For those who love surfing the net to see what stuff we can find, here is possibly the coolest information site out there.
The Wikimedia Foundation'smotto is “Imagine a world in which every single person is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing" and is the brainchild behind www.wikipedia.org, an encyclopaedia that has just about everything in it.
The Appearance: It looks basic at first sight, but if you’re not put off by that, you will notice that just a small delve opens up so many doors. It looks fresh and non-cluttered which is always good.
The Content: Where do I begin? Where do I end? Everything that is anything is in this Wikipedia. The really cool thing about this site is that you can add to it yourself. Yes, it does lend to people putting absolute crap on there, (so the site isn’t 100% factual) but you will always get those people who thrive off correcting others, so it’s pretty accurate. I found my rural-Australia hometown there, along with wrestlers, rugby players, TV shows and completely random things that make you think WTF? There are several core languages on the main menu – English, French, Swedish, Polish, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish – But scroll down and you’ll find other languages. These languages don’t have as many entries as the core group does, due to a lesser percentage of contributors presumably, but there is still good coverage
The Extras:Wiktionery – with the majority of entries being English and French; Wikibooks – free open-content web books you can edit; Wikiquote – a free compendium of quotations; Wikisource – The free Library; Wikispecies – A free directory of life (things like bacteria!); Wikinews – Surprise, a free news source! You can contribute, so you can say you’re a news reporter ;-) ; Commons – A database of media files; Meta-Wiki – A site about all of the Wikimedia Foundation’s work. Most of these sub-sites have too many sections to mention. Also discussion pages, search facilities (as expected) and a history page to see the latest entries.
Overall Ranking: 9/10
Nowadays, when I want to know about something, I go straight to Wikipedia. I’ve even got the guys at work coming up to me and asking me to ‘check your Wikipedia thing’ for them. If you’re just into surfing, you will be kept busy for HOURS. With all the menus and sub-sections you may feel anxious cos you’ll want to look at it all NOW (the classic 20 windows open…). See if you can out-smart it by finding something it doesn’t have. Then add it!
For those who love surfing the net to see what stuff we can find, here is possibly the coolest information site out there.