What is VIPipedia all about?

VIPipedia is a shared community resource written by and for people with sight loss. The idea behind it is that whenever a bunch of people with vision impairment get togeter, say in the pub, it's not long before the conversation turns to questions like "how do you organise your wardrobe?", "what's the easiest way to peel vegetables?" or "how do you get to the Customer Service desk in Connolly Station?". As conversation flows amongst such a group, everyone chimes in and suddenly we have this huge pool of knowledge which is great while you're all in the pub and the beer is flowing. Problem is that next morning, as well as having a wicked hangover, you've forgotten everything that you heard the previous night and all these questions remain in your head, unanswered. Not only that, but antone who wasn't in the pub with you will have missed all that great information and advice (and beer).

The solution is to record it all, or rather to create a space where anyone can record it and anyone else can read it. That's what a wiki is all about. But there's more. Because it's a wiki, anyone can edit any of the artices in it. So if you are reading something and you think "there's something I could add to that" or "that advice is out of date and useless", then you can just extend it or rewrite it yourself. So, hopefully the information will remain up to date, relevant and written in the best way by the people who know. It doesn't always work like that of course, but it works well enough to be incredibly useful.