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I attended one of the events during Open Access Week about the future of libraries and Wikipedia. Jake Orlowitz, recipient of a Wikimedia Foundation Individual Engagement Grant, spoke about "The Wikipedia Library." The Wikipedia Library was a new project he founded in 2012 for the goal of connecting Wikipedia editors with the reliable information sources they need. In the first part of his presentation, he discussed much of what wikipedia is and how it is run. He basically summed up much of what most people don't know about wikipedia and a lot of assumptions that people make about how unreliable information on wikipedia is. Then he went on to discuss more about the wikipedia library and how it would benefit wikipedia editors with vital current reliable sources that they need to do their work. I thought the presentation given by the presenter was very informative and interesting. I learned more about wikipedia and how its more useful than I thought. The most interesting point he raised during his presentation were the benefits of the Wikipedia Library. The thought of connecting university libraries with the wikipedia library will present students and many others information that is reliable and easy to access. Many scholarly articles and information from databases we usually have to pay for will be available for universities to provide students at a much lower cost.

Thanks, Rebecca. I'll add 5 points to your Exam 2 grade.

In response to the person who said in class that people who edit Wikipedia "have a lot of time on their hands" -- see this 2008 piece by Very Smart Guy and NYU professor Clay Shirky, who points out that editing Wikipedia is a more productive use of time than watching TV. Which, somehow, a lot of people also seem to have a lot of time to do. *** "I was being interviewed by a TV producer to see whether I should be on their show, and she asked me, "What are you seeing out there that's interesting?" I started telling her about the Wikipedia article on Pluto. You may remember that Pluto got kicked out of the planet club a couple of years ago, so all of a sudden there was all of this activity on Wikipedia. The talk pages light up, people are editing the article like mad, and the whole community is in an ruckus--"How should we characterize this change in Pluto's status?" And a little bit at a time they move the article--fighting offstage all the while--from, "Pluto is the ninth planet," to "Pluto is an odd-shaped rock with an odd-shaped orbit at the edge of the solar system." So I tell her all this stuff, and I think, "Okay, we're going to have a conversation about authority or social construction or whatever." That wasn't her question. She heard this story and she shook her head and said, "Where do people find the time?" That was her question. And I just kind of snapped. And I said, "No one who works in TV gets to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes from the cognitive surplus you've been masking for 50 years.""

This Wikipedia page shows all the available online resources open to the public.

Interesting, Taylor. Notice that that page is part of a project called "The Resource Exchange" and/or "The Wikipedia Library." I was just talking to a frequent Wikipedia editor named Jake Orlowitz the other day who's volunteering with the Wikipedia Library; we're going to try to bring him to campus to give a talk. If we do, I'll let y'all know. Thanks for the link!

The fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates can be summarized in five " pillars"

I attended one of the Open Access Week events in which a contributor from Wikipedia came and spoke about Wikipedia. I found the presentation to be really interesting. He spoke about the five pillars of Wikipedia (which we've already learned about) among other things.

Thanks, Paola. I'll add 5 points to your Exam 2 grade when I grade it.

Here's the discussion page about that misleading Wikipedia article about DuckDuckGo, if you're interested.

This is the Wikipedia page that has all of the unusual wikipedia articles information on it. I found a lot of this information to be very interesting and unique. Enjoy.

This is an article that has ten fun, weird and impressive facts about Wikipedia. I found some of these facts to be very interesting and taught me even more about Wikipedia.

Listserve is a website that writes about lists of things strange and yet fascinating at the same time. This list definetly falls under this idea, and despite the fact that this article was originally published in 2011, most of the articles in this list are still up and running on wikipedia.

Here are some interesting facts about wikipedia.

some interesting facts about WIkipedia and it will help us to learn more about it.

This article discusses the study of how Wikipedia is just as accurate as Britannica!

Yep, that's the one I mentioned in class -- thanks for finding it, Claire!

Some interesting information on Dropbox, cloud storage.

This website, while not very informative, is very interesting. It displays the updates on Wikipedia articles through sounds.

Hey, that is neat.

I think it's done in HTML5, which may be why I don't get any sound for it in Chrome -- not all browsers can manage all features of the new, drastically revised version of HTML yet.

This is a slide show about the differences between Apple computers and computers that are deemed "PCs". It compares everything from design to software. I thought it was interesting to see how people see these computers and what the actual difference between them were.

I see that both you and Marion have shared links from HowStuffWorks.com -- that site usually has pretty good information, especially for basic stuff. I find it interesting that they're classified as an "entertainment" site; they pay people a little (not much) to write the articles, and then they sell ads on the content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_stuff_works I know a guy who works there -- Jonathan Strickland. Great guy and great podcaster.

Interesting, Taylor, although I wish that article had a date on it. I bet it's a couple of years old: both Macs and PCs change a lot. Still, those differences still apply. Technically, of course, Macs are PCs, since PC stands for "Personal Computer," which a Mac is. But what can you do -- language is slippery.

This is just a Wikipedia article about the history of music publishing but I shared it because I remember my music prof. at Mason talking about Stephan Foster being the first songwriter who got copyright over his material and he is mentioned in this post. Its interesting to see how far back the laws go in different countries.

This is an article on the DMCA, so it may shine some light on my presentation yesterday on Pinterest and the copyright laws! It is also an interesting read and very informative!

I found this to be really helpful if anyone is interested in the history of wikis. Wikipedia is one of the most popular wiki websites, but not the first.

Another useful link, Paola! Thanks.

Interesting article about Jimmy Wales and how he lives a modest middle class life, while running one of the most visited websites on the planet.

You should look up Craig Newmark, who founded Craigslist! Totally regular guy, although supposedly he's worth about $400 million.