For one of the most popular noders on Everything, we actually know very little about the secretive Mr. Webster 1913. His writeups are all somehow very impersonal (albeit informative). He has never posted on any "getting to know you" nodes. For instance, I'd be interested to see his explanation on How did you choose your Everything username? At a guess, he found that plain "Webster" was already taken, and following the usual advice of adding a number he added 1913: either his birth year (for an oldtimer he's pretty with-it to be posting on Everything), or his favourite year in European politics. Or is it "the Webster", a name showing his cool mastery of all things web-related? He speaks a kind of stilted, old fashioned, bookish American English, but he's always very careful to be precise with words.
His nodes do, admittedly, express a certain wry humour. Consider his gentle jibe on the topic of browsers, or his witty summaries on Bandrol, Hylozoic, and Struvite (really a borderline post for friend Webby). Occasionally he posts dumb stuff just for the extra XP (like Tant or Stratagetic), which totally sucks -- come on, Webster, you have all the experience you need, anyway! At least he doesn't post porn and swearwords!
There's an entry he himself wrote, titled Webster, but what to make of his self-deprecating humour? Is W. 1913 a female weaver, or -- excuse me? -- bratbait? So you try out his home node. Whoa! Our friend the Webster hasn't been on since December. Is he ill, or bored of Everything, or what? Or has he simply exhausted his encyclopedic erudition and gone elsewhere? He has almost 100,000 writeups, but since the management blocked our ability to vote for him, he only has like 1000 XP more than writeups! Instead of a Bio he gives you some nonsense legalese, and leaves his private life a mystery by leaving the other fields blank.
I'd like to take the liberty at least of filling in these blanks.
mission drive within everything: loquaciously define trivia, to ascend to the utmost stature in Everything, that I may scoff superciliously at others, once I am the ubiquitous noder spewed out by the Random Node.
specialties: dated American English
school/company: Project Gutenberg and the Sesquipedelian Society
motto: definition by Webster 1913
Mot"to (?), n.; pl. Mottoes (#). {It. motto a word, a saying, L. muttum a mutter, a grunt, cf. muttire, mutire, to mutter, mumble; prob. of imitative origin. Cf. Mot a word.}
1. Her.
A sentence, phrase, or word, forming part of an heraldic achievment.
2.
A sentence, phrase, or word, prefixed to an essay, discourse, chapter, canto, or the like, suggestive of its subject matter; a short, suggestive expression of a guiding principle; a maxim.
It was the motto of a bishop eminent for his piety and good works, ... "Serve God, and be cheerful." Addison.