People

Information without borders

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Although he just made the new entry with a few lines, a senior Wikipedian from the United States sent a message to thank him for his contribution. That encouraged him to keep writing and posting information to the site. “I think the website is special because it is not only a one-way communication. It is actually a community,” Mr Lo said.

Since then he has become devoted to the English-language webpage. In 2003, he switched to become a contributor to the Chinese-language edition after it had been set up for five months. Mr Lo was soon chosen to be one of the first five administrators of the Chinese page responsible for protecting the site and deleting vandals’ articles.

He has already edited about 4,000 articles. Editing means adding an article or correcting the mistakes in an existing entry. His contributions are mainly about science, history and geography, his areas of interest. He has no specific criteria in entry topics for editing.
He now spends about three hours every day on Wikipedia, reading and editing articles. The job has become a part of his daily routine and he does not find it time-consuming.

But his parents may blame him for getting hooked on the page once in a while, the net enthusiast said. He expects that the time he spends on Wikipedia may decrease once he finds a full-time job. He said he was looking for a job related to the printed media, partly because of his editing experience gained in Wikipedia.

The editing work has improved his knowledge and provided him with an opportunity to reflect on himself. Mr Lo said he often argued with people before joining Wikipedia. “My horizons were not wide enough. I always looked at an issue only from my point of view,” he said.
He once argued with other Wikipedians about an article concerning the Qin Dynasty (221BC – 207BC). It turned out that Mr Lo misunderstood the meaning of a word in the article.

“After that, I realise there are many things that I thought I knew, but actually I do not know about them,” he said. “There are loads of knowledge and opinions in the world that are unknown to me. I realise my ignorance.”

Mr Lo now tries to see things from other perspectives and listen to people’s opinions, rather than just insisting on his owns.
His participation in Wikipedia also gives him a chance to communicate with people from different parts of the world and understand their cultures.

“Wikipedia is a platform for people to get to understand each other,” Mr Lo said. The website will also organise conferences for Wikipedians to meet and exchange ideas.

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There are about 250 language editions of Wikipedia.