While exercising I watched a PBS special, "Michael Feinstein's American Songbook," because I enjoyed his singing and piano playing, the old World War II songs, Gershwin and other eras of music. As for the content of the program, it is astounding how much memorabilia the artist and many others have collected related to American music history. Sheet music by the tons, recordings of radio programs, recordings of WW II presentations heard only by our troops and then spirited away, video and tape recordings are in abundance in folks' personal and professional collections. People have built and arranged entire rooms to house such items of American music history.
Looking up Michael Feinstein in Wikipedia, I thought surely a person's bio would be straightforward, cut-and-dried, simple. I did find factual and pertinent information and even mention of many of the topics in the television special. But a visit to the Discussion tab revealed substantive exchanges among people about information appearing in the original post which no longer appears. The Revision History of the wiki was amazing in the length of the list of input by many participants---53 additions, changes or deletions on the first page alone, just dating back to 2009. My understanding of the Wiki dynamic grows by visiting Wikipedia. Since it is "open to the public" for editing, it was quite interesting to examine how the interactive process of a wiki works.
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