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Printing Wikipedia
rtnair writes "Entries from Wikipedia, the popular free online encyclopedia written and edited by Internet users, may soon be available in print for readers in the developing world, founder Jimmy Wales said on Monday."
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You know, "free" knowledge in no longer limited to developed world, where they have access to something called internet.
With 800,000 articles its going to be one heluva long book.
I like Wikipedia, but it usually ends up being a good idea to double check the information presented there some times. It certainly has some errors (like the "prant" statement for the Mathematica hello world program), but if you present this in book form to a thrid world country, which I'm assuming doesn't have internet access because of this, then it would be way too easy for people to take everything inside of it as error free facts.
don't print all of it... just that stuff that had a quaility check on it before hand... as all we need is a big mistake on one of the bigger and more importaint article to misiform people in an uneditible format... I'll let you use you imagination from here on.
... to invest in the development of that $100 computer that the MIT is developing (http://news.com.com/The+100+laptop+moves+closer+t o+reality/2100-1044_3-5884683.html)? By the time Wikipedia is printed, it will already be out of date. Maybe investing in cheap internet terminals and a couple of printers would make more sense...
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IT's constantly changing, it's always being developed, but you get verified snapshots from time to time.
Now, I can not say for sure how long it had been defaced before I got there, but that experience left me with the impression that, while you do need to be careful, there are lots of people looking after Wikipedia.
And just to be frank... when you say but it usually ends up being a good idea to double check the information presented there some times, I hope you realize that that should be true with *any* source of information. A critical reader should never trust any one source. Every source has bias, and even if it is 100% factual, every source presents the material with its own slant on the facts.
Of course wikipedia sould neve rbe your sole source, but neither should Britannica, or any other single source.
I'm in the humanities so sometimes having my computer with me is well...distracting. I definitely don't rely on wikipedia as a primary source (more of a quick reference or a jumping off point), but often you get lost in wikipedia. What I'd like is an encyclopedia akin to an electronic dictionary. I dont know if this is possible or maybe I should just block every site except wikipedia.
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Wasn't the original idea of the site that you could have anyone edit the document and fix errors or add information. I understand we have trolls too but the purpose of the site was simply that.
Now we have them trying to give this tool to foreign countries but first off it's a encyclopedia, no single book will hold a good enough amount of the knowledge anyways. But more importantly with in a year most of the information will have changed multiple times on that site.
Hell the best thing about that site is if you search a current event you tend to get precise info even if the events have happened that day. That alone makes the site worthwhile, however the book will have none of these features and likely just become a normal encyclopedia. Sadly I have to say there's no reason for that. It's an encyclopedia that nerds wrote but from what I've seen it's not statistically better then a real encyclopedia. In fact because it's open to all to write it's statistically worse for the reader because there's no validation exception a public consesus.
Why that's bad is easy, Public consesus tends to be less then 100 percent perfect. Salem Witch Trials, LA riots, and so on. There are leaders who watch over the site, but I still don't believe it to be worthwhile to take out all the uniquest features on that site and try to make a book out of it....
Now a autoupdating PDA with the full information of the site? that'd be bitchin'....
Computers break much more easilly than books do. Even when broken, books degrade gracefully.
Computers require energy (at the very least, solar panels). Books do not.
Computers, even the pie-in-the-sky, not-yet-delivered $100 ones that MIT is attempting to create, cost more than books. For one $200 computer, we could print up 20 $10 hardcover books.
Computers overheat, choke on sand, and have moving parts. Books do not.
We still have 500+ year old books around.
How many 20 year old computers are still running?
The argument that "printed copies go out of date" is a vast exaggeration. Encylopedias from 1950 are still quite interesting, and have perfectly acceptable information on 95% of all topics.
Computers are good for some things, but books are a great solution to many other problems.
I have just finished editing the nationalistic ramblings (disguised as "facts") in a wikipedia entry about a famous scientist and engineer, whose name shall stay secret. I know, however, that this nationalistic vandal will be back, do his edits and then I would have to do mine all over again. Except, at one point I will give up, because I will realize that it's pointless, and I don't have all the time in the world to maintain that entry and protect it from defacement.
As a longtime and way too busy Wikipedia contributor, I say: let it die, or then do some extensive and expensive maintainance. Basically, it will have to resamble more the printed things which Slashdot users so like to deride.
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In many so-called 3rd world countries like China, India, Thailand, internet access is available in many places so they don't need the printed Wikipedia. In places where internet access is not available, they are really too poor and too busy just staying alive to read Wikipedia. Waste of money. The money would be better spent providing a selected villages with internet access. Then they can get to read the real Wikipedia. Printing Wikipedia is going two steps backwards
Yeah, the English version of Wikipedia is going to be extremely useful in Botswana. Last time I checked, Setswanese wasn't in Wikipedia's list of supported languages.
401 - Attention span not found
OK, I just don't get this. I thought the power (and maybe the purpose) of the wiki was to allow for a dynamic document. Once printed, you are just a bad encyclopedia. Not to say that wiki is bad, but it is not necessarily proofed in quite the same way an encylopedia would be. Plus you loose the dynamics. Look at the *cough* Commander and Chief of the US, based on his "hard work" you need to constantly update his bio, not to mention the dictionary! I understand that we are all capitalists but this just seems like a way of taking advantage of developing nations, not helping them. Get them $100 laptops from MIT and let them huddle around one to read what is happening in the world, or better yet, go to WebMD to look up what they can do for that sore on their back, and that will really help them...