Press kit/Wikimania 2007/Misc.
FILLER (ComProj's Success Stories - How has Wikimedia Changed your Life?)
"I spend part of my free time each day revising and expanding Wikipedia's coverage of dinosaurs, working within Wikipedia:WikiProject Dinosaurs. My work editing Wikipedia's dinosaur images helped me land a more lucrative job". - Wikipedia User and Professional
"I have a child who was born with a rare medical condition, a teratoma. I began reading English Wikipedia while searching for technical information relevant to my child's condition. By following interwiki links to other language wikipedia, I discovered the existence of a clinical research consortium in Germany that leads the world in knowledge about teratoma. I found much information that I needed on Wikipedia, and much elsewhere too. My notes grew and grew. Then one day I began to edit wikipedia pages as a means of organizing my notes. Then I helped to found a support group for parents of babies and children with teratoma and other kinds of germ cell tumor, TFD" - Wikipedia User and Parent
"...I think the philosophy that underlies Wikipedia, and all the other MediaWiki-based web resources, gives me an opportunity to discuss with my students how information per se can be evaluated for accuracy, recency, and completeness. Also, my students have come to understand that, while allowing anyone to edit any page on Wikipedia can have some obvious disadvantages, one of the huge advantages is that Wikipedia is currently, by far, the most comprehensive encyclopedia ever created. And, it is totally free to anyone with an Internet connection." Wikipedia User and Teacher
"I used Wikipedia extensively when writing several papers for my high school classes including Freshman year biology. After my freshman year, I was asked to move all the way up to College biology because of the knowledge, versatility and writing skills I had shown in my papers. I believe some of that success is only due to Wikipedia and its subsidiaries. Without it, I would not have even achieved such an honor of only being a second year high school student and being placed in a post-secondary school science class. I have now finished that class with honors as well and have even received the highest possible grade achievable in that class" Wikipedia User and Student
"My son, in 4th grade here in California, was assigned a research report on the California Gold Rush...Of course, my son read the Wikipedia California Gold Rush page. It had a paragraph on the routes, but it didn't include the route through Mexico. It did point us to a detailed article on the California Trail. Because it was rather limited about the routes, my son added a sentence about the route through Mexico and added the Map to the Wikimedia Commons and added the map to the article and added a link to the collection of maps on the topic. Now 4th graders doing the same project will be able to find that same wonderful primary source. It's actually somewhat rare that a 4th grader has a primary source like the map, so it's quite a nice little legacy to leave behind. Actually, I don't remember having anything as cool as that to study when I was in school. It's quite remarkable when I think about it." Wikipedia User and Father.