The Ryndex

So my new coolest thing is Wiki. You’re reading an article on the web, and you see a typographical mistake. What do you do? Giggle and move on? Write the author a patient note to have it repaired (if you can find their address)? Or roll up your sleeves, hack into the system and fix it yourself?

The idea behind Wiki is that instead of hacking into the system, you click on a link at the bottom of the page, and you can correct the error right in your browser. The entire history of the edited page is stored, so if Joe Reader makes an invalid modification (or is just plain vandalizing the article), another user can just come by and clean it up. Even better, you can add and link to new articles, and the site grows with the effort of the community.

I started by added the definitive article on Medicine Hat to WikiTravel, a user-edited travel guide. I wrote about how the city got its name, using the lyrics to a twenty year old song from its centennial. I also added some snotty comments about how crappy the song was (“a crime against scansion,” I said.) I added some information about how to get there and what to do when you arrived.

Then someone else came along and fixed my misremembered lyrics. And someone else reformatted the page to look more professional and removed the snottiest comments. Now it looks like a pretty good entry — check it out at: Medicine Hat.

This is going to be a great travel guide. It’s already a great idea.

Paris could use some work though…