Slashdot Mirror
Happy 18th Birthday, Wikipedia (washingtonpost.com)
This week, Wikipedia celebrates its 18th birthday. If the massive crowdsourced encyclopedia project were human, then in most countries, it would just now be considered a legal adult. But in truth, the free online encyclopedia has long played the role of the Internet's good grown-up.
From a story: Wikipedia has grown enormously since its inception: It now boasts 5.7 million articles in English and pulled in 92 billion page views last year. The site has also undergone a major reputation change. If you ask Siri, Alexa or Google Home a general-knowledge question, it will likely pull the response from Wikipedia. The online encyclopedia has been cited in more than 400 judicial opinions, according to a 2010 paper in the Yale Journal of Law & Technology.
Many professors are ditching the traditional writing assignment and instead asking students to expand or create a Wikipedia article on the topic. And YouTube Chief Executive Susan Wojcicki announced a plan last March to pair misleading conspiracy videos with links to corresponding articles from Wikipedia. Facebook has also released a feature using Wikipedia's content to provide users more information about the publication source for articles in their feed.
Many professors are ditching the traditional writing assignment and instead asking students to expand or create a Wikipedia article on the topic. And YouTube Chief Executive Susan Wojcicki announced a plan last March to pair misleading conspiracy videos with links to corresponding articles from Wikipedia. Facebook has also released a feature using Wikipedia's content to provide users more information about the publication source for articles in their feed.
...full of incorrect information and constantly asking for money.
Congratulations.
If I found myself in a parallel universe, the first thing to check would be the Internet and WP, if none then moving on would be the right choice - unless, of course, it's raining donuts ;-)
>> Many professors are ditching the traditional writing assignment and instead asking students to expand or create a Wikipedia article on the topic
This is probably the funniest way to troll students that I've heard in a long time.
"Yeah, can you please find an article on which you are knowledgable and for which you can cite sources, or even one which has typos or grammar problems. Go ahead and (snickers) make the appropriate edit, and then I'll check your work next week and give you a grade on what I saw (chuckles)."
18th Birthday? Citation needed.
Dear Wikipedia. Today we ask you to help us, the Wikipedia readers. To protect our independence, we'll never run ads if you link to our sites. We're sustained by shitty tech jobs paying barely more than a living wage. Only a tiny portion of the websites we view give us anything in return. If Wikipedia gave every reader $10, we could keep ourselves full of Taco Bell dollar menu foods for days to come. The price of a fucking expensive cup of coffee is all we need. If having readers is useful to you, please take one minute to dip into that $75 million cash reserve that you never mention when you're fundraising and help keep our waistlines growing. Thank you.