The 2008 Beijing Olympics and wikis

In celebration of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, I started my search for wikis devoted to the topic. It's a natural tool for those participating and attending the Olympics. It would be great to share information about navigating through the Olympics venues. It would be interesting to see information posted about the competition results, with feedback from attendees or armchair reporters. I found the Olympic wiki on Wikia. It only has 12 articles though. I also found a MediaWiki version of the Olympics wiki . It is much larger, with over 1880 articles. However, it appears that only one update has been made in the last 30 days. That's obviously a sign of a problem -- with currency of information, especially since the 2008 summer Olympics are underway. I also found a Chinese version but really can't tell much about its currency. I found Olympics 2008 Dashboard, a Zoho Wiki that is tracking the medal standings across countries. As you're glued to the TV watching the Olympics this week, why not visit one of these wiki sites and lend a hand? If you know of another wiki site on the 2008 Olympics, post a comment for us.

I love Lucy at the Lucille Ball Wiki

In celebration of Lucille Ball's birthday, today I'm featuring here on the Wiki'd Places blog, The Lucille Ball Wiki on Wikia. It's a small site and just getting started. They are working on 36 articles now on people and shows. If you're a fan of the I Love Lucy show or Lucille Ball, visit the wiki and join its community.

Wikinews, the free online news source

Today while celebrating the anniversary of the launch of MSNBC in 1996, I began to think about wiki sources of online news. The original slogan of MSNBC was "It's time to get connected" and a key feature of wikis is the ability to connect and to collaborate with others. I immediately thought of the Wikinews wiki, whose mission is to present reliable, unbiased, relevant and entertaining news. Wikinews is run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which operates several other multilingual and free-content projects, such as Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, and Wikibooks. If you're interesting in contributing to this online news site, check out its Newsroom page, where it lists articles in development, articles marked ready for publishing, articles in dispute, collaboration requests, recently published articles, and lead articles. Like the traditional network news services and their Internet sites, Wikinews is not above controversy. Recently, some Web articles noted that Wikinews might not be as unbiased as they claim, particularly about news items related to the Wikimedia Foundation. The controversy is discussed on The Register and Slashdot. Regardless, it's interesting to watch the site and how communities are collaborating to report the news around the world.

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Happy Birthday USA!

We're starting our celebration early this year. Taking a little break to enjoy the family. Maybe we'll go fishing and spend some time at the beach too. The grill is already ready! Have a great holiday. We'll be back soon, reporting wiki'd ways to build content and collaborate with your community.




Image credit: RazzleDazzleRecipes

Celebrating one million wikis!

Wetpaint is nearing an amazing milestone -- one million wikis! To celebrate this occasion, Wetpaint will reward the one-millionth site creator with the chance
to give back to their community and the planet! For one year, Wetpaint will offset the carbon emissions of both the home and car of the creator of the millionth wiki. Wetpaint will also sponsor the carbon offset of a local school or non-profit organization selected by the millionth site creator. Wetpaint is even taking it one step further by offering the package to the referrer of the millionth site.

Wetpaint has created a wiki to share the news and details about this amazing celebration. You can learn more about Wetpaint's celebration at One Million Sites, my wiki-of-the-day. This new wiki gives details about the package and the official rules. It provides badges that you can add to your blog, website, or social networking profile to promote the event. Maybe your site will be the referrer of the millionth wiki if you add a badge.

If you want to know more about wikis, visit the Everything Wiki site. Then, just click on the "start a wiki" link that is displayed at the bottom right corner of any page. If you're ready now, you can create your free website from this blogpost. I'd love to be the referrer of the millionth Wetpaint wiki!

To the top of the world with the NASA Everest Trek Wiki

Today in celebration of Sally Ride becoming the first American woman in space, I began a search for a wiki related to NASA or the space program. I did not exactly find what I originally set out to find. However, I found a neat little wiki about a NASA team on a quest to climb Mt Everest. The NASA Everest Trek wiki on PBWiki tells the story of a group of NASA employees on a great adventure -- not out of this world, but rather to the top of this world. It is a very very small wiki dedicated to a very specific event. It includes the Rocket Scientist Training page which describes how they prepared for this demanding adventure. It includes bios for the team and their itinerary. While on the adventure, the team updated a blog, whose link is included on the wiki.

What a great idea -- to share such a neat adventure through a wiki. However, the team stopped a bit short of the overall goal. I wish that the team members had updated the wiki with their pictures and stories about the adventure. One instead created her own website. They haven't been back very long --- hopefully, they will update the wiki with lots more interesting, neat information about their adventure.

Nevertheless, the NASA Everest Trek wiki meets my basic criteria for an interesting, informative, and entertaining wiki. It just left me hungry for more information. : )



Photo credits:
Mt Everest from space by NASA from the NASA Everest Trek blog
Team pic from luciebeth's site

Indiana Jones Wiki

The Indiana Jones Wiki, for fans of Dr Jones and his adventures

This weekend I had the pleasure of going to the movies with my two nephews. We enjoyed watching the new Indiana Jones movie together. I've seen all the movies, but they had not yet seen them all. I'm not sure they understood his fear of snakes or his history with Marion. I now have a great Christmas present idea for the boys. The set is also on my wish list too.

Today I was glad to find The Indiana Jones Wiki . It strives to be a comprehensive reference for the Indiana Jones fiction, including the feature films, the television series, novels, comics, and video games. The wiki launched in September 2005 on Wikia. It now has over 1100 articles.

If you're also a fan of Dr Jones, visit the wiki and lend a hand. If you're looking for that small bit of information that slipped your mind over the years, check out the detail on the wiki. It's definitely interesting, informative, and entertaining.