[Web4lib] Disaster Response, via Wikis

[Drew, Bill]

This is a very positive story about the power of Wikis and Wikipedia.
It focuses on the entry about the the London bombings.  It shows the
true power of this media. -- Bill Drew

The Chronicle: Wired Campus Blog <http://wiredcampus.chronicle.com/> 
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Disaster Response, via Wikis
<http://wiredcampus.chronicle.com/2005/07/disaster_respon.html> 

By Chronicle of Higher Education 

How does Wikipedia, the online open-source encyclopedia, actually work?
Web surfers got a close look at the process
<http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2005/07/08#a3746>  when users of the site
edited an entry about the mass-transit bombs that struck London last
week.

The initial entry, posted shortly after 10 on the morning of the
attacks, attributed the explosions to power surges. Less than 20 minutes
later, another poster edited the page to include a panicked note. Only
90 minutes after the original post went online, almost 50 people had
added links or information. Now the Web page
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings>  has been
edited thousands of times, and includes details on international
response to the incident and analyses of the attacks' economic impact,
along with contact information for emergency-response groups.

The value of all that content -- and the speed with which it made its
way online -- makes a powerful case for the benefits of wikis, according
to Will Richardson. (Weblogg-ed)