PB Wiki Sandbox

Since you need an invite in order to play in the PLCMC's PB Wiki sandbox, I just created an account at Wikipedia instead. I had noticed a couple of weeks ago, while doing an assignment for another class, that there was an omission in the article about noted Science Fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin. So I decided that in place of playing in the PB Wiki sandbox I would go and edit the Ursula K. Le Guin page on Wikipedia.

I made a minor edit adding that she had won the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in Young Adult literature in 2004. I found the process to be relatively simple and was able to make this edit within 10 minutes of creating my account and reading up a little on making edits/additions on Wikipedia's help page. What I hadn't imagined was that Wikipedia would have its own style guide and that some of the considerations could get quite complex i.e. how to represent complicated mathematical formulas.

I use Wikipedia a fair amount. Mostly, for preliminary explorations of subjects or topics with which I am unfamiliar and occasionally for pop cultural trivia. I find that it is often a good starting point and I've rarely encountered instances of any outright bias. The problem I frequently encounter however, is that many articles lack citations. This is an annoying problem especially if you are merely using the Wikipedia article as a jumping off point.