This blog is about the free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

The basic premise is simple: An online environment has been created that allows you to navigate around articles as in any other online encyclopedia. The difference (aside from it being free and open-source) is that anyone can edit any of the articles!

Most people assume that this complete freedom will immediately lead to anarchy, after all without controls, what is to stop me from simply deleting an article? Well technically nothing stops me from doing this. Morally I would believe it is wrong, but most powerfully the community that has sprung up around the encyclopedia would replace the contents from one of the historical versions.

The completely open system has created a self-motivated, self-policing community of people. To my mind this provides some proof that if left to their own devices people are essentially good.

Anarchy is indeed abhorrent to most people, but rather than a need to apply masses of rules and structures to enforce those rules, a community has sprung up to fill the vacuum. They have achieved incredible results with a very simple, loosely controlled system.

Now that you are introduced to Wikipedia, I recommend that you look up the thing you feel you know most about and see if you can contribute.



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