wikipedia geek
I love Wikipedia. I’m a naturally curious type (some would say nosy, I say curious) and if I don’t know enough about something, I like to find out more. Today it was Stephen Hawking. I read this post on Pesky Apostrophe about flight on zero gravity jet and wanted to know more. I know OF Stephen Hawking, but I don’t know much about him. So, I turned to Wikipedia and there it was - a complete bio about Stephen Hawking with photos, links, and important dates in his life. What geek wouldn’t love this online encyclopedia?
You can find out more about just about anything on Wikipedia. Last week I learned about Charles Whitman (I wasn’t born when he became infamous, so I wanted to know more about his crime) and read up on Boris Yeltsin. I’m gearing up to appear on Jeopardy someday. And yes, I was the type of kid who would pick up a volume of Funk & Wagnalls and read it…for fun. Don’t hate me me because I have a thirst for knowledge!
Right on, Colleen. As a blogger, I love Wikipedia for another reason (in addition to the one who wrote about) — photos!
Finding great copyright-free (public domain) photos to use on your blogs is easy with Wikipedia. Just go to WikiCommons and search for U.S. Government photos, Public domain (works whose copyright has expired) and other freely licensed photos. Just we aware, that not EVERY photo on Wikipedia is free to use — check the photo description first.
Wikipedia is just amazing. I could spend hours just jumping from one article to another !
I agree with Jason! Copyright-free photos rock, and I always use WikiCommons first when I need something for my blog.
My question…have you submitted your name there yet?
I LOVE Wikipedia, I go there constantly to find out information and like you…loved reading encyclopedias when I was younger
Wikipedia is a fantastic site but I still find it interesting that a “community” edited environment is such a trusted source of information. Was it Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report that encouraged viewers to alter the entry about elephants to read their numbers were on the rise rather than in danger? At the very least, it’s an easy way to get an idea about a subject and then dig in deeper elsewhere.
And JasonJ - great tip about finding photos!
I’m a big fan of Wikipedia too! I like to link out from articles on my allergy site, to articles with more information about whatever it is my article is about, or even just interesting words in the article. I’ve made it a bit of a habit to link to Wikipedia for a few reasons. One big one is that it is just too easy using the search tool in FireFox. I have my search tool set to Wikipedia site most of the time, so I just add words to the upper left corner of my browser tool bar, and up pops the perfect article in Wikipedia!
While I’m linking to these Wikipedia articles, I may as well read them, so it takes me way longer to write my articles, but I learn a lot along the way.
I’ll have to read up on some of your suggestions too - they do look intriguing!
As a writer and a blogger I LOVE this site. I learned all about teddy bears one weekend. Hmm, maybe I’ll learn about who was born on my birthday this week.
Hi Colleen.. I tag you on a productivity meme. Hope you can do it.. have fun!
http://homeofficewomen.com/?p=299
Wikipedia is awesome! I think there should be a Geekyspeaky page there.