Here wiki, wiki, wiki, wiki, wiki

I've been using Wikipedia for ages now. Okay, ages really means about a couple years. With the rate at which technology seems to change these days, a lot can happen in such a relatively short time. Just look at Facebook. How long will it be before something else leaves FB in the dust?

But I digress.

Wikipedia is now mainstream. Even my mum uses it. Well that's not saying that much about my mum. She may be a bit technophobic but she knows where to go for info.

And, doesn't just about everyone go to Wikipedia for in-depth info on Coronation Street, Dr Who, Battlestar Galactica or any one of the hundreds of spin-offs in the CSI franchise? When you want to know who the Master is and why he has a hate on for the Doctor. If you are unsure whether Speed was killed by gun-fire or David Caruso's icy stare, where do you go? When you need to get a quick refresher about particle physics, tandoori cooking or whether lion's claws are retractable, you go to Wikipedia.

But I digress again.

An online encyclopedia, Wikipedia has been build and edited by regular folk like you and me (as opposed to highly academically credentialed editor types who are paid to edit something like the Encyclopedia Britanica). While there may be inaccuracies (and I have noted a few in the entries for Stargate SG-1 and Farscape, I couldn't find anything wrong with the entries on particle accelerators or quantum physics, funnily enough), it's either a good place to start your research or waste time having lots of fun with useless details.

And I digress some more.

After years of using a wiki and kinda-sorta knowing what they are, I have finally participated in building one. My fellow residents at the Canadian Film Centre Media Lab and I started building this one a few weeks ago while delving into online and networked media. Thanks to Darren Wershler-Henry, those of us who didn't already know how to build and populate a wiki now know how to do so. It's a great resource for collaborative writing and I encourage you to give it a try.

For tips on how best to set up a wiki, you could go to Wikipedia. But I encourage you to start by consulting our repository of knowledge - The CFC Media Wiki