Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Wiki What?
The facsination with the website known as Wikipedia has swept across America. This site is a free encyclopedia which not only dispenses valuable information, but also allows any user to edit each web page and add any additional information.
This site is a unique and innovative one for its use web design that is interactive the world over. Any person with access to the internet has the chance to view and edit what millions of other can view and edit also. The true innovation is the ability for any user to participate in providing information to the site.
My favorite Wikipedia page was the page about Australia. Here, you can get an entire history of the political, social, and geographical of the country. It is amazing how much information about a relatively simple country has been compiled. There is text describing the rich history. There are images of the flag, the topography and the geography. There are sidebars with information regarding capitals, territories, populations, and governments. It is very informative.
Randomly, my girlfriend and I were talking and somehow the topic of how cheese was made arose. We had no idea of what the cheese making process entailed so I put wikipedia to the test. Alas, the cheese mystery was solved!
In terms of editing an actual page on Wikipedia, I went with what I know best and that is baseball. I played in the "sandbox" which is an practice editing page and I wrote about the New York Mets, my favorite team. In the interesting facts section, I included how many time the Mets have been no-hit and by which pitchers. It was really great to add my knowledge to a public site and being able to share information about a topic I love.
This site is a unique and innovative one for its use web design that is interactive the world over. Any person with access to the internet has the chance to view and edit what millions of other can view and edit also. The true innovation is the ability for any user to participate in providing information to the site.
My favorite Wikipedia page was the page about Australia. Here, you can get an entire history of the political, social, and geographical of the country. It is amazing how much information about a relatively simple country has been compiled. There is text describing the rich history. There are images of the flag, the topography and the geography. There are sidebars with information regarding capitals, territories, populations, and governments. It is very informative.
Randomly, my girlfriend and I were talking and somehow the topic of how cheese was made arose. We had no idea of what the cheese making process entailed so I put wikipedia to the test. Alas, the cheese mystery was solved!
In terms of editing an actual page on Wikipedia, I went with what I know best and that is baseball. I played in the "sandbox" which is an practice editing page and I wrote about the New York Mets, my favorite team. In the interesting facts section, I included how many time the Mets have been no-hit and by which pitchers. It was really great to add my knowledge to a public site and being able to share information about a topic I love.
