Tron Øgrim

Øgrim was found dead by one of his three daughters on 23 May 2007 in Oslo. The probable cause of death was a stroke.

Tron Øgrim was extremely important for the Norwegian wiki movement, and he was often interviewed by the press about Wikipedia. He gave a lecture about Wikipedia when Wikipedia's co-founder Jimmy Wales visited Norway in May 2006. When journalists challenged him about the sometimes erroneous information that the encyclopedia presents, Øgrim responded that by itself that was not a problem – on the contrary it may be viewed as an advantage: "Wikipedia asks everybody to do a checkup of their own information and not accept anything on face value. If you ask me, it is a democratic problem that so little awareness of source criticism exists today in the Norwegian school system."

Tron Øgrim became a contributor on Wikipedia in December 2005, when libelous statements about a colleague appeared in a Norwegian Wikipedia article. Øgrim continued as a Wikipedia editor after the issue was resolved, writing about constructed languages through most of 2006. In the fall of 2006, his focus changed to Nepal generally and the history of communism in Nepal specifically. Øgrim was known in the Norwegian wikicommunity for writing very long articles about somewhat obscure topics. He also cared much about smaller wikis and their progress. He was routinely posting messages about milestones at the Norwegian Village Pump, as well as participating on the Wikimedia News announcements page.

Tron Øgrim was an early proponent of the Internet in Norway, frequently traveling around the country giving lectures. In 1995, he argued for the Norwegian parliament to establish an Internet presence, claiming: "Without politicians online, there is no such thing as a democratic IT policy." Øgrim was also a supporter of the open-source movement. In his book Kvikksølv, he described Linux as "applied communism". He was a mainstay contributor of the Internet newsgroup Leftist Trainspotters, where he made thousands of posts, many relating to the political developments in Nepal.

A longstanding member of the Norwegian Esperanto League (Norsk Esperanto-Forbund), he never, however, accepted any formal position in the organization. Tron Øgrim was well known in the Esperanto movement for his radio series Drømmen om den fullkomne språk (The dream of a perfect language). Beginning in 1989, the programs dealt with linguistic philosophy and planned or constructed languages such as Esperanto and Volapük. He steadily turned up at international Esperanto meetings and was widely regarded as affable and scholarly, with a healthy portion of self-deprecation.

Tron Øgrim (Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈtrʊnː ˈø̂ːɡrɪm]; 27 June 1947 – 23 May 2007) was a Norwegian journalist, author and politician. He was active in Socialist Youth Union (later Red Youth) from 1965 to 1973, and a central figure in the Workers' Communist Party from 1973 to 1984. In addition to being a politician, Øgrim was an author of political works and several science fiction novels. He was notable for communicating in a non-standard eastern Oslo dialect, even where he might have been expected to use standardized Bokmål.