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Wikipedia 360°

Learn about the history, features, and controversies surrounding Wikipedia. Find out how it compares to other encyclopedias and get tips on how to use it responsibly.

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Wikipedia 360°

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  1. Wikipedia 360° The Good, The Bad, and the Anonymous Anne Pemberton, Coordinator of Instructional Servicespembertona@uncw.edu Rachel Radom, Instructional Services Librarian radomr@uncw.edu

  2. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales: “I get at least one e-mail a week from some college student who says `Please help me. I got an F on my paper because I quoted Wikipedia.’ And I always write back and I say, `For God’s sake, you’re in college, why are you quoting an encyclopedia?’ I got in trouble in the ninth grade for quoting Britannica, you know?”

  3. Discussion WHAT ARE OTHER SCHOOLS DOING WITH IT? IS IT TRUE THAT ANYONE CAN EDIT IT? WHAT IS IT? WHO’S USING IT? WHAT SHOULD I TELL MY STUDENTS? IS IT BAD? IS IT HERE TO STAY? IS IT GOOD? HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO OTHER ENCYCLOPEDIAS? SHOULD I ASK MY PROFESSORS ABOUT IT?

  4. The “Wiki” in Wikipedia • Shorter form of wiki wiki (weekie, weekie) which is from the native language of Hawaii, where it is commonly used to denote something "quick" or "fast” • A wiki is a collaborative website which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it

  5. Wiki History • Ward Cunningham started developing the WikiWikiWeb in 1994 to facilitate communication • Named WikiWikiWeb b/c he remembered a Honolulu International Airport employee telling him to take the "Wiki Wiki" shuttle bus that runs between the airport's terminals • Initially thought about calling it "QuickWeb", but later changed his mind and dubbed it "WikiWikiWeb" “World’s Oldest Wiki” http://www.c2.com/

  6. Wikis Out There • http://wikiindex.org/ • http://www.noveltwists.com/ • http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/Wikis_in_Online_Education

  7. How Can I Wiki? • SeaPort(http://uncw.edu/itsd/wiki.htm) • Free and commercial wiki “farms” for people to host their wikis: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiFarms • Popular wiki farms include SeedWiki http://www.seedwiki.com, PeanutButterWiki http://pbwiki.com/, and Swiki http://www.swiki.net • A common wiki “engine” which implements the wiki technology is MediaWiki (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki)

  8. The Most Famous Wiki of All … • Wikipedia

  9. Wikipedia History • Formally began on January 15, 2001 as a complement to the Nupedia project

  10. Wikipedia History • Nupedia, an earlier (now defunct) project was founded by Jimmy Wales to produce a free encyclopedia • Nupedia had an elaborate multi-step peer review process, and required highly qualified contributors • Writing of articles was slow throughout 2000 despite having a mailing-list of interested editors and a full-time editor-in-chief (Larry Sanger)

  11. Wikipedia History • Sanger suggested giving the new project its own name, Wikipedia, and Wikipedia was soon launched on its own domain, wikipedia.com, on January 15, 2001.

  12. Wikipedia in 2007 • Wikipedia continues to grow, with some 5 million registered editor accounts; the combined Wikipedias in all languages together contain 1.74 billion words in 7.5 million articles in approximately 250 languages; the English Wikipedia gains a steady 1,700 articles a day,with the wikipedia.org domain name ranked at around the 10th busiest on the Internet … the Essjay controversy breaks when a prominent member of Wikipedia is found to have lied about his credentials; Citizendium launches publicly …

  13. Wikimedia Foundation • The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. The Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the 10 most visited websites in the world. • In August 2002, shortly after Jimmy Wales announced that he would never run commercial advertisements on Wikipedia, the URL of Wikipedia was changed from wikipedia.comto wikipedia.org • On June 20, 2003, the Wikimedia Foundation was founded

  14. Wikimedia Foundation Projects

  15. Wikipedia in the News Answers.com

  16. Nature (2005) • Compared Wikipedia with Britannica Online • 42 science entries blindly reviewed by experts • Results: Britannica averaged 3 errors, Wikipedia 4 • Britannica: Study had numerous errors • Nature: All entries were blinded

  17. Britannica articles shorter; omissions counted against it • Economist (4-6-06): Study compares apples and oranges • Authorities not favored, even viewed with suspicion • Response: Do we really need experts for most entries in a general reference source?

  18. Entries for pop cultural figures vs. those for great literary figures, scientists, etc. • Entry for Britney Spears longer than entry for St. Augustine • Seinfeld longer than Shakespeare; Barbie longer than Bellow • Further drawback of the Naturestudy: No comparisons of style

  19. Delving In … http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/umlaut.html

  20. Pros and Cons? Half Empty? Half Full?

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