User:Jstoddard2113/sandbox

Jordan Stoddard (born 1 October 1989) is an American student at Michigan State University, collections assistant at the Michigan State University Museum, cinephile, music snob, video game enthusiast, and black hole of random knowledge. This last characteristic can most likely be attributed to his excessive use of the popular free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Through this knowledge stockpile, Jordan has been catapulted from random trivia repository to a "can't tell me nothing" know-it-all.

Wikipedia and Jordan
While its difficult to trace exactly when Jordan Stoddard’s first Wikipedia visit was, it can be estimated that it was somewhere between the years 2004 and 2006. It was in this time period, at St. Johns High School, where Jordan first recalls using the online encyclopedia to gather general information concerning the World's Religions for an assignment in one of Mr. Stukey’s world history classes. One thing that is for certain however, is that from this experimentation was born an obsession. Jordan fell in love with Wikipedia because its information is... It is because of these reasons that Wikipedia has replaced the function of multiple other media outlets in Jordan's life. Eight years ago Jordan would have used Myspace for information about bands, ESPN for sports rosters, and Gamespot for video game information. Now, Wikipedia satisfies all of those needs in one place. Moreover, Jordan Stoddard is a History major at MSU. Therefore he is always looking for the why behind people, places, and events and the interconnectedness of people, places, and events. Wikipedia supplements this search by providing answers to many of these questions.
 * Free, uniform, and user friendly.
 * Generally reviewed for facts and content. (Despite this Jordan has asserted, "It is still important to take information with a grain of salt and a critical eye in order access content validity and accuracy.")

For Example
It is difficult to illustrate the complexity of this Wikipedia obsession with out a proper example. Say Jordan is watching the United State Men's National Soccer Team play a World Cup 2014 Qualifying match against Jamaican National Team. He would have his laptop open to both teams Wikipedia pages. Now, because these pages are updated quite frequently each team has a current roster. Jordan clicks through this roster to see where each player plays their club football. He sees Fabian Johnson has been playing frequently for TSG 1899 Hoffenheim in Germany. He wonders where Hoffenheim is, and finds out it is located in Baden-Württemberg Southern Germany after visiting its page. From here he sees that Baden-Württemberg has a notable Oktoberfest! This gets Jordan thinking about the Old Town Oktoberfest coming up in Lansing and he is compelled to read the historical timeline of Old Town. At this point Jordan realizes that he's missed a spectacular goal by Herculez Gomez and he returns to the game.

2012 Wikipedia Blackout...The Turning Point!
Although Jordan had been using Wikipedia for years, it was not until 2012 that he realized just how integral this outlet is to his daily life. On January 18, 2012 during the protests against SOPA and PIPA, Wikipedia instituted a 24 hour blackout! The site recieved over 162 million visits on that day, with at least 10 being from Jordan Stoddard himself. Throughout the day he would almost take out his laptop almost in a second-nature manner to look something up only to be met, each time by the blacked-out site. Wikipedia's 24 hour blackout not only brought awareness of the dangers of these government oversteps to millions, it brought awareness of a dependence to a 22 year old Jordan Stoddard in East Lansing, Michigan.

Implications and Conclusions

 * Wikipedia lends its information stores to the ever-active mind of Jordan Stoddard, supplementing characteristic traits already found within himself.
 * Jordan has become almost entirely dependent on the fast, reliable information offered by Wikipedia.