Review of the Fable Wiki

Hello hello hello from The Internet Explorer.

Today's review is about the Fable Wiki.

Fable is an extremely popular video game, allowing the player to be extravagantly evil to extraordinarily good. It has a large amount of quests (both miscellaneous and related to the main quest) and items. The Fable I was first made for Xbox, and Fable II was made for Xbox 360.

The Wiki for Fable is fairly well designed. It includes info for both Fable I and II, as well as adequate Fable I silver chest description, location, and content. There are 1000+ articles on this wiki for Fable I and II combined.

One excellent thing about this wiki is its (almost) equal attention to each game. Just because Fable II is the new "shinie", the Wikians have not abandoned the older (and in The Internet Explorer's opinion, better) game. This is admirable.

Bit of juicy statistics:

Page statistics
Content pages	1,028
Pages (All pages in the wiki, including talk pages, redirects, etc.)	5,006
Uploaded files	508
Edit statistics
Page edits since The Fable Wiki was set up	24,575
Average edits per page	4.91
Job queue length	4

The Internet Explorer rates this site

Three and a Half Stars * * * 1/2


Join The Internet Explorer next time for a review of the Spore wiki!

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Review of the Lego Star Wars Wiki

Aloha from The Internet Explorer!

Today's review is about the Lego Star Wars wiki.

Lego Star Wars is a very popular video game, especially amongst Star Wars nerds. Its wiki isn't bad, either. It has a good layout, and a respectable amount of articles (540+). However, the episodes in the game do not have walkthroughs for the searching player. The sections contain only the names of actual Star Wars Lego sets.

There is a section that contains the names and appearance dates of characters (e.g., Yoda). Most of the articles are stubs, and do need cleanup. But considering the popularity of the game, and how quickly the wikia has grown, it is likely that the LSW Wiki will have a growth spurt soon enough.

There's a bit of actual Star Wars story in here, though there is an exuberance of stubs. For people who aren't very savvy about the whole plot in Star Wars and just bought the game for fun, there's little here that will interest you. There's a small forum and chat room, but the actual Star Wars wiki is much better. If you're wanting to undertake a huge remodeling task, sign up here and start writing!

A bit of statistics:

Page statistics
Content pages	546
Pages (All pages in the wiki, including talk pages, redirects, etc.)	2,019
Uploaded files	431
Edit statistics
Page edits since Lego Star Wars Wiki was set up	10,754
Average edits per page	5.33
Job queue length	0

There's a million and a half users, but 10 users have been active in the past 30 days. Sad.

Overall, The Internet Explorer rates this site

Two and A Half Stars * * 1/2

Thanks for reading! Join The Internet Explorer next time for a review of the Fable wiki!

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The Internet Explorer

Review of the Sims Wiki

'Greetins all!

The Internet Explorer hopes you all survived Monday.

Today, The Internet Explorer is reviewing The Sims Wiki.


The Sims Wiki is an wiki for Sims players (go figure). It's fairly similar to the traditional Wiki format, except for the colorful plumbob green. The buttons are the same as the Wiki template, but with additions for cheats and individual Sims games.

Since each Sims game has its own page, possible confusion is at a minimum. However, at the home pages for the Sims 1 and 3, the search item layout is an annoyance. There is no homepage as there is for the Sims 2, only sections with the articles pertaining to 1 and 3. It's blatantly obvious that the Wiki was written by Sims 2 lovers, due to the huge amount of TLC attributed to the Sims 2 homepage. Nothing wrong with that, but the Wiki would be nicer with equal attention devoted to each game.

Each expansion for each game is discussed adequately (yet almost better on Wikipedia) with again, extra attention to the Sims 2.

At the bottom there are some rather unusual features, including rating the article and who last edited the article. The Internet Explorer is a bit unsure what the rating feature is for, though.

A glimpse of statistics from the Sims Wiki:

Page statistics
Content pages	3,032
Pages (All pages in the wiki, including talk pages, redirects, etc.)	14,405
Uploaded files	4,100
Edit statistics
Page edits since The Sims Wiki was set up	75,458
Average edits per page	5.24
Job queue length	20

The Internet Explorer rates this site

Two Stars * *


Thanks for reading! Join The Internet Explorer next time as it reviews the Lego Star Wars wiki! Stay tuned for more!

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The Internet Explorer

Review of UESP Wiki

Good morning to you all! Happy Monday.

The topic of the week is going to be Game Wikis, wikis for computer and console games.

The formalities finished, The Internet Explorer shall review UESP Wiki today!



The UESP Wiki (or the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages) is a wiki for the popular, open-ended RPG Elder Scrolls series. The series includes Arena (I), Daggerfall (II), Morrowind (my favorite, and III), and the latest, Oblivion (IV). The series is mainly popular for having no strict story line. It's one of the biggest RPGs ever, and the last two Elder Scrolls series have expansion packs.

The wiki itself has a very user-friendly layout. Recently, there have been a few outages, but those are mainly because of the database server.

The Internet Explorer is not a big fan of wikis, mostly because of the unreliability of the information. However, the UESP Wiki is run by fans of the game, and that contributes to the quality of the information. Each of the Elder Scrolls series has its own section, decreasing possible confusion of games.

A snippet from the UESP's statistics page:

Page statistics
Content pages	15,849
Pages (All pages in the wiki, including talk pages, redirects, etc.)	63,400
Uploaded files	12,970
Edit statistics
Page edits since UESPWiki was set up	467,231
Average edits per page	7.37
Job queue length	0
User statistics
Registered users	22,072
Active users (Users who have performed an action in the last 28 days)	292

The Internet Explorer rates this site

Four and a half stars * * * * 1/2

Join The Internet Explorer next time for a review of the Sims Wiki, a wiki for (drumroll) the extremely popular Sims series!

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The Internet Explorer

Belated Review of ArticlesBase

Aloha from The Internet Explorer! Sorry if the post is a bit late.

This week's topic has been Making Money Through Writing Articles. The last post before the weekend (The Internet Explorer is off on the weekends, folks) is going to be about Articlesbase.

Articlesbase is a combination of Ezine and eHow. It doesn't have strict limitations like Ezine, but focuses also on the authors, too. It's also somewhat Knol-like, keeping things on a casual level (e.g., 5 Funny Love Poems). If you spend enough time and carefully choose your keywords, you'll certainly find a few gems.

Each category has its own subcategories, making things a bit easier to navigate. There are quite a few off-topic articles in each category (Looking in the Antiques sub-section, I found an article about modern diesel engines). This can get a bit annoying for someone who's used to crisp, clean, and strict categories and search results.

Again, writing an article allows you to make money with AdSense, promote your website, and gain some repute among the throngs of amateur writers.

From ArticleBase's website under the "Why should I submit Articles?" section:

he benefits of submitting articles to ArticlesBase:

1. Free advertising:
Your author bio box is your tool to promote your own website and personal brand that can be used to gain unlimited visitors to your website. Remember, the people who read your article will want to read more about the same topic that you have written about, so be sure to send them to more content on the same topic.

2. Viral marketing:
RSS can be a gold mine. RSS feeds are so popular today that you can gain an amazing amount of traffic by simply submitting just one article in a directory. You publish one article to a directory and that same article can begin appearing on countless other websites. This technology is called RSS (Really Simple Syndication). The power of RSS is simply amazing and there are many big websites that can post your article on their website resulting in a flood of site visitors.

3. Boost your personal and business credibility:
Publishing your articles on ArticlesBase.com boosts your credibility and begins the trust cycle with your readership. For many authors, being listed with ArticlesBase.com is an excellent way to get started, especially if you are hoping to be a published author.

4. Bring traffic to your site:
The distribution of your article can result in anyone reading it. This alone gives you an opportunity to pick up business that you couldn't even begin to market for. Imagine if your article about technology was posted on a business website or business article directory. Now the potential for business executives to be swayed by your writing ability and buy your product for their company to use is unlimited.

5. Generate sales and leads without having a site:
Even if you do not own a website, having an article online can act as your website. Just make sure your article is well written and doesn't sound too commercial. Your article can be an example of your business and can include contact information like your email address to allow potential clients to reach you. Again, make sure you have completed your bio to let people know who you are.

6. Massive exposure to millions of ArticlesBase visitors:
Your articles can be viewed by the millions of visitors who visit ArticlesBase every month. Once you get one reader, you can convert him into a fan by posting many articles on ArticlesBase.

7. Reach the unreachables
Submit articles to ArticlesBase and reach those customers who you couldn’t reach before. The more quality articles you have, the more likely those readers are to come to your website.

8. Get continuous traffic to your website – for years
We don’t remove articles that have been submitted to ArticlesBase, which means that your articles can continue to bring traffic to your site for years to come. Your articles may get picked up and reprinted years later – the possibilities are endless.

9. Join one of the fastest growing sites on the web
ArticlesBase grew tenfold just last year! That means more readers for you and more opportunities for exposure.

10. Become part of a great community
The ArticlesBase community is very supportive and diverse. Your audience can easily reach you, but without giving up your privacy. We will soon begin rolling out many new community features that will make it even easier for you to interact with your readers and fellow writers.

11. The best article statistics on the web
ArticlesBase has the most extensive statistics you can find on the web. Use your statistics to better target your audience, for example by seeing what search terms brought people to your article.

Start submitting your articles by opening up your free author account and agreeing to our terms of service.

We do not charge for article publication or pay for content submitted. We run advertising on our site to help us keep the site running free of charge.


Overall, this is a more casual posting website than EZine, and recommended for beginners who want to get their feet wet. But for a more advanced affiliate marketer, advertiser, or writer, this is not the way to go.


The Internet Explorer rates this site

Two Stars * *

Join The Internet Explorer next week for a new, surprise topic. Happy weekend, everyone!

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The Internet Explorer

Ezine Articles

Salutations from The Internet Explorer!

Today, the reviewed site of the day is EzineArticles.


Ezine is another site where you can submit your articles and make money. However, Ezine is stricter than RedGage, eHow, or Knol. You have to submit your articles to the eHow base, which will in turn review them. The standards are slightly more rigid, and don't expect your articles to be reviewed immediatly-- it's likely to take 2-3 weeks.

However, if you get accepted, the payoff's fairly nice. Ezine's a higher caliber place with stricter moderators. They have a blog, forum, and sell ridiculously expensive items to help you write articles well.

From their editorial guidelines:

These editorial guidelines are designed to help you understand what we accept and don't accept for inclusion in our article database. Before you submit to our site, we would appreciate if you would please read this page first.

1. EzineArticles.com Editorial Guidelines: (CONTENT QUALIFICATIONS)
   
   
To Be Qualified For Our Site, Your Article:


• MUST BE AN ORIGINAL ARTICLE THAT YOU WROTE. If you work for an author as an employee or contractor and are submitting the article, please submit the article as if it was from the original author including his or her email address and name.
  
  
• MUST NOT BE AN ARTICLE YOU RIPPED-OFF FROM THE PUBLIC DOMAIN OR BOUGHT (PLR). If you did hire a ghost writer to write your articles, you MUST have an EXCLUSIVE LICENSE that *only* allows your name to be associated with the articles produced for you. Do not waste your time or ours by buying article packs that have non-exclusive licenses as we reject those articles. Why do we do this? #1) It makes you look like a fraud because you're putting your name on someone else's works that already may have hundreds or thousands of other authors who already put their name on the exact same works and #2) we do not want more than one copy of any article in our directory.
  
  
• MUST BE informative and share your unique expertise. Include tips, strategies, techniques, case-studies, analysis, opinions and commentary in your articles. We do not accept articles that contain more than 5 lines of quoted or sourced material.
  
  
• MUST NOT be a press release, advertisement, sales letter, promotional copy, or blatant and excessive self-promotion or hype.
  
  
• MUST HAVE proper English, spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization and sentence structure. While we know there is a variation in what is considered "proper English," we ask that you at least be consistent within your article. Your article must also be proofed and double checked for accuracy. If English is your second language, we strongly suggest that you have it proofed by someone who has English as their native tongue before submitting your articles to us.
  
  
• SIMPLE PUNCTUATION RULES: One or two spaces after each period, colon, or semi-colon; Periods should be inside of quotes; When doing "..." -- you should use only 3 dots minimum and maximum; When using dashes, use two in a row, ex: "--"; There is never a space BEFORE a period or BEFORE a comma.
  
  
• MUST NOT contain: pornography/adult material, hate or violence-oriented, suggest racial intolerance, advocate against any individual or group, have insulting, obscene, degrading tone, or contain profanity.
  
  
• MUST NOT contain information on: Hacking/cracking content, bomb creation, support for terrorism/ radicalism/ religious fanaticism, illicit drugs or drug paraphernalia, steroid use or advocacy, weapon/ firearms/ ammunition/ balisongs/ butterfly knives or brass knuckles, or the promotion of hard alcohol/tobacco-related products or prescription drugs.
  
  
• MUST NOT contain information that promotes: Term papers or essays for sale to college students, PLR (Private Label Rights) articles as a good thing (it's not), the promotion of email Safe-Lists as a good thing (it's not) or bulk email spamming as a good thing (it's not), advocacy for paid auto-surf programs as a good thing (it's not), advocacy of click fraud or clicking on Adsense ads as a good thing (it's not), advocacy of creating MFA's (Made For Adsense) sites as a good strategy (it's not), or advocacy of Adsense Arbitrage (this policy is created to protect our advertisers interests).
  
  
• MUST NOT contain any content that is a violation of any law, be considered defamatory, libelous, or infringes on the legal rights of others.
  
  
• MUST NOT be a submission of the exact same article as one that you already submitted. Some authors have submitted the same article multiple times with only a few words changed in the body -- we reject these and ban authors who engage in this practice.
  
  
• MUST NOT include a reply to a personal email, letter or other correspondence.
  
  
• MUST NOT contain excessive and/or bolded keywords/ phrases. Bolding is limited to headings and subheadings.

If you're looking for a higher-caliber article sharing site, go with Ezine. If you're just messing around with the moneymaking side of article sharing, try Knol or eHow instead.


The Internet Explorer rates this site

Three Stars * * *

Thanks for reading! Join The Internet Explorer next time for a review of articlesbase, another article sharing site fairly similar to eHow.



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The Internet Explorer

RedGage

The Internet Explorer greets you all. It has decided to review RedGage today.


RedGage is a multi-media-sharing site that allows you to upload and share your documents, videos, links, blogs, and photos with everyone. But the neat part is that you can make money whenever people visit your links, watch your videos, etc. An account is free, and it is fairly fast to start uploading. The Internet Explorer had some difficulties at first, but after awhile, RedGage became easy to use.


From RedGage's Site:

What is RedGage?

RedGage is a first-of-its-kind web site that pays people for their online content and monetizes their social activity. It’s a centralized hub where you can earn money for all the things you’re already doing online at places like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and Blogger. RedGage pays based on the value of your content, measured by page views/popularity. It aggregates from other sites so you don’t even have to regularly visit RedGage.

RedGage has redefined socializing and creating projects on the web by paying you for all of your blogs, pictures, videos, documents, and links. You will not only be able to create a stronger web identity, but will also have the opportunity to host, navigate, and review a wide variety of projects.

Why is RedGage Unique?

At RedGage, we realize that it’s you, the user, who makes our site worthwhile by creating and sharing all of your great content. For the first time, by using RedGage, you are able to manage all of your online videos, blogs, posts, documents, links and photos in a single location, AND have the opportunity to get paid for your content. If you manage several social media accounts, RedGage provides a one-stop destination that will automatically import your new content, so no manual work is required to earn money. By using RedGage, you can make money for what you are already doing online.

After using RedGage for a little while, the Internet Explorer rates it

3 1/2 Stars * * * .5

Join The Internet Explorer next time for a review of Ezine Articles, a higher-caliber article sharing site.

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The Internet Explorer

eHow

The Internet Explorer wishes you a happy Tuesday! Chug down that coffee!


Today, The Internet Explorer has decided to review eHow, a site that has walkthroughs and guides on just about everything from gardening to fixing your computer to brewing a better cup of tea.


eHow is a huge site that includes thousands of how-to-do articles. Since many people search the internet for all kinds of information, eHow shows up in many Google searches. For example, "How do I treat a mosquito bite?" From this example, you can see that eHow includes a few multimedia features. eHow is somewhat similar to Knol (see previous post) in that it runs the gamut of explanatory articles.

You can also earn money from eHow! After writing articles, users can "earn money based on article performance." This makes the effort of writing articles more appealing. Everyone wants to make money, and what better way to make money than from your very own home?

eHow also has a blog, a Twitter URL, and a MySpace.

A clip from the "How to Write an eHow Article":

"Pick a topic. Be familiar with the topic because you want to share what you know. People want to learn from the best, so you should be the best--or at least have enough experience to teach others. When coming up with the topic, think about your hobbies and interests; your best articles will come from there."


The Internet Explorer rates this site

Three Stars * * *


Join the Internet Explorer next time for a site review of RedGage, a multimedia sharing site.


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The Internet Explorer

Review of Knol

As this new blog kicks off, the Internet Explorer has one thing to say.

Knol.

The Internet Explorer has decided to review Knol, and you're going to have to deal with it.



Knol (knol.google.com/k) is a half blog, half E-Zine Articles site, where you can post your knowledge for everyone to share. It's a fairly new site, starting a short time ago. A few bugs are still in the works, occasionally making Knol slow, malfunctioning, etc.

But the biggest con is that Knol is only for Gmail users. You have to have a Google account to write, edit, comment or review knols. (Viewing is for anyone, though.) But it's worth getting an account.

You can share your knowledge and gain some too. You can make some money by putting Ad-Sense on your knols. You can share your books and articles with friends, all easily on Knol.


Overall, The Internet Explorer rates this site

4 Stars * * * *


Join the Internet Explorer tomorrow for a review of eHow, a how-to-do-everything site.

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The Internet Explorer

Welcome to the Internet Explorer

Hello everyone, welcome to the brand-new blog: The Internet Explorer. The Internet Explorer will explore various sites and show its reviews here. Check back daily for the latest scoop, and request reviews of sites with comments.