Sean-Ward.com

Meghan had me show Wikipedia to someone last night who typically doesn’t use the web/Internet a lot. Initially, I could tell that the concept of content created and maintained by the users did not go along with what she would typically accept as a reliable source. This had come up because Meghan was explaining that some of her students had been citing for basic information, and she had never heard of it before. I had showed it to Meghan, and she was not only surprised by the breadth of topics that were included, but by the depth of these items as well: images, diagrams, references, citations. Nature compared Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica (as well as posted updates about the research) which can be found here.

I think the biggest thing about this is that by telling and showing people, not just telling them, about technology like this is how you are going to bring technology to the general populace. I said the same thing back in January about Firefox and Thunderbird. You can’t expect the corporations or the government to tell you about every change in technology, unless they can profit, financially or otherwise, from your use of it. That’s just the way things go.

This is something I occasionally fail at. Many moons ago I took my old computer home and set it up for my dad so he had one available to use so he doesn’t “screw up” mom’s. Anyway, I just never got around to showing him how to use it, even though mom said she would. I’m sure that he would enjoy things like Wikipedia, only because he’s an academic at heart. That academic is buried deep within him, but he’s still there. Even mom, who uses web/Internet based technology much more than dad, doesn’t use it that much compared to myself. This is partly because I haven’t shown them; I can’t expect them to just come across it magically. For the record, I should probably state that I don’t use it as much as some other people, but I still consider my use of web/Internet tech to be more than that of the general populace.