constructopedia

One idea that has been thrown around the lab for a number of years is that of the "constructopedia." The usual constructionist saying is that the person who creates an object or artifact learns the most, so Seymour extended this to the idea of a "constructopedia." Wouldn't it be nice if people could all get together and make their own "constructopedia" where they do the research and submit their knowledge or documentation. Of course a number of people have attempted this sort of idea. For the most part, they end up in highly specific domains with highly specific tools needed to construct them.

Arguably, sites like Get Crafty and Craftster are constructopedias. Arguably, the entire WWW is a giant constructopedia where individuals create and post their own content. But the best and most successful "true" constructopedia I've ever seen is the Wikipedia. It's a completely open and editable wiki that is an encyclopedia, but was/is being constructed by anyone who wishes to participate. People can add entries, remove entries, modify entries - whatever they wish. It is completely open and quality control is by other users.

It has been interesting to watch the Wikipedia evolve from something rather casual, yet serious, into a very encyclopedic object. The entries have become very formal with a kind of consistency across them, like the writers are emulating encyclopedia writing. At the same time, entries connect links to references as well as to other articles. An article on Neal Stephenson, for example, links to his personal web page as well as to the web pages of his various books and to articles about him.

The whole endeavor is grassroots and very impressive. It requires no special technology beyond a web browser. Adding/editing entries is a trivial process. It is still primarily textual, but contains links to sites with different forms of media (photos, sound recordings, etc). All in all, two thumbs up :)