Week 2 Wikis and user-generated content

I have never contributed to Wikipedia but I use it regularly (not for study of course!).  I find it really useful for looking up general information that I am curious about.  I tried to think of what I could add to Wikipedia, but really couldn't think of anything I knew enough about that hadn't already been added.  I didn't feel comfortable editing anything either - again because I just don't feel that I know enough to contribute to something like this.  I had a look at the sandbox -  what a fantastic idea!  I didn't try it though, still not sure what to do - but will look at this and try it.  In some workplaces I have also used wikis which were used for information sharing and procedures.

I decided to edit some of the newspaper content on Trove, which I have spent a lot of time perusing for family history research.  I had seen that it was possible to correct the text, but never tried it.  I just signed up and edited some text about a relative from the 1880s.  I don't know the details of this relative - or exactly how he is related but with the name and the place he would have to be related!  He was charged under the Education Act for truancy!  This is a fantastic use of user-generated content.  The volume of this data would make it impossible to pay people to fix the misread OCR content, so having users fix this as they search is a really good idea.  I can see how I could get hooked and spend hours doing it.