I love Wikipedia. Can’t get enough of it. When I am bored I follow the links for everything interesting and absorb the knowledge. I also read the discussion pages to see the comments to get extra info or corrections. The problem is I realized I don’t know enough about any subject to write something worth posting. The shame, the shame…
So what do you want me to do about it?
You can also make a contribution by correcting the spelling and grammar of the hordes of language-impaired cretins who patronize the site.
Yeah, I don’t have much knowledge but I’m good at editing; whenever I come across a spelling, grammar, or punctuation error I correct it.
You don’t need to know all that much to contribute. For instance, Wikipedia is becoming a very good source on video games, so you could see if there’s a favorite old one you could start an article on. Include a link to the publisher’s article and things like that. If you can’t write much, just make a stub and then look for pages that should link to it, like lists of games in my example. People will eventually find it and improve it. You can even add a link to an article that doesn’t exist yet, in order to encourage people to create the article. There are a lot of those on list pages.
There might be things you could correct or add to. I corrected a bad article on neck-through guitars which indicated that only one-piece guitars are “true” neck-thrus, which raises the question of what the neck goes “thru.” If you come across a really short article, mark it as a stub if it isn’t. If it’s TOO short, or irrelevant, or bad, mark it for deletion. I marked the Clonoulty article for deletion and it was quickly expanded; I don’t know a thing about it and I’ve never been to Ireland. It came up as a random article.
You can add map & overhead-photo templates to location articles. Just look it up on http://maps.google.com and get the latitude & longitude from the “Link to this” link. I just added map links to a few of my schools. There are all sorts of little things you can do. I’ve gone through a couple of articles that were way too blue, like every other word, and removed the excess links.
It’s pretty simple to remove vandalism, and often you don’t need any specific knowledge of the topic at hand. While I’ve started or made significant contributions to a handful of articles, I’ve removed vandalism from probably hundreds more.
I was kinda expecting some kind of really cool montage…you know…with The Long Road and Wikipedia…hand in hand…skipping through a field of daisies…
TLR: “Yeah, Wikipedia, what would I do without you?”
W: “I don’t know, Roadie. I guess you’d just not…know…as much…wouldn’t you?”
TLR: “Yeah, Wikipedia. You know…you’re just so…awesome. I think I love you. Nobody else…um…accesses you, do they?”
W: (Wikipedia has a look of shock on its face) “Well…um…you know…I…I get a lot of people knocking on my door…looking for the same information you’re looking for.”
TLR: (with head down, the look of shame) I thought I was special, Wikipedia. I even made you a friendship bracelet. I even put your address to the entry for “slap bracelets”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slap_bracelets (holding back tears).
W: (picking your chin up, playfully giving your chin one of those soft, playful punches) You know, TLR, you’re great. You’ll find a domain name. A better domain name. I’m a dot org. You’re better off with a dot com. No, no. Don’t you cry. Be happy. I treasure the times we spent together.
TLR: Yeah. Maybe you’re right. Can I still have unlimited access to your knowledge for free?
W: You betcha. Hey, TLR?
TLR: Yeah?
W: Thanks for the slap bracelet. It’s awesome.
(end scene)
:: Just shakin’ my head. ::
**L.O.U.N.E., ** you are just a very weird dude sometimes, you know that?
If I ever figure it out, I’ll write a Wikipedia article about it and send you the link
Send that to Hollywood. Sounds like the next blockbuster, right after “Snakes on a plane”
The term you may be looking for is “endearing”.
It must be something in the water in Detroit.
That’s right. I’m so living off the proceeds.