The People's Encyclopedia

By Anita Hamilton Sunday, Aug. 10, 2003
    • You don't have to be an expert or a scholar to write for an encyclopedia. To contribute to wikipedia.org , an online encyclopedia, all you need is Web access. Wikipedia ("wiki" comes from the Hawaiian word for fast) invites visitors to create new entries or edit existing ones. This may sound like a recipe for chaos — a disclaimer on the site reads, "It is of course possible for biased, out-of-date or incorrect information to be posted." But since thousands of people review updates and changes every day, false information usually gets corrected. Created in 2001, the free, nonprofit site currently has 150,000 entries.