Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Here's why Wikipedia is so awesome

Look, I know you're not supposed to trust everything you read on the Internet, particularly on Wikipedia, which is built on the premise that any moron with access to a computer can edit it.

But look at this: Wikipedia has an article about today: February 25th. Seriously, go ahead and click on it. You're going to find a long list of things that happened on this date in history, most of which mean almost nothing to me.

Unless it's your birthday or anniversary or something, February 25th is just another day. Except that Wikipedia is here to show you that February 25th is an amazing day.

At least, it was an amazing day for Marie-Adelaide, who 103 years ago today became the first reigning Grand-Duchess of Luxembourg. I don't even know who Marie-Adelaide was, and I have only a rough idea where Luxembourg actually is. But I'm interested enough to go learn more about her, and that's thanks to Wikipedia.

Speaking of places I could only find on a map after thinking about it for a few minutes, that Wikipedia article also tells me that 35 years ago today, the government of Suriname was overthrown in a military coup. You didn't know that, did you? And now you do. You're a better person, and again, you have Wikipedia to thank.

I graduated from college a few years before the Internet really took off, but I imagine that many a history report and English essay owes its existence to last-minute "research" conducted on Wikipedia. Which is totally wrong and totally lazy, yet totally awesome.

By the way, Wikipedia has separate articles that will tell you what happened on any given day of the year. Here are a few to check out: June 13th, September 18th, December 2nd, and March 31st. You're welcome.

Other than the cost of Internet access and hardware, all of this information is free for you and me. We can look it up any time we want. And Wikipedia has a team of editors and overseers whose job it is to make sure that even when a moron does start messing with the articles, it gets cleaned up right away.

Do you understand what I'm telling you here? It's all free. And it's all on Wikipedia. Free. Wikipedia. Five minutes on Wikipedia and you walk away a better, more knowledgeable person.

Why am I the only one amazed by this?

2 comments:

  1. The fact that that you were able to create a sentence that contained the words lazy, wrong, and awesome is what is amazing to me. Great work!

    ReplyDelete