Web 2.0 Training

The idea of putting an encyclopedia in the hands of everyone led Jimmy Wales for form Wikipedia in 2001. Whether he co-founded the site with Larry Sanger or by himself represents one of the many controversies that have dogged the site since its inception.

Even with the controversy, the site now contains more than 14 million articles, 3.2 million in English.

Wales laid out his philosophy in a 2005 talk where he stressed the value of neutrality.

“We should merely report on what reputable parties have said about it. So this neutrality policy is really important for us, because it empowers a community that is very diverse to come together and actually get some work done.”

Wales said struggle develops not along political lines, but “between the party of the thoughtful and the party of the jerks.”

A small group of people tends to handle the bulk of the work editing, revising and correcting entries, he said.

“The type of people who are doing the bulk of the site, the type of people who were drawn to writing an encyclopedia for fun tend to be pretty smart people.”

But at times, Wales has to step in to quell a controversy.

“That’s my job in the community: To say we won’t allow our openness and freedom to undermine the quality of the content. And so long as people trust me in my role, then that’s a valid place for me. Of course, because of the free licensing, if I do a bad job, the volunteers are more than happy to take and leave. I can’t tell anyone what to do.”

Members of the University of California-Berkeley discuss Wikipedia in the classroom.

Get those W2s and receipts.

Monthly pages views for the 10 countries that use Wikipedia most.

View Wikipedia page views by country (top 10) in a larger map

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerCountryOverview.htm

Opinions vary about the credibility of Wikipedia as a source in student writing. Rather than get embroiled in the controversy, this article advocates for using the Wikipedia format to help students transition from personal to academic writing. Another article examines the viability of Wikipedia as a scholarly publication. One higher education facility, Middlebury College, barred students from using the online encyclopedia in 2007 as this article points out.

Sook Lim examined student use of Wikipedia and suggested that “educators and librarians need to provide better guidelines for using Wikipedia, rather than prohibiting Wikipedia use altogether.”

The following links contain material that discusses various aspects of Wikipedia:

$2 million from Google to Wikipedia Foundation

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2010/tc20100218_199388.htm

Macmillan launches Wikipedia textbooks

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/business/media/22textbook.html?em

Who uses Wikipedia?

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/460/wikipedia

Top pages 2009

http://techxav.com/2009/08/31/wikipedia/

John Seigenthaler controversy

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm

Want to know what people are searching?

http://stats.grok.se/

The wiki witch of the west blog

http://durova.blogspot.com/

Wikipedia’s growth comes with concerns

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4506421

Wikipedia: A victim of its own success?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113128568

Wikipedia as a recognized medium for scholarly publication

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/ViewContentServlet?Filename=/published/emeraldfulltextarticle/pdf/2640320106.pdf

Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an introduction to academic writing

http://exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/forum/archives/docs/10-48-1-c.pdf