[Web4lib] Wikipedia

[D. Turcotte]

Hi,

Check out Wikipedia's own comments about using its site for research:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia

Dawna Turcotte
Campus Librarian
Northern Lights College, BC

On Wed, Mar 17, 2010 at 12:02 AM, Naess, Petter <naessp at state.gov> wrote:

> Here's what I think: (Nicholson Baker
> <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21131>  put it into words for me....)
>
>
>
> Wikipedia is just an incredible thing. It's fact-encirclingly huge, and
> it's idiosyncratic, careful, messy, funny, shocking, and full of
> simmering controversies-and it's free, and it's fast. In a few seconds
> you can look up, for instance, "Diogenes of Sinope," or "turnip," or
> "Crazy Eddie," or "Bagoas," or "quadratic formula," or "Bristol
> Beaufighter," or "squeegee," or "Sanford B. Dole," and you'll have
> knowledge you didn't have before. It's like some vast aerial city with
> people walking briskly to and fro on catwalks, carrying picnic baskets
> full of nutritious snacks.
>
>
>
> More people use Wikipedia than Amazon or eBay-in fact it's up there in
> the top-ten Alexa rankings with those moneyed funhouses MySpace,
> Facebook, and YouTube. Why? Because it has 2.2 million articles, and
> because it's very often the first hit in a Google search, and because it
> just feels good to find something there-even, or especially, when the
> article you find is maybe a little clumsily written. Any inelegance, or
> typo, or relic of vandalism reminds you that this gigantic encyclopedia
> isn't a commercial product. There are no banners for E*Trade or
> Classmates.com, no side sprinklings of AdSense.
>
>
>
> It was constructed, in less than eight years, by strangers who disagreed
> about all kinds of things but who were drawn to a shared, not-for-profit
> purpose. They were drawn because for a work of reference Wikipedia
> seemed unusually humble. It asked for help, and when it did, it used a
> particularly affecting word: "stub." At the bottom of a short article
> about something, it would say, "This article about X is a stub. You can
> help Wikipedia by expanding it." And you'd think: That poor sad stub: I
> will help. Not right now, because I'm writing a book, but someday, yes,
> I will try to help.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of janette treanor
> Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 3:11 AM
> To: web4lib at webjunction.org
> Subject: [Web4lib] Wikipedia
>
>
>
> Morning All,
>
>
>
> I am wondering what you think of Wikipedia? I would appreciate hearing
> your
>
> opinion.
>
>
>
> kind regards
>
> janette
>
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