Dan Gillmor: 'Sometime in the next few days or weeks, one of the world's most comprehensive online reference sites will publish its 200,000th article. More accurately, one of the site's contributors will publish the article. Wikipedia, an encyclopedia created and operated by volunteers, is one of the most fascinating developments of the Digital Age. In just over three years of existence, it has become a valuable resource and an example of how the grass roots in today's interconnected world can do extraordinary things. Almost anyone can be a contributor to the Wikipedia. Almost anyone can edit almost any page. (Only serious misbehavior gets people banned.) Thousands of people around the world have added their expertise, and new volunteers show up every day. It defies first-glance assumptions. After all, one might imagine, if anyone can edit anything, surely cyber-vandals will wreck it. Surely flame wars over article content will stymie good intentions. And, of course, the articles will all be amateurish nonsense. Right? Well, no.'
Read more of Dan Gillmor's siliconvalley.com article. (If you don't know about wikis, his article is a good place to start.)
