is a rural town with a few hundred residents and no traffic lights. At the end of a dirt road, in the shadow of a small mountain sits a gray trailer. It is the home of Einar Kvaran. To understand the most audacious experiment of the post-boom internet, this is a good place to begin.
called Wiki—which allows anybody with web access to go to a site and edit, delete, or add to what's there—Wales and his volunteer crew would construct a repository of knowledge to rival the ancient library of Alexandria.In 2001, the idea seemed preposterous. In 2005, the nonprofit venture is the largest encyclopedia on the planet. Wikipedia offers 500,000 articles in English—compared with's 4,500—fashioned by more than 16,000 contributors.
So the modest trailer at the end of a dirt road in this pinprick of a town holds some cosmic questions. Is Wikipedia a heartening effort in digital humanitarianism—or a not-so-smart mob unleashing misinformation on the masses? Are well-intentioned amateurs any replacement for professionals? And is charging nothing for knowledge too high a price?12 steps, but becoming a junkie requires only four. First comes chance - an unexpected encounter. Chance stirs curiosity.
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