Disaster Response, via Wikis

This is a very positive story about the power of Wikis and Wikipedia.  It focuses on the entry about the the London bombings.  It shows the true power of this media. -- Bill Drew

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Disaster Response, via Wikis By Chronicle of Higher Education How does Wikipedia, the online open-source encyclopedia, actually work? Web surfers got a close look at the process when users of the site edited an entry about the mass-transit bombs that struck London last week. The initial entry, posted shortly after 10 on the morning of the attacks, attributed the explosions to power surges. Less than 20 minutes later, another poster edited the page to include a panicked note. Only 90 minutes after the original post went online, almost 50 people had added links or information. Now the Web page has been edited thousands of times, and includes details on international response to the incident and analyses of the attacks' economic impact, along with contact information for emergency-response groups. The value of all that content -- and the speed with which it made its way online -- makes a powerful case for the benefits of wikis, according to Will Richardson. (Weblogg-ed)