The video about the “heavy metal umlaut” was fascinating to me. There were quite a few things that surprised me while viewing the video. First of all, I had no idea that there was a Wikipedia article solely dedicated to the usage of umlauts in heavy metal bands; it’s such a unique topic! The next surprise occurred when I saw how full the page seemed to be with information. Regardless of whether or not the content is reliable, it’s still astounding to see how much information is poured onto the site.

Obviously, the progression of the Wikipedia page is really interesting to watch. I really enjoyed seeing the process from a short stub of an article into a fuller, richer article that was professionally divided and organized. More specifically, I liked the way the video focussed on a few little themes and traced their progress chronologically. It was interesting to see the development of minuscule subcategories of the article. Another thing that I found interesting was the professionalism the surrounded the article. The fact that an article about the use of umlauts in the names of heavy metal bands was constantly being edited and updated surprised me. Especially the fact that there was a 5 minutes series of vandalism and cleaning up.

I think this goes to say a lot about Wikipedia. I know there is a negative stigma about using Wikipedia because it isn’t a great source for research. However, it is a good starting point in research, seeing as they’ve expanded their references page to include worthy sources and have a relatively new sense of professionalism to their aura.

I’m interested to look back on the history of other weird Wikipedia pages now. I just looked up Loudoun County, Virginia. This is the county that I’ve lived in my whole life. The references for the page are numerous. Here’s a screen shot of the references:

The history of the article is interesting to watch. It seems to have been constantly updated since 2002. The last update, for example, was on the 9th of this month. I like the fact that the article is “live” and still being watched and edited.

When the article was brand new, it was very bland. It only listed very basic statistics, such as geography and demographics. The content and information was only from the year 2000. In terms of organization, the article was loosely arranged and lacked a table of contents.

Today, the article is full and professional looking. I would use this page as a basis or starting point for information or research. However, I would link out to the extensions and references of the page to get more reliable and trustworthy information.