The wikipedia revolution summary

LICEO LOS ANDES HIGH SCHOOL

The Wikipedia revolution: How a bunch of nobodies created the world’s greatest encyclopedia.

Research done in order to achieve the English Sufficiency Certificate

Author: María Paz Gutiérrez Ayala
Course: 6th B
Subject: Writing
Date: Wednesday November 16th, 2011
Teacher: Alberto Mahauad
English Director: Yamne Fayad

2011 – 2012Content

ABSTRACT 3

INTRODUCTION 4

BODY 6

CONCLUSION 23

ABSTRACT

Behind a phenomenon as relevant as Wikipedia there had to be an explanation of its prominence and importance. I believe that that’s what Andrew Lih tried and succeed in doing with The Wikipedia Revolution. With Lih’s work, we find an insider’s narrative of the development of this website. As the author tells us,Wikipedia brought many variations to the way people handle information in the web, changing fundamentally the landscape of networked collaboration, e-learning, and, as librarians know all too well, mediated information provision. To exemplify the extensive number of details that Andrew Lih gives us, I’ll mention how he continuously describes the passion and commitment of the early founders and thecontinuing skyrocketing success of this resource. During the whole text, he centers on the main subject of the chapter and demonstrates it thoroughly with many cases. This book is for anyone who has ever wondered how and why Wikipedia works and for those who want to explore into the Internet sensation.
INTRODUCTION

Knowledge is, or should, be the most important quality of all human beings.Sharing it is something wonderful and making it available to others is worthy of admiration. That is the role of Wikipedia and Andrew Lih carefully and explains it to us in The Wikipedia Revolution.
Since Wikipedia was launched online in 2001 as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," it has blossomed to more than a billion words spread over 10 million articles in 250 languages, including2.5 million articles in English. Just imagine the amount of information there is in all those articles. And it does not just limit to the main languages of the world, so to speak. It opens the doors to people in all kinds of remote places that have access to internet.
Created (and corrected) by anyone with access to a computer, this impressive assemblage of knowledge is growing at an astonishingrate of more than 30,000,000 words a month.
All this words are focused on a main object, this is: to prove the usefulness of Wikipedia. There is a misconception in the means of this website and many people believe it is not trustworthy. But what I believe that they do not get is that what makes it so magnificent is this quality of edition. This permits everyone to share what they know with therest. Knowledge should not be limited to one person, and even worse if there are ways to do it.
Like in the brain, ideas should have a way of connecting with each other leaving aside the distance that separates them. Important information has the duty to go through so it can be heard and acknowledged by everyone else. This is where Wikipedia and people like Andrew Lih come up. Wikipedia is the pathfor the information and Andrew is here to explain to use its functioning. He helps repelling misconstructions that regular persons that do not know about this subject tend to have.
That is why he and his book are key parts, how is someone supposed to employ anything if he or she is not aware of its way of working and its many advantages?
BODY

"Imagine a world in which every single person onthe planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing." –Jimmy Wales
In August 2005, at a modest youth hostel in Frankfurt, Germany, hundreds of writers, students, computer hackers, and ordinary Internet users from around the world gathered on the grounds of Haus der Jugend on the bank of the River Main. Few had ever met in person, and most didn’t even know...