Tim McCall Weblog

When I first heard about Wikipedia a while back, I thought it was a great idea, but then my old school mind set kicked in and automatically thought that it would be chaos. You have so many contrasting opinions, and so many people who want to vandalize whatever they get their hands on, that the site would be a mess. I eventually started using it when I needed a quick fact or some information on something specific. Without even knowing it, I had become a user of something that I thought would be unsuccessful. My old mindset did not kick in again until it was time for me to sign up and actually give to this thing that I have been taking from. Signing up was easy, and the introduction answered all my questions about how to edit and navigate the site. My first thought was that I didn’t have anything to contribute to this thing that hadn’t already been said. Ok, what are some things that I know a lot about that others might not? After some thinking I remembered watching a documentary on one of my favorite basketball players; Allen Iverson. The site was packed with information, but I found some points that I could have made clearer. I also found that there was a large chunk of his teen life that was missing. When I tried to edit the site, it told me that it was semi-locked. I could not update the site for four days. After yelling at my computer, I realized that this was a technique of peer review similar to what Benkler was talking about. There wasn’t chaos like I’d imagined, there was professional entries, that had been critiqued by hundreds of people before me. What came to my mind was those neighborhood watches where everyone in the community makes sure it is running smoothly. The people who want this site to be effective watch eachothers backs, and it is easy to understand that having many editors is far more comprehensive than simply having one. After this epiphany I typed in Tang Soo Do which is the form of martial arts that I practice. This page seemed to need some help so I added input on some of the theories and practices.

Through Wikipedia and becoming a creator as opposed to always being a viewer was rewarding and helped me have a better understanding of how far Wikinomics can go.