5 Year Wikipedia!
My almost daily reference guide, Wikipedia the World’s Encyclopedia, has turned 5 years old. From its own description:
The project began on January 15, 2001 as a complement to the expert-written Nupedia and is now operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia has more than 3,100,000 articles, including more than 921,200 in the English-language version, and as of January 2006 it has more than 795,100 registered users.
There is also a Dutch version carrying around 120.000 articles at this moment.
Personally I am yet to “give” my knowledge to humanity, having “taken” already on numerous occasions.
A good start might be, next to Wikipedia itself, Steve Rubel’s blog posts on the subject: 10 Wikipedia hacks and 10 more Wikipedia hacks.
What fascinates me most about Wikipedia is that there is a core group of people (thousands!) really dedicated to increase the captured knowledge and to keep it up-to-date and unharmed. What is the motivation of these people? Where do they find the time? What is their reward? I can only think of a few:
- altruism (some people really want to do good or “give back”)
- recognition (is there a grading / reputation system in Wikipedia?)
- being part of the Wikipedia community
Last year Wired ran a nice article quoting some Wikipedians, but unfortunately the article remained a bit shallow on the motivation part.
Well, we do not live (yet) in a world in which the number of one’s Wikipedia entries would be of equal importance to one’s annual earnings. But that may come! Should Wikipedian’s pay less tax?
Ok, so now I only have to find some time for this. But wait: hey Dad, is this something for you to participate in?
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posted Jan 16, 11:01 pm on Jan 16, 2006 |
category: Wikipedia
/ Wiki
I am all for less tax :)
More seriously: if that’s what was achieved in 5 years, think of what will happen in the next 5 – or 10…
— Piotr Konieczny Jan 17, 08:31 pm #