Newswise — For once, students are writing the textbook, and the textbook is a Web site, and the subject matter includes tree climbing, registering to vote, and "your mom."
In another era, it might sound like an elaborate prank. But at a time when Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia edited by its readers, is fast growing in popularity, Williams College students' creation of "Willipedia," which uses identical software, seems as natural to today's college students as downloading music (legally, of course). Willipedia has had more than 1,600 pages in the data base and had more than 500,000 page views since its inception last May.
Of the 300-odd pages of content, the "Guide to Fist Pounds," "Guide to Off-Campus Dining" and "Easy Classes" are among the most popular. There are also pages devoted to sports teams, summer internships, campus DJs, and procrastination. Some of the pages serve as "how to" guides, some as encyclopedia entries, and others are jokes between friends, broadcast to the campus.
In a 14-tree "Guide to Tree-Climbing," a student claims the sugar maple in the Science Quad as a favorite. "There is a nook about 20-feet up where three branches come together which is perfect for sitting in, whether to bask in the sun, take a nap, or do a problem set." But the experience is not always idyllic: "in the spring, one does have to watch out for eastern tent caterpillars that tend to swarm on the branches."
A page titled "Tray Carvings" describes the drawings and messages students have carved into dining hall trays, from mathematical formulas to dozens of references to Wilbur, a fictional student. A page is devoted to extant Wilbur trays, including "Wilbur invaded Poland," "Wilbur worships false idols," "Wilbur sets up false idols" and a redeeming "Wilbur saves the whales."
Williams students are known for their brilliance and sense of humor. (What other college would have a purple cow as its mascot?) Students have double-dealt the "Yo Momma" jokes of grade school, giving mothers and fathers equal time. Willipedia's "Your Mom" includes "The Game of Guess It or How to Bluff Your Mom Out of 30 Grand." "My Dad" one-ups' claims include, "Well, I would like to counter by asserting that my father was and is one of the world's most accomplished sophists. "¦ His insincerity and histrionics are the non pareil."
Students have also started pages about dorms on campus and changes in residential life, as the college moves to a house system in the fall. When rising seniors took part last month in a co-op room draw, which places seniors in off-campus apartments or college-owned houses, a page was created for groups to declare their first choices.
Some pages are devoted to individual students or professors -- even President of the College Morton Owen Schapiro is not immune. On "Stuff Morty Should Definitely Do," students recommend that the president "Splash some crazy colored paint on those black jeans" and "Stay as cool as he is because no other college president knows how to keep it real the way our Morty does." Another student recommends that the president add a bit of bling into his life by using proceeds from the capital campaign "to buy an iced-out medallion in the shape of the new student center to wear around his neck at all times."
Willipedia was begun last summer by Evan Miller, a senior ??? major from ???, and who now sits on its governing board along with Sara Beach, a senior ?? from ??, Ilya Khodosh, a senior ??, Daniel McKenna-Foster, a junior, Diana Davis and Junior, and two alumni Jonathan Landsman '05 and Brent Yorgey '04.
"Now an incomplete guide to Williams," said Miller, "ultimately, we'd like to see Willipedia become a definitive source of information on Williams as it is and as it was." Willipedia can be found at http://wso.williams.edu/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
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