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Wikipedia – I liked it. It reminded me of the ancient Library of Alexandria, an institution attempting to incorporate the knowledge of mankind and, it seems that I was not the only one drawing this parallel – see History of Wikipedia. It is an ideal that can never be achieved really. I thought that we could get close and that it was worth the effort. But not only the goal made Wikipedia so valuable: I saw people from hundreds of nations, different beliefs, with different ideologies contributing and cooperating here, peacefully and polite most of the time. This was great.
Thinking of the Library of Alexandria, there was one thing I regretted about Wikipedia: It was not a ground for scientific exploration. It was no place for original work. However, I understood why this would have been difficult for an online encyclopedia that relied so heavily on hardly restricted user contributions. The no original research policy was necessary. It was my least favorite policy anyway. My favorite guideline on the other hand was ignore all rules. Not that I was an anarchist, but it was good to know that Wikipedia left a back door open for common sense, for unusual cases, for new ideas.
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