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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 6/07/2006 |
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You
probably google every day, and you might IM, but do you WIKI
?? When you
surf the internet there’s all types of online information sources,
ranging from highly opinionated blogs, to actual online dictionaries,
encyclopedias, and web sites that specialize in information on certain
topics. I’ve
done a lot of blues research on the web, and the lives of most of the old
bluesmen are not very well documented, and often are shrouded in mystery and
legend, and often I’ve come across sites having information that’s just plain wrong, but what
can you do about it? Well
probably the best known website related to off the beaten path information is
wikipedia.org – an online encyclopedia that is one of the most popular
sites on the internet, has a vast wealth of information related to any topic
under the sun and often not found in other encyclopedias or dictionaries, and
offers the unique feature that if you don’t like or agree with the
information related to your topic that you find, you can edit or amend it. Wikipedia has been an online
encyclopedia for 5 years now, and has become one of the primary information
sites on the web. The site is based on wiki
software, which allows collaborative creating and editing of topics. The
company only has a handful of employees, 6 to be exact, making it completely
different from organizations like Google and Microsoft, but it has hundreds
of thousands of editors. You see
in the Wikipedia concept, what you see is not what you have to get, you can
change it. Often Wikipedia is engaged in huge arguments as to the correctness
of topics, and often noted individuals – people famous enough to be
mentioned in Wikipedia – have been caught enhancing their own legends. The site
accepts no commercial advertising and is supported by individual donations,
and a dedicated staff of volunteers. You’re
supposed to register as a Wikipedia user to make entries or change information,
and the site is monitored by robots and volunteers who check all edits for
correctness and decency. I have
wikid many times of the years, and I find this site to be very useful. Recently there has been an argument
over the true birth date of the bluesman Mississippi John Hurt, whose Blues
and Gospel festival I played at this year in Avalon Mississippi. The
festival is held in July of each year, due to the belief of some family
members that he was born on July 3rd, and what better tribute than
to hold a festival in the warm summer on his birthday. But Hurt’s grave
there in Avalon has a simple
cement tombstone, which shows a birth date of March 8th, which is
collaborated by other relatives, and which might not be a time conducive to a
festival, in the chilly Spring. So on
Wikipedia, his birthday has been changed multiple times, and now says March 8th, due to a
preponderance of information and opinions verifying that date, but if you
visit many other websites, you’ll still see the July 3rd date.
Probably
the biggest referral to Wikipedia is the search engine google. Do an kind of a google search, particularly if your topic
is out of the mainstream, and you’ll probably ending up
“wiki-ing”. And when
someone asks you how your day went, you can say “I wikid .... “ For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2006 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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