Andrew Dalby and his work, The World and Wikipedia; How We are Editing Reality, demonstrate the power and accessibility of the world's fastest growing online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. In the openings of the book, Dalby gives the reader a good idea of what it is like to take part in the Wikipedia community: he takes a handful of users and documents their activity on the site over a course of a few hours, mentioning what articles they created, modified, or in the case of KeyKingz13, a deliberate attempt to sabotage the hard work of other Wikipedians. Other than this, the first chapter consists largely of the work done by Wikipedians, and demonstrates the power and long-lasting reach Wikipedia has on the online community, as well as the world. The roots of Wikipedia, as told by Dalby, are founded in ancient texts that imitate modern Encyclopedia's, such as Gaius Plinius Secundus's, or Pliny's, 'Survey of Nature' (Dalby 20). In the third portion of the book, Dalby goes into great detail of the reception of Wikipedia in its earliest stages by botht he public and the press. According to Dalby, "Wikipedia had attracted more than a thousand new entries a month from everything from astronomy to the visual arts. It is clear, without even reading Dalby's documentation of the history of Wikipedia, that it is a an extremely influential tool and effective tool for any sphere of the public. Otherwise unknown editors, anonymous and named users have the ability to edit millions of articles on the online encyclopedia, with a specific interest in a field available to the editor.
The site, and other sites like it, have greatly changed what it means to be connected to the internet. It is one of the first sites that peers on the internet actually work side by side to achieve something greater than themselves, in fact the goal they achieve is not actually measured by any official party, rather the public's viewing of the Wiki pages grants the ultimate satisfaction of the Wikipedians work.
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