Bruce: Our Wiki is weakly

forgot to post the latest column from our computer/tech wiz Bruce Richardson:

Ocean Shores Wiki

I want to first make sure that you all know about Wikipedia.  In these cynical times, Wikipedia is truly a noble effort.  Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia located at  www.wikipedia.org.  If you don’t know Wikipedia, I encourage you to visit.  There are now almost 10 million entries and is provided in a dozen languages.   Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that is written and compiled by “us”, “you”, almost anyone.

That is usually almost always the downside, but it always serves as a springboard to other resources, if nothing else. I have also found the information to be credible – you can’t just post garbage and get away with it. Revisions and new entries are screened and you will be told if you need references, or better cites.   If you are trying to find out about ‘something’, try Wikipedia first, instead of Google, Bing, or the other search engines.

Because it is a collaborative project, I want to encourage my readers to contribute to the project.  It does not cost any money and I know there are a lot of Ocean Shores Residents who have some time and are very knowledgeable about certain topics.  Of course, you can’t write about yourself, or your business.  And you should have an arms-length approach to your subjects.  But you can contribute your knowledge and spread it to others and I will tell you that you will have a good time doing it.

The article on Ocean Shores is part of a ‘WikiProject’. The project is all about Washington State.

The Washington project page is at: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Washington#New_article_announcement

At this page is information on on-going projects about places and people in Washington State.  If you have another area of interest – birds, whales, fishing, etc. they will each have their own project page which you can join and contribute.

If you want to start a new article on something that is not yet written, you can write in the ‘sandbox’ and float the article to other editors to see if it fits what Wikipedia is all about.

If you contribute to any of the projects, you will become a ‘Wikipedian’.  For information on joining the writing effort, go to this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians

Now for the other shoe….

The entry for Ocean Shores, WA leaves a lot to be desired, in my opinion.  Reading it, I was left with the opinion that Ocean Shores is most notable for the…infamous murder on the fourth of July in 2000.

I know we can’t delete the entry or change history, but I wish we could add more to the entry to make that less prominent.  I am sure that a lot of you will head off to Wikipedia to read the entry(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Shores,_Washington).  When you do, go to the tabs at the top of the page and click on the ‘History’ tab.  There, you can see the people who have contributed to the story.  Perhaps they are people who live here; I don’t recognize any of the names.  You can click on their revisions and even ‘talk’ to them about their entries.

The entries for Aberdeen and Hoquiam are interesting as well.  Aberdeen gets tagged as the ‘birthplace of Grunge’, and has a picture of the High School Fire.  Hoquiam has a large section on Athletics…???

Anyway, I am not sure we can rescue Ocean Shores, but it would be nice.  I think we are a lot better than that.  And I do want to encourage those with special interest: clamming, birders, former CEO’s and the like to search through the Wiki and see if you can contribute content.

Local computer and graphic design guru Bruce Richardson is the man behind Purple Tree Farms.