Clicking onto local news
Oct 9 2008 by Crista Ermiya, The Journal
WHAT do Lewis Carroll, Newcastle Falcons, Viv Graham and Nico Papavasiliou have in common?
They all feature as topics on new website www.wikinortheast.co.uk – launched by The Journal’s parent company, ncjmedia.
The new site is a contemporary online archive about the North East of England, covering Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, County Durham and Teesside, as well as some parts of North Yorkshire and Cumbria.
A wiki is a collaborative website that allows users to create and edit content -– Wikipedia is a well known example – and you can add what you know about the region to our new site.
The aim is to create an ongoing, up-to-date encyclopaedic reference tool for the North East of England, written by people from, or with a connection to, the region.
The idea came after a Dragons’ Den-style competition, won by ncjmedia web developer Louise Midgley, 28, of Whitley Bay, North Tyneside.
Louise realised that there were more than 12 years worth of digital archives documenting the North East’s events and people that were going unused.
The digital archive dates back to 1995 and includes articles from The Journal, the Evening Chronicle, the Sunday Sun as well as past publications like the Gateshead Post and the Pink.
But more importantly, the interactive nature of a wiki site would provide a space where users can also contribute what they know.
So on www.wikinortheast.co.uk you’re just as likely to read about County Durham Chess Grandmaster Danny Gormally as Alan Shearer. Cardinal Basil Hume rubs shoulders with Stan Laurel, while Teesside athlete Tanni Grey-Thompson races alongside the Jarrow Arrow Steve Cram.
All this comes with the added bonus of being able to share your own knowledge of a topic with others. So if you think we’ve got the date wrong for Gareth Southgate’s birthday, or there’s a past art exhibition at the Baltic that should have its own permanent write-up, you can fix this.
The archive is arranged into seven channels: Art & Culture, Business, Environment, History & Heritage, Regional Affairs, Science & Technology and Sport. Each category includes sub-topics of People, Places and Events.
There’s an easy-to-use search box on the site, where you can type in keywords for topics you’re interested in.
If a topic hasn’t yet been created on the site, the search will still give you relevant articles from the archive, so there will always be something for you to read. And of course, you can create the missing topic yourself.
Wikinortheast.co.uk is an archive site to which anyone can contribute – all you need is a valid email address. More information at www.wikinortheast.co.uk
