Monday, April 23, 2007

 

Wiki-Races

I'm a big fan of knowledge for knowledge's sake. It's never a waste to know something. Anything. Knowledge is a great thing, having stuff in your brain, trivia if you will, is a good thing.

Something that's nearly as good, though, is the ability to retreive information. Searches. Web searches. In my opinion, web based searching is one of many things that kids should be learning in school. The information is all out there somewhere, being able to find it efficiently is the next big skill.

I get so many hits on this blog from search engines, generally inefficient searches that accidentally get bewildered readers to The Globex Corporation Newsletter. Thanks for stopping by folks, but you won't find any nude photos of Scarlett Johansen here, sorry.

The beauty of web searches is that it helps to have some knowledge about the subject you're searching. Looking for info on the B-52 Stratofortress? It would help to know that the aircraft was built by Boeing, was used in the Vietnam War and Iraq, was deployed by the Strategic Air Command during the cold war, was referred to as the "Buff," etc. Any of those pieces of information could help you find exactly what you're looking for.

wiki
Slick over at Broken Machines mentioned tonight that wherever he is on Wikipedia, he tries to see how few links it takes him to get back to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

It was a slow night at work, so we thought it might be fun to turn it into a competition, but we expanded it a bit. Instead of just trying to get back to Cheyenne, we would start with a sort of random Wiki-page and try to get to another wiki-page. Like see who could get from Zeus to Darryl Strawberry the fastest. That's fastest in time, though another contest might be who could make it in the fewest links.

We came up with a couple of basic rules:
  1. Stay entirely within Wikipedia

  2. Use only links on a Wikipedia page, i.e. no using the "back" button

  3. Use of the "find text" function on a page is permitted


This is a great game for so many reasons. First, it rewards good search techniques. It also rewards someone for knowledge they already have. For instance, I had to go from Ireland to Vlad the Impaler tonight. I scanned my brain for everything I knew on Vlad the Impaler. He was also known as Dracula, he lived in Transylvania, Transylvania is in Romania, Romania, like Ireland, is in Europe. Run that in the reverse order, and that's how I connected the two. Effective search techniques plus a little knowledge allowed me to do it quickly.

We did a quick search on the way out the door, we aren't alone in the idea, we found a post from January 7th of this year about two people who do the same thing. That's OK, it's a fun game, and I suggest you give it a try!

BOJ

Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

The Bert Convey
Principle
Friends' Blogs
My Photo
Name:
Location: United States

I'm not telling you anything...

archives