she had been in the work force and then went back to be a lawyer. she works in real-estate. they both work. they both live in portland, oregon. what are the followers of years on twitter? >> they do not use facebook a whole lot. they do not use twitter. my parents are not on there. >> how do you make a living? >> i am a business consultant. wikipedia it is a professional consideration for me in some ways. what i do is i help businesses

and organizations figure out how to work constructively with wikipedia. a lot of my clients will have interesting wikipedia articles that are not very good or either they are under developed or they are may be over developed or someone has skewed them. i work with editors to gain consensus to fix that page. >> you had a word you used "constructive." what do you mean by that? we have enough experience to know that there's something on your wikipedia site, you cannot get it off. >> it is not easy. this is why i do what i do. as we know from the seigenthaler incident, we know

what wikipedia says matters. maybe the simplest reason is because when you go to google, you go to any search engine and wikipedia will be returned as one of the top results. it has a reputation of an impact. whether there are gaps in accuracies or distortions, at those matter to the people they are about. wikipedia can be difficult to interact with. of times they can be helpful, especially if someone shows up and works for a company but does not know a lot about it. chances are they will not do a good job of interacting. i tried to be a sherpa to them. >> go back to the computer. if i am a parent or a politician and comes to you and says teach me about this, tell us more about this site and what we should know. >> i have no idea where to begin. that is a huge topic.

there are many points of entry to that. people are generally not in it for -- they're interested in a specific page. why does it say what is says that a lot of people do not know. i have to explain why things are there. >> i always go on it without bail to get the birth date of someone. is it a rule that the birth date starts? there is no date there. they will put it if it can be reliably verified. often you get a year but not a birth date. you can see it will say that the person is either 61 or 62. it can be either given that amount of information. >> i noticed if you type in "pick a city, chicago" you can go there for all kinds of information.

wikipedia always pops up on the third or second item. >> wikipedia cleaned up the neighborhood for the search engines. people want to find topics. wikipedia, while not always perfect, is a pretty reliable place. >> look at chicago, usually, here we go. it shows you where it is. later on it will show you what the population is. is this a standard form that someone requires of every city that is profiled? >> yes. there is a standard format for different types of pages. this side bar on the right is what wikipedia calls and "infobox." there are parameters that its editors can fill in information. here it is.

you can see the "infobox settlement." if there is not information, say if there is no founder, it will not show up on the page. >> go on the front page into the population with 2 million, i cannot remember exactly. to close to 3 million people. what if i saw that the population was 2.69 5 million and i said it is not? >> that is why there are citations' right here. people can go check it. you're talking about vandalism that is harder to catch. maybe somebody changes it to 2.49 million. unless you can take it elsewhere, you don't know.

>> click on that to see what popped up. where is it stored? >> the information is stored up there. it will display it down here. the ultimate storage will be here. >> what would you tell a politician if they came to you about social media and wikipedia? >> i would give them different information. wikipedia it is very different. wikipedia want to be a reliable encyclopedia. it wants to contain relevant information. it is not necessarily welcoming of a politician who wants to add information. it is tricky. >> go to google.

type in nancy pelosi. i did this for a reason. the first thing that comes up is wikipedia. the second thing is wikipedia. what is the difference? the point is, if your nancy pelosi, would you rather that it pop up wikipedia first or your own website? >> if i am nancy pelosi, what my website first. she controls that site. the fact that it shows up first or second it is a fact of life. that is why people do care. she does have to care about what this page says.

>> one of the things you often notice is that if anyone has had a problem in their life, it is in wikipedia. it is almost never in the biography section. >> of course not. this is where wikipedia will give you this. it is my readers prefer wikipedia. wikipedia is viewed as being an independent source. it is not controlled by the subject. this is both good and bad. >> we are talking in mid- december. there is an article that just came out. the headline says "wikipedia co-founder threatens black out over anti piracy laws." >> i'm not that familiar. jimmy wales threatened its because of congress. is he using his power in the

right way by suggesting that there be a blackout? have you ever had been before? >> i have seen cases where people create a plugin. in italy this is a problem right now. the italian language was pulled down from the internet, shielded from view, in protest of anti piracy laws in italy. i do not think wikipedia should be itself an advocacy place. jimmy wales is a private citizen. he is not the chairman of wikipedia. he can do whatever he wants. wikipedia article themselves should be neutral reflections

of what is in the world. >> there is one that you have written about, what is the difficulty for rick santorum? but it is not limited to wikipedia. the difficulty is that a political opponent of his associated santorum's last name he put it in a sexual term that i would not describe on the air. it was disgusting. this was done in opposition, to shame rick santorum for his anti-gay abuse. this is a website that he created.

it became the number one search results for rick santorum's name. it got a lot of coverage and can the topic of a wikipedia article. did the wikipedia article grew to be very long because an editor happen to take interest in its and to make it way longer than it should have been. they did a very good job of following all the rules while doing so. it was carefully written the way to information about the subject. it turned wikipedia into an advocacy area. over a long discussion over a couple of years, the article was renamed and whittled down. >> what is it now back skype i

believe it is called "campaign for santorum." what is it now? >> i believe it is called "campaign for santorum." >> if you type in rick santorum, what comes up first? >> at the moment, you would see his article and campaign site. you also see the campaign for santorum. it has a lot of links. google has decided that it matters. >> the wikipedian, you have to type in wikipedian.net. >> it is mine blog. i have run for a few years. i will continue doing it. >> we only have 10 seconds. will wikipedia be around in 10

years? >> almost certainly in 100 years. >> thank you. >> for a dvd copy of this program, called 1877-662-7726. for free transcripts, visit www.q-and-a.org. they're also available as a c- span podcast. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] .. .