Image: a few of the remixable design elements, via Wikimedia Commons
It’s no secret that I love Wikipedia, which I consider one of the grandest and most radical social experiments of our time, and the very best example of what the free culture movement offers for the world’s future. I even love Wikipedia critics. There’s nothing I love more than to improve an article after some whiny-baby complains about its quality with a copypasta example. For instance, novelist Jonathan Lethem was bagging on “the infinite regress of Wikepedia [sic] tinkering-unto-mediocrity” the other day. Too bad The Atlantic has no way for readers to fix that typo in the way I updated the article on Blake Edwards’ cult classic The Party, which was the object of Lethem’s scorn. He seems to miss the point that an encyclopedia article, even one about a screwball comedy, is supposed to be dry, factual, and not especially screwball. Just the facts, ma’am. I also love that his snapshot of the page is no longer that relevant.
In the past I have discussed Wikibumps (like the spike of a million readers who checked out the Salvia article in the week after the Miley Cyrus bong video) and the Click to Jesus game, where you see how few links it takes to get from a random Wikipedia article to the Jesus article. Here are a couple of other good reasons to love Wikipedia and its sister projects which you may not have seen:
• Best of Wikipedia Tumblr page
• Raul’s Laws, possibly the best and wonkiest explanation of how Wikipedia works
• Commons Picture of the Year contest winners
• 2006
• 2007
• 2008
• 2009
I hope you’ll swing by, learn some things, maybe improve something (they even have a secure server option). There is still plenty to do, and it will never be completed. At the very least, just marvel at the possibilities for the future of free culture embodied in the project. What are some of your favorite things about it? Please share in the comments.