User:Tfooq/Press release
Hello. My name is Tom Fucoloro for those of you who do not know me.
I have founded a Web site based on the free software behind Wikipedia called The Wiki Fire.
It is the free encyclopedia by and about Knox College. Its mission is to be a positive collection of collaborative, free information about our community, for our community.
For those who are not familiar with how wiki technology works, any person with access to the Internet has the ability to edit articles on the site. Those people have the option to register as users, from which they can track their edits and create a Wiki Fire identity. However, all contributions are anonymous unless that user makes a specific effort to reveal his/her identity.
All contributions are considered "fair use" according to a Creative Commons license (check The Wiki Fire for more information on this license).
It launched May 5 and operates from an off-campus site owned by Web hosting company Dreamhost. It costs $120 per year to operate. We are attempting to create a not-for-profit organization for the site to operate through. Once this is established, the site will be supported by donations.
Since its launching, I have done nearly nothing to advertise the site. However, as of 12:30 p.m. May 22, there have been 63,010 page views, 5,040 edits and 658 articles which the site considers "legitimate" content (basically, more than a sentence or two). Many alumni have joined in the collaboration, too.
The site launched with a core group of about 10 users who took on responsibilities of "editors". However, the Knox community has embraced the good nature and honor code they are so familiar with and have watched over the positive goal of the encyclopedia. Of those 5,040 edits, I would estimate that fewer than 30 have been of questionable intent, and fewer than 10 have been obviously malicious. In each of these cases, either the editors or another Knox community member has removed the content within minutes of its creation.
We were very aware that the first pages people would want to create would be about their friends and professors. We also realized that comments about people or groups of people have the most potential to hurt our community members, which is explicitly contrary to the site's intent. Because of these concerns, we have written a Policy on people (available on the site). We have also taken special care to monitor those pages carefully.
I would like to stress that very few malicious edits have been made. Our community understands and respects it's fellow members. This is why The Wiki Fire has been so successful in its first weeks in operation. And I believe it will only get better.
So, I would encourage all of you to read and participate in the site. Keep in mind that the content is still young, and many pages do not contain much more than inside jokes. But these pages will only become more useful and entertaining as time goes on.
Thank you, and feel free to ask me any questions you might have.
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Tom Fucoloro
Editor-In-Chief - The Knox Student
Founder - Big Muddy Records LLC
Founder - TheWikiFire.org
tfucolor@knox.edu
314-497-4343
