The Wiki Story

There is an old story in which a man had to carry a lakh* rupees in a public bus without any protection. He was worried that he might be robbed. As he kept his bag on the shelf overhead, he announced to all that the bag had a lakh rupees. Almost everyone looked at the bag and kept an eye on it till the journey got over. This way, the man was able to make the whole bus take care of his money and not lose it. But what if the all the folks in the bus had decided to loot him?

*(A lakh is one-tenth of a million and is a big amount of money, to carry openly, specially in the earlier days.)

It took me quite some time before I really dug out the meaning of the word Wiki. I have been referring to Wikipedia since my engineering days, way back in 2003. I find it one of the greatest ways of distributing authentic (or almost authentic) knowledge.

The relation between the story above and the idea of wikipedia seem to be similar. The whole world ensures that the knowledge disseminated on the site is correct. This really applies to places where ambiguity is less - such as definitions of technical or financial terms. Even historical and geographical terms are explained to a good degree of accuracy. And I feel that's what matters for places where education is not able to reach everywhere. I was amazed to talk to boy from a rural school in India, who simply looked up Wikipedia to tell me about piezoelectricity. See, we are not competing at the Nobel prize level to go really deep into the topic but basic knowledge transfer really happens in a very practical way.

But what if the whole bus wants to rob the man? This, though very less probable, is not improbable.

For wikipedia, this happens when people write about controversial issues such as political fights. Just look at the page that describes Bush! Well, when it is something which is like this, folks put on the banner that 'this is controversial'. Now, its up to you how you understand what is put forth to you.

But overall, in innumerable ways, Wikipedia has brought in university professors' thoughts into my study place. It really solves a need that is there in developing countries (and in developed countries as well)! And there are millions of folks who would benefit more from it than from any other text they read.

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