My dad was wikipedia

For most of my life my dad has been my wikipedia. Long before it existed, anything I had a question about, I could ask him and be assured to either be given an insightful answer, or a logically thought out answer that amazingly always seemed to be correct. I think this is the basis for the constant curiosity that still exists in myself.

When you can ask why about everything and be given an answer, it only leads to more why’s. An analogy to the academics dilemma. The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. I had a never-ending stream of why’s and a never-ending stream of answers. Looking back I find this to be one of the greatest influences in my life thus far.

The killer feature of wikipedia will be when it can understand my questions and provide insight into them. Searching and link-following are great and all, but the inherent context matching of intelligence that can be provided by a real live human is unmatched by computer.



Hey there! I'm Eric and I work on communities in the world of software documentation. Feel free to email me if you have comments on this post!