Friday, March 30, 2007

Chichester Cross

What an extraordinary phenomenon is Wikipedia! It is an encyclopedia, created by web users, which can be altered by anyone who signs in to the site! One might imagine that it would contain a lot of inaccurate information but it is suggested that in some respects the information is more accurate than that in a published encyclopedia, being more up to date. Wikipedia is the biggest "multilingual free-content encyclopedia" with over two million articles.
I have been trying to find out about some buildings in Chichester, Chichester Cathedral and Chichester Cross. Not surprisingly there is a very good web site for Chichester Cathedral including its history, its present and information for visitors. One way find a relevant web site is to click on "I'm Feeling Lucky" using the Google Search Engine. For Chichester Cathedral, I'm Feeling Lucky gives you the Official Website, for Chichester you get The Chichester Web but for Chichester Cross, you get the Chichester Cross entry in Wikipedia.
I have signed into Wikipedia and made some changes to the entry for Chichester Cross. I wonder whether they will be altered further by the moderator and other authors. I have added something about an earlier wooden cross, the Caen stone and the reason for building the Cross, using information from recent books by Roy Morgan and Philip MacDougall.
The use of many hotlinks is one of the best features of Wikipedia but one of the hotlinks in the Chichester Cross site was to a potentially pornographic site. I have deleted it.
A more difficult problem was the misspelling of Bishop Storey. There is a separate entry in Wikipedia for Edward Story(sic) and so that spelling will have to be changed as well.
I can understand the fascination of writing for Wikipedia. I have found some most helpful entries, providing information that I could not find elsewhere.I can't imagine writing for Wikipedia without the speed of Broadband though. Where will it all end?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Although I avidly collect 'real' dictionaries and reference books of all kinds, I have a very soft spot for Wikipedia and its immense scope and inclusiveness.

Its critics often overlook its good points and forget that anything in it can be checked up elsewhere.

What a starting point it is for any enquiring mind on almost any topic. I urge everyone to have a look.

Paul P.