Esquire wikis article on Wikipedia

When Esquire magazine writer A.J. Jacobs decided to do an article about the freely distributable and freely editable online encyclopedia Wikipedia, he took an innovative approach: He posted a crummy, error-laden draft of the story to the site.

Wikipedia lets anyone create a new article for the encyclopedia or edit an existing entry. As a result, since it was started in 2001, Wikipedia has grown to include nearly 749,000 articles in English alone--countless numbers of which have been edited by multiple members of the community. (There are versions of Wikipedia in 109 other languages as well.)

The idea is that, despite the fact that anyone can work on any article, Wikipedia's content is self-cleaning because its community keeps a close eye on the accuracy of articles and, in most cases, acts quickly to fix errors that find their way into individual entries.

It's the same argument programmers make about open-source software: Since everyone can see the source code, the community can collectively rid the software of errors better than a few developers at one company ever could.

With that dynamic in mind, Jacobs decided to craft an article about Wikipedia, complete with a series of intentional mistakes and typos, and post it on the site. The hope was that the community itself would be able to fix the errors and create a clean version that would be ready for publication in Esquire's December issue. The original version was preserved for posterity.

"The idea I had--which Jimmy (Wales, Wikipedia's founder) loved--is that I'd write a rough draft of the article and then Jimmy would put it on a site for the Wikipedia community to rewrite and edit," Jacobs wrote on the page introducing the experiment. Esquire "would print the 'before' and 'after' versions of the articles. So here's your chance to make this article a real one. All improvements welcome."

Neither Jacobs nor Esquire would comment for this story.

"For those haven't looked at Diderot's Encyclopedie recently, you should know that it is hopelessly incomplete," Jacobs' original draft began, typos and all. "For instance, it lacks entry on Exploding Whales. There's nothing on Troll Metal (rock music about goblins that eat Christians), autofellatio (a form of masturbation that be traced to the Egyptian creation myth) or Dr. Bombay (the physician warlock on Bewitched).

"No, you can only find those entries in one encyclopedia: The Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia that was launched in 2001 and has become biggest, most wide-ranging, most untamed reference work in history."

According to the Wikipedia page for Jacobs' story, the article was edited 224 times in the first 24 hours after Jacobs posted it, and another 149 times in the next 24 hours.

The final draft, which was locked on Sept. 23 to protect it from further edits, reflects the efforts of the many users who worked on it.

"What is the legal status of dwarf tossing?" the locked version begins. "Did people really worship Jesus Christ's foreskin as a relic? Where

[andrewholden]

Nine languages???

I think you'll find that it is 188 languages (with at least 1 article).
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias

Nine languages

I already talked to Daniel about that. The number I gave him is 110, which is the number of "active" languages per Wikipedia's own article about itself. There are over 200 language editions, but many of them are inactive, having either very few edits, or are currently locked due to lack of activity. Some may eventually be deleted.

Nine languages

I already talked to Daniel about that. The number I gave him is 110, which is the number of "active" languages per Wikipedia's own article about itself. There are over 200 language editions, but many of them are inactive with very few edits or are currently locked due to lack of activity/interest/relevance (e.g. Klingon). Some may eventually be deleted.

[andrewholden]

Nine languages???

I think you'll find that it is 188 languages (with at least 1 article).
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias

Nine languages

I already talked to Daniel about that. The number I gave him is 110, which is the number of "active" languages per Wikipedia's own article about itself. There are over 200 language editions, but many of them are inactive, having either very few edits, or are currently locked due to lack of activity. Some may eventually be deleted.

Nine languages

I already talked to Daniel about that. The number I gave him is 110, which is the number of "active" languages per Wikipedia's own article about itself. There are over 200 language editions, but many of them are inactive with very few edits or are currently locked due to lack of activity/interest/relevance (e.g. Klingon). Some may eventually be deleted.

[Mendz]

The Wikipedia article...

... therefore, becomes an art. Besides talking about Wikipedia, the article at the same time demonstrated Wikipedia. Published, the article will be read. In context, it is an example of the article's topic at work.

Beautiful, isn't it?

But don't do it again. The novelty of this article is worth its value.

[Mendz]

The Wikipedia article...

... therefore, becomes an art. Besides talking about Wikipedia, the article at the same time demonstrated Wikipedia. Published, the article will be read. In context, it is an example of the article's topic at work.

Beautiful, isn't it?

But don't do it again. The novelty of this article is worth its value.

How fast were errors corrected?

The one fact I can't find is how fast the errors were corrected. One site says "in minutes." Another in two days.... And how many errors were there? I don't want to wait till the Nov. Esquire to find out.... In fact, I can't. I'm writing an article on wikis and the deadline is dead ahead....

The Philosophy of Laziness is in question here...

Ah, someone who figured out that the wikipedia has it's own timestamps built in. Good for you.

If you want to build a house, just build a house? ********. Ask before you look/do is probably not such a bad idea. :D

How fast were errors corrected?

The one fact I can't find is how fast the errors were corrected. One site says "in minutes." Another in two days.... And how many errors were there? I don't want to wait till the Nov. Esquire to find out.... In fact, I can't. I'm writing an article on wikis and the deadline is dead ahead....

The Philosophy of Laziness is in question here...

Ah, someone who figured out that the wikipedia has it's own timestamps built in. Good for you.

If you want to build a house, just build a house? ********. Ask before you look/do is probably not such a bad idea. :D