I love the guy that does the Web 2.0 clips for the Common Craft show. He has a really simple and entertaining way of presenting the material.
I found out that the word 'wiki' is derived from the Hawaiian word for 'fast.' I checked out a few wikis including 'Wikipedia', 'The Coffee Wiki', 'Unencyclopedia', which seems to be the poor man's Wikipedia and 'Library Success: a best practices wiki.' Not being a coffee drinker, I'm thinking there should be a wiki for tea devotees. I have always been a bit sceptical about the quality of the content on Wikipedia, but after having a decent explore, I was pleasantly surprised at how accurate and well put together the majority of the information seems to be.
I wasn't bold enough to write my own article, but I registered and took a bash at editing an article on Tim Winton, one of my favourite Australian authors. At first, I felt quite self conscious about editing an article that was already of a reasonable standard. I felt better after reading a section in 'About Wikipedia.' Apparently reticence to edit is a common occurrence and it is emphasised that no one can 'break' Wikipedia, as the content is always held up to scrutiny.
There was no obvious link on the site to information regarding the benefits of registration. Can anyone enlighten me? Something to do with privacy perhaps?
1 comment:
Hi Sarah, I think with Wikipedia, they don't necessarily encourage people to register as there's a trade-off between transparency of the editing process and the amount of contributions that are made. Ofcourse, people are more likely to edit - particularly a controversial topic, when they can remain anonymous. As long as editors include citations and make quality contributions, does it matter who they are?
In certain contexts I think it does. Google "Wikiscanner" for more on this, if you're interested.
cheers
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