nPostednon January 15, 2014
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nIncan just imagine someone hatching this idea:
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“Inknow! Instead of having an expert in birds’ eggs write annencyclopedia article about birds’ eggs, and an expert on dinosaurnfossils write about that, and so on, and then having an expert innediting correct the spelling and grammar of all the articles—insteadnof all those experts, who will want to be paid, let’s let anyone atnall write and edit articles! And we’ll save money, because we won’tnpay the writers or editors! So all of these articles can be online,nand people can read them for free! Great idea, huh? What couldnpossible go wrong?”
“Inknow! Instead of having an expert in birds’ eggs write annencyclopedia article about birds’ eggs, and an expert on dinosaurnfossils write about that, and so on, and then having an expert innediting correct the spelling and grammar of all the articles—insteadnof all those experts, who will want to be paid, let’s let anyone atnall write and edit articles! And we’ll save money, because we won’tnpay the writers or editors! So all of these articles can be online,nand people can read them for free! Great idea, huh? What couldnpossible go wrong?”n
nInbet a lot of people thought that the idea behind Wikipedia was nuts.nI bet some people thought that nobody would bother to write or editnarticles. I mean, why would they go through that effort, if theynweren’t being paid? I bet that some people thought that the articlesnwould be written badly, with tons of misspellings, and that theynwould be full of misinformation and bias and bad language andnsilliness.
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nButnthe naysayers were wrong. It turns out that Wikipedia, which wasnstarted on this date in 2001, works really well! n
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nVolunteersnworldwide have written 30 million articles in 287 languages. Therenare more than 4.4 million articles in the English Wikipedia alone!nWikipedia is now the Internet’s largest and most popular referencenwork, and it is the sixth most popular website of any kind. It canneven be considered a news source, because articles are so rapidlynupdated when there is breaking news.
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Onentime I was watching the CBS crime show The Mentalist, and anshow ended with someone whispering a few words. But my husband and Incouldn’t understand the words he said! My husband rewound a fewnseconds to listen to the words again and again, but he still couldn’tnunderstand them. In the meantime, I had jumped online, found thenWikipedia article about The Mentalist, and was able to report,n“He said ‘Tyger, tyger’!” n
Onentime I was watching the CBS crime show The Mentalist, and anshow ended with someone whispering a few words. But my husband and Incouldn’t understand the words he said! My husband rewound a fewnseconds to listen to the words again and again, but he still couldn’tnunderstand them. In the meantime, I had jumped online, found thenWikipedia article about The Mentalist, and was able to report,n“He said ‘Tyger, tyger’!” nn
nMynhusband was astonished that the Wikipedia article already reflectednthe end of an episode that had just finished airing a few minutesnago! But several times since then I have found articles on Wikipedianabout earthquakes and other just-now-happened events. These articlesnhave been, in my experience, easier to find and more accurate thannarticles from other online news sources.
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Anothernthing I like about Wikipedia is that, because there are SOOO manynarticles, I can find out about obscure things such as Celtic mythology, popular culture and geek culture such as the pro tour of Magic: the Gathering, and even local things such as a popular shopping center.
Anothernthing I like about Wikipedia is that, because there are SOOO manynarticles, I can find out about obscure things such as Celtic mythology, popular culture and geek culture such as the pro tour of Magic: the Gathering, and even local things such as a popular shopping center.n
nBut…isnWikipedia accurate?
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nSeveralnstudies have found that Wikipedia is as reliable or, in some cases,nmore reliable than print encyclopedias—even the EncyclopedianBritannica. n
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nTonfind out more about Wikipedia, check out this and this other earlier posts.
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nAlsonon this date:
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nAnniversarynof haberdasher history being made (?)
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nAnniversarynof the coronation of Elizabeth I
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nFiestandel Nino Perdido in Peru
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nTu B’Shevat
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nPlannahead!
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nPlannahead!
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nChecknout my Pinterest boards for:
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nJanuaryn holidays
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nJanuaryn birthdays
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nAndnhere are my boards for:
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nHistoricaln anniversaries in February
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