Clio Wired (History 696)

Had trouble navigating the site this weekend over my dial-up connection so I waited to post my entry until this morning and it's now up and running. I thought I'd better write about a subject that I am more than just familiar with and what better than U-boats! I've written a number of articles on U-boats that the Coast Guard sank and after checking the entries I noticed that no one had written anything about the U-550. First I edited the page on the U-863 which we are currently working on at the office since it was recently discovered in a place that no U-boat wreck was supposed to be. Writing the entry was fairly easy, I just condensed an article I had written. Would have kept it more simple but the "how to" section under FAQs suggested that a few paragraphs are better than just one, so what the heck. I linked it to the "List of U-boats" page where I hope it will get noticed. I'll add more links this afternoon and maybe even post a photograph. Overall it was fairly easy to work with once I figured out how to move through all the different processes one could take to publish a new page. Reading directions did help; started with the "Help:Starting a new page" page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Starting_a_new_page and went from there. Not sure on the translations though, does Wiki use a special language? There was a section on converting Word docs and HTML too. Hmmm, that will take some more research on my part. Overall a fairly rewarding experience. It hasn't been up long enough for me to judge what kind of responses I've received but as soon as I do I'll add them to the blog.

OK, it's now been up for over 24 hours and no one else has edited it in any way; after reading Rosenzweig's article I expected to get jumped on by all of the U-boat nuts that are out there. Could it be that I wrote the perfect entry?? Naah.

Thursday, 1 December in the a.m. and no one has added anything or edited my piece. Guess it wasn't too bad. Re-read Roy's article again, he really did a balanced job I thought. Interesting to think that it took a multi-millionaire to get Wiki started. He did not, in my opinion, create a Frankenstein. How do you define history? However you answer that question will show what you think of Wiki.

As I read Roy's article the first time I realized that most of the material we've read in this class relates to the academic historian and how his/her ability to teach will be affected by the web; public historians don't seem to be wringing their hands with worry over this whole issue. Students today live on-line; get over it. Wiki, I thought, once again, would make a good starting point in anyone's research. As he noted, the entries got the facts "right." Move on to more in-depth research from there. My Wiki entry gives a good overview over the "history" of the U-550 but is nothing close to the final word. Also, Wiki's weird, but perhaps necessary caveat of not allowing original research or polemics in the entries definetly limits its usefulness to academic-professional historians. But so what? Should academic-professional historian's contribute? Why not--individual choice.

What I see here is "history" moving into the marketplace -- and it really makes the academics nervous, but the public historians aren't so worried. Why? We live in the marketplace well away from an ivory tower. Being a Fed though is something of a cushion but even we are subject to the "political market." For example, cutting the size of the federal workforce under Clinton affected most Federal historians.

Whatever we, as students or professional historians, believe doesn't really matter. The market, that dreaded fact of life, will ultimately decide what happens with Wiki. Look what happened with open-source Linux, any inroads to Microsoft's market share?

Love the comment by the Ph.D. student who writes for Wiki, he does it to improve his skills in writing to a general audience. Good attitude.