Wikipedia
I set this blog up this morning. Welcome.
Anyway, I came across Wikipedia a couple of years ago and I have been watching it get better and better. It is an open source encyclopedia. Any idiot can jump in and write or edit an article. Obviously, every once in a while something horrible happens, but generally it gets fixed in a hurry. The scope of the thing is incredible. I think it is the greatest and most ambitious intellectual project of the age. Like anything else on the net, it should be used with caution, but it seems to me that it is unmatched by any other one-stop research source.
This morning, I finished reading a memoir by Virginius Dabney called "Across the Years." Dabney was the editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch from 1936-1969, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. He wrote a well-regarded one volume history of Virginia, which I had read (actually, started), and a well known (in Virginia) history of Richmond. I found a nice copy of "Across the Years" in an antique store in Kilmarnock VA in June, which I bought for $3. I finally picked it up last week and I read it this week. It was great, if, like me, you like to read about old Virginiana, the University of Virginia, etc.
While I was reading it I took a look at the Wikipedia article on Mr. Dabney. Unfortunately, it was only 2 sentences long-- a "stub," or starter article. So, this afternoon, I sat down and hammered out a few more sentences-- here is the new article.
Anyway, I came across Wikipedia a couple of years ago and I have been watching it get better and better. It is an open source encyclopedia. Any idiot can jump in and write or edit an article. Obviously, every once in a while something horrible happens, but generally it gets fixed in a hurry. The scope of the thing is incredible. I think it is the greatest and most ambitious intellectual project of the age. Like anything else on the net, it should be used with caution, but it seems to me that it is unmatched by any other one-stop research source.
This morning, I finished reading a memoir by Virginius Dabney called "Across the Years." Dabney was the editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch from 1936-1969, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. He wrote a well-regarded one volume history of Virginia, which I had read (actually, started), and a well known (in Virginia) history of Richmond. I found a nice copy of "Across the Years" in an antique store in Kilmarnock VA in June, which I bought for $3. I finally picked it up last week and I read it this week. It was great, if, like me, you like to read about old Virginiana, the University of Virginia, etc.
While I was reading it I took a look at the Wikipedia article on Mr. Dabney. Unfortunately, it was only 2 sentences long-- a "stub," or starter article. So, this afternoon, I sat down and hammered out a few more sentences-- here is the new article.
posted by Virginian | 3:39 PM
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