Everybody uses Wikipedia to look up information on the Web. But did you ever wonder *how* Wikipedia came about? It's an open source website where anyone and everyone can modify and change what they see and read expanding the knowledge base on Wikipedia.
But how did it start? How did they make such a great program that would allow for such a paradigm-changing site? Well, it took someone who had always been interested in Encyclopedias, a man named Jimmy Wales. Wales grew up with a World Book Encyclopedia in the 1950's, but because of the pace of knowledge growing, every so often, the makers of the Encyclopedia would send around stickers to update the entries in the Encyclopedia. But after years of placing stickers, the Encyclopedia Makers would bring out a new edition.
But not everyone has the money to keep replacing their Encyclopedia sets, which could cost $1000 for a full set, and no Encyclopedia could ever be fully up to date. But Jimmy Wales had a dream to have an Encyclopedia that could be updated whenever information changed. But it would take decades, and a confluence of people and programs to even have any chance of living up to its creator's dream. And it took another friend, in a organization called BOMIS or "Bitter Old Men in Suits".
At first, BOMIS had in mind a traditional printed Encyclopedia, but written online, but the process was slow. But, just when it looked like all was lost, a program named Wikiwiki came to their rescue, allowing them to edit and post on the fly. But most of all, it was hordes of mostly anonymous posters and editors who wrote the articles for nothing.
But Wikipedia wasn't without its problems. Just the mention that its creators might possibly consider putting paid ads up on its site was enough to cause the original Spanish section of the Wikipedia to be deatched from the rest and the authors develop it as a different name, an event forever after known as the "Spanish Fork".
But that was by no means an end to Wikipedia's problems. A joke entered into one writer's biography, blaming him, for among other things, the assassination of JFK, caused the writer to decry Wikipedia as inaccurate, and the editor from the Highest Levels of Wikipedia who falsified his credentials, causing no end of people to lose faith in their fellow wikipedians.
The Wikipedia Revolution covers Wikipedia in its entirety, and in addition to learning about its history, you'll learn a greater understanding of how it works, and the wars that go on behind the scenes in national interests or the interests of keeping the Wikipedia pages accurate and neutral in tone.
Of course, not everyone believes that Wikipedia is neutral. Citing it as "Liberal", other forces on the web echoed its form in articles they believed were more accurate under such names as "Conservapedia". But Wikipedia was first and best, and its 2 million pages are hard to match. The cost of keeping Wikipedia as it has always been, though, is high among the writers and copyeditors, many of whom burn out after months or years of effort.
This book is packed with tons of information most Wikipedia users will find they never knew. Wikipedia articles exist in 255 languages, and in here you'll find every one. Even where the term "Wiki" came from. Packed into these pages is a lot of fascinating history, one just as interesting and readable as a common Wikipedia page. A completely fascinating look at an Internet Phenomenon.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment