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Wikipedia: To Contribute or not to Contribute

There was a time in space when ‘if’ there was enough money within a household a series of Encyclopedia Britannica, or something like it could be purchased.  It was costly and had to be updated. Otherwise, anyone that wanted to do research had to hit the library which meant there had to be one close enough to walk to or take a bus. People that did not have this advantage were out of luck.

Now knowledge can be shared without leaving the house.

Moving on via Wikipedia:

So why would so many people want to take their time to do all this research, write an article and not get paid for it? Plus is it accurate?

Let’s start with the statistics as of May 2, 2013:

Active counters

• Number of pages: 30,082,666
• Number of articles: 4,224,691
• Number of files: 806,044
• Number of edits: 610,328,042
• Number of Users: 18,905,770
• Number of admins: 1,443
• Number of active users: 131,641 (Users who have performed an action in the last 30 days)

*Information provided by: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Statistics – this is a constant update, which means by the time you check out the numbers I have posted, they have more than likely changed. 

Wikipedia is supposed to be an altruistic community by ‘nature’. What motivates contributors can vary; however, it seems that for the most part the motivation and vision have not changed since its creation in 2001 by Jimmy Wales (watch video below by www.ted.com):

Wikipedia’s foundation is based on a Neutral Point of View policy.

Jimmy Wales states, “…this is nonnegotiable… and if you engage in [other] type of behavior you will be asked to leave the community”.
Objectivity is key while sticking with the facts: reference, reference, reference.

So what does this mean?

People are people. We are mainly social creatures, otherwise there would not be a field dedicated to Sociology – let alone a huge surge in Social Media. Individual motivations, as to why people socialize, can and do differ...

Accomplished wikipedian contributors are highly recognized within the Wiki world. This could be their motivation: social recognition. Do their contributions benefit others? Yes.
Is it completely altruistic? Here is gets a bit hairy. The time and dedication they research to share their knowledge (and the education they probably had to pay for) does benefit others altruistically. Does it feed into some sort of personal reward?  It’s more than likely, therefore not completely altruistic. But, to me, that’s going into a whole other realm; psychology vs. sociology.

So should you contribute?

Back to the statistics for a moment. Those numbers were up there. There are quite a few people that feel it's worth it. Although there are many dedicated contributors as you heard from the video, individuals like you and I may share our knowledge as well.

Some ideas:

Is there someone, or something notable within your family history where documentation has been past down over the years?
Contribute.
Is there a topic you love that no one has created a wiki page about which you can support with documentation?
Contribute.

Getting started:

Wikipedia: Starting an article

Interesting Articles / Videos:

After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses

Video: Howard Rheingold: The new power of collaboration

RSS Feeders after Reader

Google is officially saying goodbye to Reader on July 1, 2013 due to the desire to mainstream and focus more on less. In other words, they're scaling down. Now you may be wondering about the data stored by Reader? One option is to use Google Takeout to download a copy of your data stored within Google products. Another option is to choose a reader that offers a smooth switch to their product.

So What's Next?

There are many RSS Readers out there. You need to decide what is best for you. Do you want to just use a reader on your smartphone or your pc as well? How about both? If this is the case you must read the fine print to make sure the Reader of your choice offers compatibility for iOS, Android and Web so your experience is fully covered.

Choices, Choices, Choices:

I am going to focus on two Readers: Pulse and Feedly, both of which help with the transition from Google Reader with your content.  I am not sure about you, but for me I love the visual aspect of Pulse with their mosaic layout. Although it has a Google Chrome extension  the visual appeal is about as far as Pulse goes for me. I personally prefer the UI of Feedly. If you are getting an overwhelming amount of information RSS'd to your Reader, I like the organization of a list layout. How does it respond with your PC? No problem. It's compatible with Chrome (automatic updates), Firefox and Safari.

Check out these Videos that talk about each:

Pulse	Feedly

So what does this mean for you?
Let me know...

Gauging Gadgets and Widgets

Gadgets are nifty little apps that are wonderful little tools that you can add to your blog. Now, mind you, they may look like a widget, act like a widget but they are not a widget.
WHAT?? You may ask. A gadgets are owned. So the gadgets I have added to this site belong to Blogger such as on the left of the screen you see Blog Archive, About Me and at the very bottom of the page you see a list of Popular Posts. I also added a Google News gadget from Google Gadgets: http://goo.gl/egQQB.
Okay, so you see some other stuff floating around on my page such as: The share links (http://goo.gl/Zu7y2) to the right, the back to top button (http://goo.gl/vB5In) that appears when you scroll down the page, as well as the Twitter feed (http://goo.gl/nuGuB) on the bottom left of the page - what about those things and how do you add them? These are widgets provided for free by third party developers and thankfully Blogger provides a gadget where you can add your own HTML/Javascript to a sidebar or near the footer of your page (all depending on the layout you have chosen). The third party developers provide the HTML/JavaScript that we can copy and paste into Bloggers HTML/JavaScript gadget to allow the widget to function.
Please note: I did go into the different widget codes to modify the way these guys look and how they are positioned on my blog page which you do not necessarily have to do.
Go out there and have fun with them. (Don't add too many, you don't want to clutter your page).

Bogleheads - a Wiki at work.

Do you want to know about all things Vanguard - well here is you source if you can't find it at Vanguards homepage. This wiki helps answer all possible question regarding investing. It's based on philosophy's by Vanguard's founder Jack Bogle.

So if you would like to learn more about investing, check out this wiki: http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page

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