BrianAndPamela.com

What's the population of Bulgaria?  (About 8 million).   What is the "Big Chicken"?  (It's a local landmark in Marietta, Georgia).  What's Cinchonism and how do you treat it?  (It's caused by an overdose of quinine, reverse it by stopping quinine treatment.) Shall I go on?  The answers to these and many other questions can be found at Wikipedia, which today passed the 1.5 million article mark. 

Here's the interesting thing about Wikipedia:  Besides the fact that you can find out about almost ANYTHING, it also serves as a pretty good litmus test for how someone feels about the wired (and unwired) world.   I've discovered that when you talk to someone about wikipedia, they have one of two reactions.  They either quickly recognize the power of the community editing model, or they have a really tough time getting past the fact that ANYONE can edit most pages.  It's really very telling.  Is the person a technoptimist or a comuniphobe? (I just coined those… I'm releasing them under a CC-BY-SA 2.5 license, enjoy)

From my perspective Wikipedia is the ultimate expression of "many hands make light work".  The beauty of Wikipedia is that the users can see and edit mistakes (or create new entries) as they see fit.  The ease of editing means that the repository is more up to date than any other reference source I've found, sometimes even rivaling news sources for information.  Perfect example: TV shows.  Wikipedia is an amazing source for TV series.  Cast, schedules, even episode summaries are all there.  Try to check out the Wikipedia entries (any of them) for Battlestar Gallactica while the show is airing on Friday nights.  The pages are being updated practically in real time with what is being broadcast, and all plot and character developments are completed within minutes of the closing credit roll. 

It's also a fine example of how the Internet proves that there is SOMEONE interested in anything.  You can find good information about things that normally are too small for people to care about.  How about a local shopping area  here in Fredericksburg? Central Park has its own article, complete with discussion of the negative traffic impacts on Rt 3.  The large repository is also great for getting more analytical information about things we all just sort of take for granted.  Ever sort of randomly wonder about the phenomenon of "air-quotes"?  (That's when you make little quotation marks with your hands while saying a word, often indicating sarcasm.)  But you see, you don't need me to tell you that, because there's a whole article about air-quotes on Wikipedia. 

Some worry about the bias of the articles, and to be fair, that can be a problem in some rare cases.  For the most part the community holds pretty tightly to the neutral POV guidelines (Shorthand in the Wikipedia community as NPoV).  In fact, I think that the fact that so many people assume that Wikipedia is going to be biased and un-scholarly makes the community very touchy and extremely careful to cite references and remain as neutral as possible.  This rigid adherence to NPOV has drawn attention from mainstream media sources. The Atlantic Monthly, for example chronicles the evolution (there might be a joke there…) of the Abortion article.   This article was (understandably) exceptionally controversial.  What's amazing about this story is that the two sides, who in day to day life seemingly can't find common ground have (for the most part) been able to come to mutually agreed upon neutral and accurate wording.  In a traditional editing model, the editor would have had final say, and his or her (probably unintentional) bias would hold sway for whoever relied on that as a source. 

Which is not to say that there are never errors in Wikipedia, or that every article is above reproach.  I'll say this though, it is a great first stop when looking for information on almost anything and everything.