It's common knowledgeBy Chris SteelFinding what you want can be a long trawl on the internet unless you turn to an online encyclopaedia which is constantly growing as users add to the database. Webwatch takes a look at such a site ... Among the innumerable number of sites which make up the web, one is celebrating an extraordinary two years online. Wikipedia is a visionary site which offers a truly interactive encyclopedia of information. It describes itself as "a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate open-content encyclopedia". Not only can you browse 100,000 articles on a smorgasbord of subjects but you are invited to add to or edit any page, increasing the wealth of knowledge available to your fellow users. The creators of Wikipedia have found the online community to be incredibly generous in sharing its knowledge, as the site continues to expand at an astonishing rate. The most striking thing about the site is the way everything links and you're diverted down increasingly obscure sub categories. It sounds pretty dry but in fact it's completely absorbing. One of the most attractive things about the site is the fact there's no need for HTML or other anorakish skills to add to pages. You just click edit page and type in your piece. By linking the two subject words and capping up the first letters, an example would be GreenBananas, the site recognises it as the "WikiWord" and links the pages. As if all this wasn't enough, Wikipedia is translated into 30 different languages. WebWatch usually confines site reviews to the Hot Links section but in this case we thought we'd make an exception, as there's literally something for everyone here. 09:56 Wednesday 19th February 2003
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