I didn't realize how much the wikimedia world has expanded! I took a look at wikiquote (because I used to be obsessed with collecting quotes and checking quotesgarden.com whenever I wanted a quote about something or was making a card, etc, etc) and wikibooks (because I just thought this sounded awesome, especially as a resource for students). These are both awesome, but still very much works in progress and need work, for sure.
I really dig the wikibooks idea. I feel that, if this site was monitored closely enough to ensure accuracy, as I'm seeing wikipedia do these days, then it could be an awesome resource, eventually. It looks as though it's still in its early phases, though, as some of the categories I went to search were sparse, to say the least. Religion, for example, had NO "completed books" (ie actually full of a substantial amount of info.. not necessary "complete" in the sense that there's nothing that could be added) and there were only a handful of ANY books. There's definitely a lot to cover when it comes to religion and to say this section was lacking is still quite an understatement. Now, other sections had a bit more work done. For example, Communications had a completed book on Communication Theory. I browsed it and there was some useful information. But again, for Communications as a whole, there is still a lot left to be covered. I look forward to this site expanding-- it has a LOT of potential.
Wikiquote left something to be desired for me. It was interesting, for sure. As a quote fan, I like the fact that this site is in existence. But I think the organization isn't great. One thing I always loved about quotesgarden was that I could go in with a certain topic in mind and search for quotes about that topic. With wikiquote, you really need to have an author or a part of a quote, etc, to search. I can't just search "love" without being bombarded by every quote ever that has the word "love" in it. And that can be a bit overwhelming. I also think song quotes should maybe have their own section. I was looking at John Lennon's page, who is undeniably a very quotable guy OUTSIDE of his songs.. and there were a lot of his quotes on the page. But then I got to a section where it was just different song lines... "Imagine" was pretty much quoted line for line, each being attributed to the song. It seemed a bit excessive.. why not just copy and paste the whole song there, at that point? So maybe there should be restrictions about that or, like I said, a separate section for songs.
All in all, I like where the wiki community is going and the potential these sites have. I look forward to seeing how they grow.
No comments:
Post a Comment