Wikipedia is 10 years ago today, and though some criticize the site for inaccuracies, there was a study that showed the site to be roughly on par with Encyclopedia Britannica, the industry standard for many years. Few today would think of plopping down dollars to buy a huge set of books when the all of that information and more is available on the Internet.
I've written the first drafts for about a dozen articles on Wikipedia, but the nature of the site means that all of them have been revised and extended since I first introduced the topics. I'm most proud, of course, of the entry I wrote on East Boston. It's much longer now than when I first broached the subject in the fall of 2003, but I will forever be the person who was there first.
I refer to Wikipedia almost every day, often several times a day. It's good for a quick check of some bit of information or as a starting point for research. It seems like one of the natural uses of the Web and it often forces me to ask the question, What did I do before the Internet?
No comments:
Post a Comment