Wikipedia on Facebook

You can now be a fan of Wikipedia on Facebook.

I enjoy this for a couple of reasons. One, that it’s a match made in heaven, as Wikipedia, being a peer-edited encyclopedia, is to social networking demographics what the Oxford English Dictionary is to, you know, everyone else.

But I also love it because the page is written in first-person:

I’m a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project. I’m written collaboratively by volunteers like yourself from all around the world. Since my creation in 2001, I have grown rapidly into the largest reference Web site worldwide…My mission is to bring free knowledge to everyone on the planet.

Not only that, but Wikipedia responds to comments in first person: “Thanks for all the kind words. Please help me to grow and invite your friends to join me here on facebook!”

I keep imagining the interview when Wiki hired someone to monitor their Facebook profile.

“You’ll be posing as the public face of Wikipedia,” one interviewer says.

“Our WikiRep,” the other one says.

“Pretending you’re a real person –”

“A WikiPerson,”

“You’ll maintain our Facebook presence –”

“Our WikiFacebookPresence,”

“To the best of your abilities.”

“Your Wikilities.”

The profile has 290 fans and links to Wiki’s fundraiser.

Of course, that’s not all. You can also check out My Wikipedia, an app that allows you to display Wiki entries on your profile. The default is the entry Wiki chooses as its featured article every day, but you can customize it to display whatever you want, including options for picture of the day and “my contributions.”

There are also more than a few groups hardcore Wiki fans can join, including If Wikipedia Says It, It Must Be True; Everything I ever need to know, I can learn on Wikipedia; and the distressingly-named Wikipedia is helping me get through med school! (Please, please, let my doctor not be treating me based on entries written by a thirteen year old from Duluth.)

You can also check out the video “Facebook and Wikipedia’s Lovechild!” on the “Everything I need to know” group, which is an ad for a different site but starts with an amusing little idea about all the social networking sites going out drinking together.

Wiki, of course, returns the favor, with a comprehensive user-created page about Facebook that includes just about everything you need to know. Naturally.

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