A Wiki Interlude

Everyone uses Wikipedia. I depend on it for all sorts of things, from the names of obscure anti-popes to figuring out if there really is a Foucault's Pendulum (apparently there are several scattered around the globe). But I've never really thought about contributing to the entries: the world seems full of really knowledgeable people who are most willing to spend hours either churning out information or copying it from existing sources.
But of course, that all changed when I embarked on reading John Gower's Confessio Amantis, a longish Middle English poem that has lived in the shadow of the Canterbury Tales (like how Pound's Cantos have lived in the shadow of Eliot's Wasteland), over the weekend. There's already a decent entry on Wikipedia but I've decided to get in on the fun by listing the various 'tales' that appear in the poem. I'm sure the information is readily available in books or elsewhere on the Internet. But the redeeming illusion that we're contributing to something when the object of study doesn't immediately turn in a profit or change a life, is always comforting.