A Million Penguins


 

A Million Penguins is a collaborative wiki-novel, where web surfers can contribute a compilation of works to the novel in their own style to create a user driven story. Jeremy Ettinghausen, the Digital Publisher at Penguin UK, started a project in January of 2007 with De Montfort University.

 

 

The Story


The story begins with two main characters, Tony and Carlo, living in separate places on Earth. Tony used to be Carlo's superior, but his life changes after his endless suspicious that his wife is cheating on him comes to the forefront. Eventually, his wife becomes disgusted with the accusations and leaves him permanently. After she leaves, Tony's personality changes dramatically causing less than desirable behavior (smoking, mood swings, etc.).

 

 

Criticism


Although many have put forth efforts to make the story function properly, excessive editing has brought forth unwanted vandalism. Furthermore, this excessive editing combined with rampant profanity forced the owner of the website to shut it down on March 7, 2007.

 

Some of the dramatic story changes that took place related to to drugs, sex, and violence. To an extent, criticism on the ownership of the storyline as more and more of the content has been edited and added has created some degree of controversy. This controversy led some members to request that Penguin Books LTD close the project.

 

 

References


 

Links


 

 

(Dave: This page needs a lot more work, right now it is only a stub. Connect it to the ideas in the course, also provide link and references.)