Lab 0: Welcome to Wiki

This assumes that you’ve never used Wiki. Feel free to skip steps that you already know about, except learning about Processed cheese. We’re totally going to talk about that in class on Wednesday.

Wikipedia is an web-based, free-source encyclopedia. Anyone can make entries, regardless of their background (or knowledge) on the subject. This open access can be good, because it means that it is updated and expanded quickly and cheaply (compare its 5 million articles to the 100,000 articles in Encyclopaedia Britannica and 70,000 in MS Encarta). This open access can be bad, because sometimes people are jerks.

I. Peek Around

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org Read the front page. Click and learn about something. See, you already know something new.

Look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processed_cheese This is one that has had a lot of talk and warning notices. Click on some and check them out. Who knew people cared about processed cheese so much? It even talks about footnotes and stuff.

Click on the "talk page" for Processed Cheese (you can either click the blue link for “talk” or the “discussion” tab at the top, and you can see recent discussion about the issue. Then, click on the “history” tab to see how often this page has been edited, and by how many different people. Lots of people love (to talk about Processed Cheese). Imagine what the page on abortion of Hezbollah looks like (no need to imagine, it’s only a search or click away!).

Check the links on the side to see “what links here” and “cite this article.” For citing, notice the difference between the “live” link and the “permanent link.”

By this time, I hope you are hooked. Click on other things from that page. Read about Kraft Dinner, or Cheez Whiz, or wherever it takes you. Bonus points to whoever finds the way to click from “Processed Cheese” to “power-law fluid."

II. Make an Account

In order for you to become a true wikipedian, you need an account. Click on here to get set up. You’ll need a clever username yourself. Otherwise, just follow the directions on the site. E-mail me if you have troubles salberts@truman.edu

Once you’re set, e-mail me (salberts@truman.edu) your username, so I can see for myself.