Optional: write a lede — not necessarily a WP:LEAD. Interesting > encyclopedic.

Ward Christensen, with co-creator Randy Suess, created the first bulletin board system (BBS), in 1978. They wrote the first BBS software, called CBBS, and brought the first BBS system online, also called CBBS. An online culture coalesced around the new technology that came of age in the 1980s and reached a peak during the 1990s, and for many people it became their first introduction to wide area networking, before the Internet was commonly available. Anyone could set up a BBS in their home for the cost of a phone line and dedicated PC, and share email, files, and message boards with the wider world. He also invented the XMODEM protocol, to transfer files between computers over a modem; it influenced other protocols such as ZMODEM that were at the core of the BBS world. Ward first edited Wikipedia in 2006, and made contributions until 2020.[1]

Andrei Filotti (b. 1930, Bucharest, Romania – d. 2024, Arlington, Virginia, USA) was a hydroelectrical engineer, son of the diplomat Eugen Filotti. He made major contributions in water management in Romania, but also in other countries under the auspices of the United Nations Organization. He made over 52,000 edits on the English Wikipedia from 2006 to 2024, many of which were about rivers in Romania. On the Romanian Wikipedia he was an administrator and a stalwart of the community; see his article and obituary there.