YOU CAN USE WIKIS TO…

Create a product manual, write a business plan with a team and spread around the world, write a screenplay,  manage a project, create conference notes/schedule, co-create shownotes for a podcast, organize a reunion, plan a wedding, write a magazine article, collaboratively edit documents, organize thoughts, teach a class, create a family tree…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothers_Against_Drunk_Driving

While I was checking some stuff on Wikipedia I saw a message that announced the Early registration for Wikimania 2007. This will be the third annual international conference, that will be held August 3-5. “Wikimania brings together members of various Wikimedia projects in order to exchange ideas, build relationships, and report on research and project efforts”.

Here is the link to the site if anyone is interested. http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

 

After watching The Apprentice finale this evening, I decided to see if anyone had revised Wikipedia with the results of the new apprentice. To my surprise, nothing new was added. I did like how external links were added at the bottom though. I decided to check out the sites provided to see if any of them had current information. I actually went to the NBC website and read some of the discussion boards. I found some of the comments very interesting. If anyone else follows The Apprentice, I think you might appreciate some of these discussions http://boards.nbc.com/nbc/index.php?s=7ee61eacaa9fb4dc13aa481f5d5ceb1c&showforum=6. People talk about everything, from Stefanie’s new hairdo to who they believe should be the next apprentice.

 Although my focus was to check out the wiki, I enjoyed stumbling upon the external links provided. It’s amazing how viewers interact and share their opinions.  

This article is related to a current event. For the main article on the event, see Virginia Tech shootings. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

So I click on Virginia Tech shootings and receive this notice.

This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

Many people have come together to write about this horrific tragedy. There is a description of events, information about the gunman, reactions, a timeline, upcoming events, comparison to other shootings, and references.

Many people are writing their thoughts and experiences they faced today on the discussion board. Some are writing about the gunmans intentions. Others are just trying to work together to get the facts on the page. Here is the link to the discussion board. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Virginia_Tech_shootings. I found it quite interesting.

Of course, there has already been vandalism on the wiki. Someone apparently said that “over 9000 have been killed.” This has been fixed. I think it is fascinating how technology allows us to come together and share information. My prayers will be with Virginia Tech.

There are several protections that Wikipedia uses in order to cut down on vandalism. For example “September 11 2001 attacks” has full protection. Full protection disables editing for everyone except other administrators. Fully protected images cannot be overwritten by new uploads.

Semi-protection disables editing from anonymous accounts and those accounts fewer than four days old.

Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled. If you are prevented from editing this article, and you wish to make a change, please discuss changes on the talk page, request unprotection, log in, or create an account.

Examples of semi-protected sites are pay per click, your mom, and Paris Hilton. These sites tend to get a lot of vandalism so they need protection from vandalism. If you google “Editing of this article by unregistered or newly registered users is currently disabled. site:en.wikipedia.org,” it will pull up a page of all the site that have this semi-protection. All these sites attract vandalism so that is why they need to be protected.

There are also edit wars where two contributors have different opinions. They basically go back a forth changing the page over and over again. Sometimes an administrator has to step in and solve the war by intervening and coming up with a solution.

Most of these problems could be fixed on the discussion board. The discussion board allows users to discuss issues containing the content of the page. Rather than changing the page continually it is better to just discuss the focus and goal of the page. When the site has protection, as I discussed previously, you can use the discussion board to state your opinions.

I think that the on-line community is coming up with many great solutions to control vandalism. There will always be people trying to stir up problems though. But, they are going to have to try harder and harder to get in and vandalize.

I read an article about the problems educators are having with students using Wikipdedia as a source. The article can be found on the following link: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/01/26/wiki.

Educators and even Wikipedia, themselves, say that Wikipedia is an ideal place to start research and get a global picture of a topic, however, it is not an authoritative source. They do recommend that students check the facts they find in Wikipedia against other sources. They advise that at the university level students should not even be citing encyclopedias. Professors are trying to take a stand against the use of wikis among students, due to the lack of accuracy or completeness of entries. Some have discouraged and even tried to bar students from using it.

This article had a huge response. Many people left comments agreeing and disagreeing with barring students from using Wikipedia. Some stated that college students should absolutely not use is as a citation. Others argued that Wikipedia is not the only unreliable sources online. A few disagreed with the article, commenting that they, as professors, edit pages and continually contribute to the articles.

I guess that there will never be an agreement to whether or not Wikipedia, or any wiki that is, can be used as a citation in a research paper. Since I have been blogging about Wikis, I have noticed and stumbled upon errors in Wikipedia. I have also found valuable and accurate information on the “free encylopedia.” As of now, I will follow the advice of using Wikipedia as a starting point for research papers.

 Anyways, I was really excited that I received a comment on my previous blog from Kevin, a guy that works at wetpaint.com! I didn’t even know that he could even find my blog about wetpaint. I appreciated the time spent reading and commenting on my entry. He suggested that I visit wikifido.com. Kevin said that Wikifido is one of the 1st sites launched using wetpaint and it attracts many dog owners. I havn’t had a chance to check it out yet, but I will very soon and let you know more about it.

 So, I have been trying to add content to my wetpaint wiki. I noticed that there were bookmarks that looked very familiar. I saw links to del.icio.us, digg, bluedot, and stumble upon. These stood out, because several classmates did websites critiques to these site. I just thought that was interesting. I don’t think I would have noticed if it wasn’t for that.

 I suppose that I am going to continue to try and add content to my site. My new puppy sure takes up a lot fo my time. I am learning how to train her and keep her healthy. I guess as I learn new things I can share them with others on my site. I am also going to check out the website that Kevin suggested. Well that’s all for now.

   Here’s a picture of my peekapoo, Layla. She was 7 weeks in this picture.

 I am still trying to learn about wetpaint. I am looking at other examples to get ideas. I found a wiki that talked about mixed breeds, http://yourdog.wetpaint.com/ and a site all about dogs, http://aboutdogs.wetpaint.com. I will keep everyone updated on the creation of my wiki.