fascinating

[owlmoose]

Esquire article on Wikipedia is written collaboratively by the encyclopedia's editors.

The original author purposefully put up an error-ridden rough draft of an article about Wikipedia on Wikipedia, then told the editors to have at it. The result, with comments on the process. Several versions of the article were frozen to provide snapshots of its evolution. The first edited version catches all the spelling mistakes and most of the factual errors; later drafts get tighter and contain less Wikipedia jargon.

I haven't done much with wikis. I find the concept utterly fascinating but I've never been inclined to spend the time it would take to get involved, in both the editing and the community. I do use Wikipedia, though, and will refer students to it in their research, although always with the caveat that there's no peer review.

Comments

[peachespig.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia is awesome. Any time I want to understand any pop culture reference, it's there for me. Do you remember, there was a time when we were kids, that if you were trying to remember some fact and it wouldn't come to you, you just didn't know it until you found someone who happened to know? The very idea!

It just warms my heart how many geeks there are out there who desperately want to explain things to me, precisely and coherently.

[grue23.livejournal.com]

I think Wikipedia is the bee's knees. It's got a lot of obscure information that either can't be found elsewhere, or is incredibly hard to dig up. I've even been able to contribute to it a couple times. The lack of peer review does make some things a little suspect, but it does also often provide external links and references that back up what it's saying.