Are the Beeb Jumping on Our Wiki Bandwagon ?

I’ve just been over to the BBC official Mastermind site to check out this week’s subjects for the wiki challenge. They are: -

The Titanic
The American Revolutionary War
East German Athletics 1976-1988
John Peel's Festive Fifties.

I’ll say more about the subjects in a moment or two. However, what intrigued me was this. Underneath the subjects on the programme details section of the programme information, it says this : -

” Why not see how many questions you can answer from this week’s subjects?

Then it gives a list of web sources for information about the subjects, eg._Encyclopedia Titanica - titanica.org
Titanic: The Unsinkable Ship - britannica.com

and so on. Is it me, or are the BBC here offering their own version of the wiki challenge ? Which they obviously couldn’t call the wiki challenge, what with advertising Wikipedia and the like. In which case I tend to feel rather flattered to see them picking up on an idea which maybe was first formalized here on LAM, but had its origins in a comment from our own Lisa Hermann, namely , that she’d found in some Mastermind specialist subjects you can find up to 10 answers to questions on the subject’s Wikipedia page.

Well, whatever the case, whether they have been inspired by our own wiki challenge, or whether it’s pure coindicence, here’s my feelings on Friday’s subjects.

I’ll certainly be having a go unwikied on The Titanic. I really fancy a punt at the murky world of East German Athletics 1976 – 88. Which leaves John Peel’s Festive Fifties, about which I have no idea, and the American Revolutionary War, about which I don’t know as much as I’d like. Wiki time is short for me this week, but I could certainly read them over if nothing else. If you want to have a look at the sites the BBC give you for sources on any or all of the subjects, then follow this link : -

BBC Mastermind Programme 13