Sunday, March 23, 2008

Do you love Wiki like I love Wiki?




Wikipedia's own definition of itself:
Wikipedia (pronounced /wi ki pi dia/ ) is a multilingual, Web-based, free content encyclopedia project. The name Wikipedia is a portmanteau (combination) of the words wiki (a type of collaborative website) and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information.
Wikipedia is
written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference Web sites. There are more than 75,000 active contributors working on some 9,000,000 articles in more than 250 languages. As of today, there are 2,299,740 articles in English; every day hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world make tens of thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles to enhance the knowledge held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia. (See also: Wikipedia:Statistics).

I have to admit, I looove Wikipedia. I love the fact that it is a blindingly simple concept--linked, edited, web pages—that has become a collaborative effort of all these individuals around the world—fact geeks that want to share what they know. (Wiki has been said to stand for What I Know Is, but WikiPedia tells me this is a backronym. Wiki is actually Hawaiian for fast.)
So...after the what-I-know-is guy posts his stuff, then other geeks—volunteer geeks-- fact check those semi-facts and verify them for accuracy. It's all very grass roots as well as being one big geek-fest, and I'm right there in the middle, wallowing.
Under the guise of research I can get completely lost in Wikipedia. The problem is, most of the facts I uncover are rather arcane, maybe bordering on the bizarre or er, um, useless.
Did you know the platypus is one of only five mammals that lays eggs instead of giving birth?
I know, I know. You're on your way to Wikipedia to find out about the other four.
Susan Goodwill's newest Kate London Mystery, Little Shop of Murders, was released March 1.

9 comments:

Keith Raffel said...

I make sure I do my writing at a cafe without an internet connection. If I can get access to Wikipedia, my productivity goes down by more than 1/2.

Joe Moore said...

Susan,
I love Wiki and couldn't live without it.

jbstanley said...

I adore Wiki. I go there several times a week. It barely tops WebMD and eBay for favorite sites!

Mark Terry said...

I think Wikipedia's great, but... (you knew with me there'd be a but, right?)...

As a guy who spends a LOT of time researching on the web, ya gotta great Wiki with some skepticism (& just about everything else on the web). But overall, it brings me back to the earlier Web days (yes, all that long, long time ago) when we actually surfed the web. You start with Anasazi, get caught up in Hopi, read something about Kokopelli, then you're into Utah, Mormons, the Osmonds, Dancing with the Stars, Cheryl Burke, Suite Life of Zack and Cody...

Susan Goodwill said...

I think, too, the quality in Wiki has gone up. But--like Mark said, there's always a but-- it is still quirky and you can find weird little facts.
Cheers to the time-wasters.

Felicia Donovan said...

Susan, I Wiki as well. You set off a memory with this when you said, "Wiki is Hawaiian for fast."

That explains why Steve McGarrett used to always turn to Chin Ho and say "Chin, wiki, wiki!" (Now I'm dating myself.)

Bill Cameron said...

Wikipedia is one of those "trust but verify" kinda situations for me. It's handy, and I use it, but I've caught significant errors. So I make a point of never using Wikipedia data without corroboration. I've caught errors, corrected them with citations, and then had my corrections removed.

Of course there can be errors in any source. The key is to make sure. But still, for quick general information, Wiki is handy.

Mark Combes said...

I just make shit up.

Joe Moore said...

Mark Combes said... "I just make shit up." And that's why they call what we do "fiction".