The Wikipedia (2004-04-15)

This page has moved to my new website.

Part of my job on these web pages is to find good resources beyond what I can write about Statistics. I'm finding more and more that there are wonderful references in a web resource known as the Wikipedia. If you haven't visited the Wikipedia, it is worth a look.

The goal of Wikipedia is to create an information source in an encyclopedia format that is freely available. The license we use grants free access to our content in the same sense as free software is licensed freely. That is to say, Wikipedia content can be copied, modified, and redistributed so long as the new version grants the same freedoms to others and acknowledges the authors of the Wikipedia article used (a direct link back to the article satisfies our author credit requirement). Wikipedia articles therefore will remain free forever and can be used by anybody subject to certain restrictions, most of which serve to ensure that freedom.

The Wikipededia is an example of a WikiWikiWeb which

enables documents to be authored collectively in a simple markup language using a web browser.

The quality of the entries in the Wikipedia are surprisingly good. If you want to browse through their entries on Statistics, the Statistics entry itself is a good place to start. The Wikpedia is a model for good web page writing because of the liberal use of hyperlinks to related topics both within the Wikipedia and externally.