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eat a bowl of sexy ladies, then go out and find a can of beans and pour it on ur face then smile at a girl and tell her u like the color of her eyes..... she will love you. I LIKE POTATOES
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2012}}
{{Infobox website
| name = {{Wiki favicon}} English Wikipedia
| logo = Wikipedia-logo-v2-en.svg
| logo_caption = Logo of the English Wikipedia
| logo_size = 83%
| screenshot = [[File:English Wikipedia screenshot.png|border|300px|alt=The homepage of the English Wikipedia]]
| collapsible = yes
| caption = The homepage of the English Wikipedia
| slogan = The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit
| url = [[Main Page|en.wikipedia.org]]
| commercial = No
| launch date = 15 January 2001
| type = [[Internet encyclopedia]]
| registration = Optional, but required for certain tasks including {{unbulleted list|•{{thinsp|[[protected page]] edit}}|•{{thinsp|page creation}}|•{{thinsp|file upload}}}}
| num_users = {{NUMBEROFUSERS}}
| articles = {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}
| content license = {{nobr|[[Creative Commons licenses|Creative Commons Attribution/<br />Share-Alike]] 3.0}} (most text also dual-licensed under [[GFDL]])<br />Media licensing varies
| owner = [[Wikimedia Foundation]]
| author=[[Jimmy Wales]], [[Larry Sanger]]<ref name=foundercontroversy>There is some controversy over who founded Wikipedia. Wales considers himself to be the sole founder of Wikipedia and has told the ''[[Boston Globe]]'' that "it's preposterous" to call Sanger the co-founder.{{Citation needed|date=February 2015}} However, Sanger strongly contests that description. He was identified as a co-founder of Wikipedia as early as September 2001 and referred to himself as being founder as early as January 2002.{{Citation needed|date=February 2015}}
* {{Cite news|url=http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041206/news_mz1b6encyclo.html|first=Jonathan|last=Sidener|title =Everyone's Encyclopedia|accessdate =15 October 2006|publisher=San Diego Union Tribune|date = 6 December 2004}}
* {{Cite news|first=Peter|last=Meyers|title=Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E5D6123BF933A1575AC0A9679C8B63&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fSubjects%2fC%2fComputer%20Software|work=New York Times|accessdate=15 October 2006|date=20 September 2001}}
* {{cite web|url=http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_and_why_it_matters&oldid=149626|author=Sanger, Larry|title=What Wikipedia is and why it matters|accessdate =12 April 2006|authorlink=Larry Sanger}}</ref>
}}

The '''English Wikipedia''' is the [[English language|English-language]] edition of the free online encyclopedia [[Wikipedia]]. Founded on 15 January 2001 and reaching four million articles during July 2012, it is the first edition of Wikipedia and, as of September 2015, has the most articles of any of the editions (more than twice as many as the next in rank, the [[Swedish Wikipedia]]).<ref>https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias#All_Wikipedias_ordered_by_number_of_articles</ref> As of {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}, nearly {{#expr:({{NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|en}} * 100 / {{NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|total}}) round 1}}% of articles in all Wikipedias belong to the English-language edition. This share has gradually declined from more than 50 percent in 2003, due to the growth of Wikipedias in other languages.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Wikipedias&oldid=520778 |title=List of Wikipedias |author=Wikimedia Meta-Wiki |date=21 September 2008 |accessdate=21 September 2008}}</ref> There are [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}]] articles on the site (live count).<ref>The number of articles on the English Wikipedia is shown by the [[MediaWiki]] variable {{&#123;NUMBEROFARTICLES}}, with all Wikipedias as total {&#123;NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|total&#125;} = {{formatnum:{{NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|total}}}}.</ref> In December 2012, the combined text of the English Wikipedia's articles totaled roughly 9.7 [[gigabyte]]s.<ref>[http://www.webpronews.com/download-wikipedia-in-english-all-9-7gb-of-it-2012-04 "Download Wikipedia In English – All 9.7GB Of It"]. 9 April 2012. Retrieved 2012-04-10.</ref>{{update inline|reason=over 2 years since last count|date=January 2015}}

The [[Simple English Wikipedia]] is a variation, with most of the articles using only basic English vocabulary. There is also the [[Old English|Old English (Ænglisc/Anglo-Saxon)]] Wikipedia ([[:ang:Hēafodtramet|angwiki]]).

== Pioneering edition ==

The English Wikipedia was the first Wikipedia edition and has remained the largest. It has pioneered many ideas as conventions, policies or features which were later adopted by some of the other-language Wikipedia editions. These ideas include "featured articles",<ref>{{cite web | url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_articles&oldid=104207677 | title=Featured articles | author=English Wikipedia | date=30 January 2007 | accessdate=30 January 2007}}</ref>
the neutral-point-of-view policy,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view&oldid=103033132 | title=Neutral point of view | author=English Wikipedia | date=25 January 2007 | accessdate=30 January 2007}}</ref> navigation templates,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Template&oldid=520481 | title=Help:Template | author=Wikimedia Meta-Wiki | date=29 January 2007 | accessdate=30 January 2007}}</ref>
the sorting of short "stub" articles into sub-categories,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting&oldid=101829026 | title=WikiProject Stub sorting | author=English Wikipedia | date=19 January 2007 | accessdate=30 January 2007}}</ref> [[dispute resolution]] mechanisms such as mediation and arbitration,<ref>{{cite web | url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes&oldid=103577785 | title=Resolving disputes | author=English Wikipedia | date=27 January 2007 | accessdate=30 January 2007}}</ref>
and weekly collaborations.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Article_Creation_and_Improvement_Drive&oldid=104243512|title=Article Creation and Improvement Drive|author=English Wikipedia|date=30 January 2007|accessdate=30 January 2007}}</ref>

The English Wikipedia has adopted features from Wikipedias in other languages. These features include verified revisions from the German Wikipedia ([[:de:Wikipedia:Hauptseite|dewiki]]) and town population-lookup templates from the [[Dutch Wikipedia]] ([[:nl:Hoofdpagina|nlwiki]]).

Although the English Wikipedia stores images and audio files, as well as text files, many of the images have been moved to [[Wikimedia Commons]] with the same name, as passed-through files. However, the English Wikipedia also has [[fair-use]] images and audio/video files (with copyright restrictions), most of which are not allowed on Commons.

Many of the most active participants in the [[Wikimedia Foundation]], and the developers of the [[MediaWiki]] software that powers Wikipedia, are English Wikipedia users.

== Users and editors ==

<center>
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|+ '''English Wikipedia statistics'''
|-
! Number of user accounts !! Number of articles !! Number of files !!Number of administrators
|-
| {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} || {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} || {{NUMBEROFFILES}} || {{NUMBEROFADMINS}}
|}
</center>

The English Wikipedia reached 4,000,000 registered user accounts on 1 April 2007,<ref name="4,564,000">[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-04-02/News and notes]]. Retrieved 20 April 2007</ref> just a little over a year since it had crossed a threshold of 1,000,000 registered user accounts in late February 2006.<ref name="1,000,000">[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-02-27/News and notes]]. Retrieved 20 April 2007</ref>

Over 800,000 editors have edited Wikipedia more than 10 times.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm#wikipedians |title=Wikipedia Statistics - Tables - English |publisher=Stats.wikimedia.org |accessdate=2013-08-08}}</ref> 300,000 editors edit Wikipedia every month{{Citation needed|date=September 2014}}; of these, over 30,000 perform more than 5 edits per month, and a little over 3,000 perform more than 100 edits per month.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm#activitylevels |title=Wikipedia Statistics - Tables - English |publisher=Stats.wikimedia.org |accessdate=2013-08-08}}</ref> By 24 November 2011, a total of 500 million edits had been performed on the English Wikipedia.{{Citation needed|date=May 2012}}

As the largest Wikipedia edition, and because English is such a widely used language, the English Wikipedia draws many users and editors whose [[native language]] is not English. Such users may seek information from the English Wikipedia rather than the Wikipedia of their native language because the English Wikipedia tends to contain more information about general subjects. Successful collaborations have developed between non-native English speakers who add content to the English Wikipedia and native English speakers who act as copyeditors for them.{{Citation needed|date=September 2014}}

=== Arbitration Committee ===
{{Main|Arbitration Committee (English Wikipedia)}}
The English Wikipedia has an Arbitration Committee (also known as ArbCom) that consists of a panel of editors that imposes binding rulings with regard to disputes between other editors of the online encyclopedia.<ref name='AU'>{{cite web|url=http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/democracy-for-knowalls/2006/11/30/1164777721624.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2 |title=Know-alls |accessdate= 15 June 2009 |last=Schiff |first=Stacy | authorlink=Stacy Schiff |date=2 December 2006 |work=The Age |location=Australia |publisher=Fairfax Digital Network }}</ref> The Committee was created by [[Jimmy Wales]] on 4 December 2003 as an extension of the decision-making power he had formerly held as owner of the site.<ref name='Wales1'>{{cite web|url=http://markmail.org/message/komcldyapats43xj#query:+page:1+mid:komcldyapats43xj+state:results |title= WikiEN-l Wikiquette committee appointments |accessdate=9 June 2009 |last=Wales |first=Jimmy |date=4 December 2003 |work=Wikipedia |publisher=[[Wikimedia Foundation]] }}</ref><ref name='SSRN'>{{cite journal|title=Wikitruth Through Wikiorder |journal=Emory Law Journal|year=2010|first=David A.|last=Hoffman|author2=Salil Mehra |volume=59|issue=2010|ssrn=1354424}}</ref>

When initially founded, the Committee consisted of 12 [[arbitrators]] divided into three groups of four members each.<ref name='Wales1'/><ref name='Fortune'>{{cite web|url=http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/31/magazines/fortune/mysql_greatteams_fortune/index.htm |title=Secrets of Greatness: Great Teams |accessdate= 15 June 2009 |last=Hyatt |first=Josh |date=1 June 2006 |work=Fortune |publisher=[[Time Warner]] }}</ref> Since then, the Committee has gradually expanded to its membership to 18 arbitrators.<ref name='Wales2'>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=259248025 |title=ArbCom Appointments |accessdate=14 June 2009 |last=Wales |first=Jimmy |date= 20 December 2008 |work=Wikipedia }}</ref>{{Failed verification|reason=One of the 18 had retired|date=September 2014}}

Like other aspects of the English Wikipedia, Wikipedia's sister projects have emulated the Arbitration Committee with their own similar versions.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q3999572&oldid=163359767#sitelinks-wikipedia|title=Wikipedia sitelinks for Arbitration Committee|author=Wikidata|date=1 April 2015|accessdate=1 April 2015}}</ref> For instance, in 2007, an Arbitration Committee was founded on the [[German Wikipedia]] called the Schiedsgericht.<ref name='dewiki-2007'>{{cite web|url=http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Wikipedia-sucht-Schiedsrichter--/meldung/89083 |title=Wikipedia sucht Schiedsrichter |accessdate= 9 June 2009 |last=Kleinz |first=Torsten |date= 30 April 2007 |publisher=heise online |language=German }}</ref>

== Controversies ==
{{main|Criticism of Wikipedia}}
{{See also|Wikipedia biography controversy|Essjay controversy}}
Incidents of [[cyberbullying]] on Wikipedia have been reported in the mainstream press.<ref name="LATimes">{{cite news| url=http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/29/local/me-wikipedia29 | work=Los Angeles Times | first=Molly | last=Hennessy-Fiske | title=Wikipedia threats went unchecked – Los Angeles Times | date=29 April 2008}}</ref><ref name="ABCLocal">{{cite web|url=http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local&id=6087243 |title=Hacienda Heights school receives possible threat &#124; abc7.com |publisher=Abclocal.go.com |date=2008-04-18 |accessdate=2013-08-08}}</ref><ref name="LATimes2">{{cite news |title=Student arrested for violent threats on Wikipedia |url=http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/04/wiki.html?cid=6a00d8341c630a53ef011571abd811970b |work=Los Angeles Times |date=29 April 2008 |accessdate=19 January 2012}}</ref> The [[Glen A. Wilson High School]] was the subject of such a threat in 2008,<ref name="LATimes" /><ref name="ABCLocal" /><ref name="LATimes2" /> and a 14-year-old boy was arrested for making a threat against [[Niles West High School]] on Wikipedia in 2006.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.pantagraph.com/news/article_baef01f3-e56f-52e1-b9af-e90eb83e811b.html|title=Teen charged after threat to school on Wikipedia|date=31 October 2006|agency=Associated Press |publisher=Pantagraph.com|accessdate=26 January 2011|location=Bloomington, IL}}</ref>

A 2013 study from [[Oxford University]] concluded that the most disputed articles on the English Wikipedia tended to be broader issues, while on other language Wikipedias the most disputed articles tended to be regional issues; this is due to the English language's status as a global [[lingua franca]], which means that many who edit the English Wikipedia [[English as a second language|do not speak English as a native language]]. The study stated that the most disputed entries on the English Wikipedia were: [[George W. Bush]], [[anarchism]], [[Muhammad]], [[list of WWE personnel]], [[global warming]], [[circumcision]], [[United States]], [[Jesus]], [[race and intelligence]], and [[Christianity]].<ref name=Gross>Gross, Doug. "[http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/24/tech/web/controversial-wikipedia-pages/index.html?hpt=hp_t5 Wiki wars: The 10 most controversial Wikipedia pages]." ([http://archive.is/HSIn8 Archive]) ''[[CNN]]''. 24 July 2013. Retrieved on 26 July 2013.</ref>

=== Varieties of English ===
One controversy in the English Wikipedia concerns which [[List of dialects of the English language|national variety]] of the English language is to be preferred, with the most commonly advocated candidates being [[American English]] and [[British English]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28spelling%29|title=Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling)|author=English Wikipedia|accessdate=25 February 2006}}</ref> Perennial suggestions range from standardizing upon a single form of English to [[fork (software)|forking]] the English Wikipedia project. A style guideline states, "the English Wikipedia has no general preference for a major national variety of the language" and "an article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English|title=Wikipedia:Manual of Style|author=English Wikipedia|accessdate=10 October 2007}}</ref> An article should use spelling and grammar variants consistently; for example, ''color'' and ''colour'' are not to be used in the same article, since they represent American and British English, respectively. The guide also states that an article must remain in its original national variant.

There has been a [[Chinese Wikipedia#Automatic conversion between traditional and simplified Chinese characters|similar issue in the Chinese language Wikipedia]] concerning regional differences in writing. Efforts at a language fork for [[Portuguese Wikipedia]] have failed, and succeeded for [[Norwegian Wikipedia]].

== Varieties of English ==
[[Andrew Lih]] wrote that the English Wikipedia "didn't have the chance to go through a debate over whether there should be a British English Wikipedia or an American English Wikipedia" because the English Wikipedia was the original edition.<ref>[[Andrew Lih|Lih]], p. 135.</ref>{{Clarify|reason=How does being the original edition prevent debate?|date=February 2015}} Editors agreed to use U.S. spellings for primarily American topics and British spellings for primarily British topics. In 2009 Lih wrote, "No doubt, American spellings tend to dominate by default just because of sheer numbers."<ref>[[Andrew Lih|Lih]], p. 136.</ref>

==Wikiprojects, and assessments of articles' importance and quality==
{{main|WikiProject}}
<!-- BEGIN DUPLICATION WITH ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE. Last synchronized 2015-04-12 -->

A "[[WikiProject]]" is a [[social group|group]] of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia. These groups often focus on a specific topic area (for example, [[women's history]]), a specific location or a specific kind of task (for example, checking newly created pages). The English Wikipedia currently has over [[Wikipedia:Database reports/WikiProjects by changes|2,000 WikiProjects]] and activity varies.
<ref>{{cite web | url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject | title=Wikipedia: Wikiprojects | accessdate=16 March 2015}}</ref>

In 2007, in preparation for producing a print version, the English Wikipedia introduced an assessment scale of the quality of articles.<ref name="WP 1.0 editorial team 1">{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Assessment|title=Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment|accessdate=October 28, 2007}}</ref> Articles are rated by Wikiprojects. The range of quality classes begins with "Stub" (very short pages), followed by "Start", "C" and "B" (in increasing order of quality). Community peer review is needed for the article to enter one of the highest quality classes: either "A", "[[WP:Good articles|good article]]" or the highest, "[[WP:Featured articles|featured article]]". Of the about 4.4 million articles and lists assessed as of March 2015, a little more than 5000 (0.12%) are featured articles, and a little less than 2000 (0.04%) are featured lists. One featured article per day, as selected by editors, appears on the [[main page]] of Wikipedia.<ref name="FMonday feat article patterns 1">{{cite web|url=http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2365/2182|title=Comparing featured article groups and revision patterns correlations in Wikipedia|publisher=[[First Monday (journal)|First Monday]]|accessdate=July 13, 2010}}</ref><ref name="IBM feat articles hidden pattern 1">{{cite journal|url=http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/papers/hidden_order_wikipedia.pdf|author=Fernanda B. Viégas, Martin Wattenberg, and Matthew M. McKeon|title=The Hidden Order of Wikipedia|publisher=Visual Communication Lab, IBM Research|date=July 22, 2007|format=PDF|accessdate=October 30, 2007}}</ref>

The articles can also be rated as per "importance" as judged by a Wikiproject. Currently, there are 5 importance categories: "low", "mid", "high", "top", and "???" for unclassified/unsure level. For a particular article, different Wikiprojects may assign different importance levels.

The [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team|Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team]] has developed a table (shown below) that displays data of all rated articles by quality and importance, on the English Wikipedia. '''If an article or list receives different ratings by two or more Wikiprojects, then the highest rating is used in the table, pie-charts, and bar-chart.''' The software regularly auto-updates the data.

Researcher Giacomo Poderi found that articles tend to reach featured status via the intensive work of a few editors.<ref name="Poderi Giacomo feat articles 1">Poderi, Giacomo, ''Wikipedia and the Featured Articles: How a Technological System Can Produce Best Quality Articles'', Master thesis, [[University of Maastricht]], October 2008.</ref> A 2010 study found unevenness in quality among featured articles and concluded that the community process is ineffective in assessing the quality of articles.<ref name="FMonday WP quality control 1">{{cite news|url=http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2721/2482|title=Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's featured articles|first=David|last=Lindsey|publisher=First Monday}}</ref>

{{Pie chart
| caption = '''Quality-wise distribution of over 4.8 million articles and lists on the English Wikipedia, {{As of|2015|4|3|lc=y}}'''<ref name="en.wikipedia">[[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Statistics|Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Statistics – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia<!-- Bot generated title -->]]</ref>
| other =
| label1 = Featured articles
| value1 = 0.11
| color1 = violet
| label2 = Featured lists
| value2 = 0.04
| color2 = indigo
| label3 = A class
| value3 = 0.03
| color3 = lightblue
| label4 = Good articles
| value4 = 0.48
| color4 = darkgreen
| label5 = B class
| value5 = 2.05
| color5 = lightgreen
| label6 = C class
| value6 = 3.99
| color6 = yellow
| label7 = Start class
| value7 = 25.73
| color7 = orange
| label8 = Stub class
| value8 = 54.08
| color8 = red
| label9 = Lists
| value9 = 3.50
| color9 = purple
| label10 = Unassessed
| value10 = 9.99
| color10 = black
}}
<div style="float: right; padding-left: 7 px;">
{{Pie chart
| caption = '''Importance-wise distribution of over 4.8 million articles and lists on the English Wikipedia, {{As of|2015|4|5|lc=y}}'''<ref name="en.wikipedia" />
| other =
| label1 = Top
| value1 = 0.91
| label2 = High
| value2 = 3.21
| label3 = Medium
| value3 = 12.29
| label4 = Low
| value4 = 49.37
| label5 = ???
| value5 = 34.22
}}
</div>
{{User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/OverallArticles}}
{{ #invoke:Chart | bar chart
| height = 700
| width = 800
| stack = 1
| group 1 = 1054 : 1651 : 1542 : 897 : 169
| group 2 = 135 : 518 : 614 : 563 : 122
| group 3 = 189 : 363 : 534: 294 : 69
| group 4 = 1757 : 4109 : 8016 : 7927 : 1562
| group 5 = 10883 : 20924 : 31625 : 23722 : 12919
| group 6 = 8574 : 24667 : 54790 : 68867 : 37261
| group 7 = 15548 : 67227 : 272795 : 640683 : 258114
| group 8 = 3902 : 27452 : 201827 : 1568976 : 838139
| group 9 = 2531 : 9435 : 27511 : 73543 : 57349
| group 10 = 103 : 320 : 1647 : 18791 : 471002
| colors = violet : indigo : lightblue : darkgreen : lightgreen : yellow : orange : red : purple : black
| group names = Featured articles : Featured lists : A-class articles : Good articles : B-class articles : C-class articles : Start-class articles : Stub articles : Lists : Unassessed articles and lists
| x legends = Top : High : Medium : Low : ???
}}
''[Note: The table above (prepared by the [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team|Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team]]) is automatically updated daily by [[User:WP 1.0 bot]], but the bar-chart and the two pie-charts are not auto-updated. In them, new data has to be entered by a Wikipedia editor (i.e. user).]''
<!-- END DUPLICATION WITH ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE -->

==Graphics==

<gallery widths="300" heights="200">

Wikipedia by Language.svg|Percentages of articles written in various language families. In March 2013, 16.76% of articles were in English.

English Wikipedia – Most popular edition of Wikipedia by country – Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report – 1 Jul 2009-31 Oct 2013.svg|The countries in which the English Wikipedia is the most popular language version of Wikipedia are shown in red.<ref name="stats">{{cite web|url=http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerCountryTrends.htm|title=Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report – Wikipedia Page Views Per Country – Trends|first=Erik|last=Zachte|date=14 November 2011|publisher=Wikimedia Statistics|accessdate=19 January 2011}}</ref>

Enwiki-map.png|Top 25 contributor countries to the English Wikipedia. Dark green: Native English speaking countries; light green: countries with English as a secondary language.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{cite web|url=http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageEditsPerLanguageBreakdown.htm|title=Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report – Page Edits Per Wikipedia Language – Breakdown|first=Erik|last=Zachte|date= 14 November 2011|publisher=Wikimedia Statistics|accessdate=19 January 2011}}</ref>

Wiki feel stupid v2.ogv|In April 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation conducted a usability study on the English Wikipedia, questioning users about the editing mechanism.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability_and_Experience_Study |title=Usability and Experience Study |publisher=[[Wikimedia Foundation]] |accessdate=19 January 2012}}</ref>

</gallery>
{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" style="width:310px;"
|-
! Bar chart, origin of edits
|-
| {{bar box
|title = Origin of edits (2014/1 – 2014/3)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageEditsPerLanguageBreakdown.htm |title=Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report - Page Edits Per Wikipedia Language - Breakdown |publisher=Stats.wikimedia.org |accessdate=28 July 2014}}</ref>
|titlebar=#ddd
|width = 300px
|bars=
{{bar percent|{{Flag|United States}}|Black|38.3}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|United Kingdom}}|Blue|13.2}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|India}}|Orange|6.9}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Canada}}|Red|5.4}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Australia}}|Purple|3.6}}
{{bar percent|Unknown|DeepPink|2.9}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Philippines}}|Green|2.6}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Germany}}|Brown|1.5}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Brazil}}|Orange|1.1}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Italy}}|Black|1.0}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Ireland}}|Yellow|1.0}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Pakistan}}|Black|0.9}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|France}}|Black|0.8}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Malaysia}}|Black|0.8}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Netherlands}}|Purple|0.8}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Indonesia}}|Black|0.8}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|China}}|Black|0.7}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|New Zealand}}|Black|0.7}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Spain}}|Black|0.7}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Iran}}|Black|0.7}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Mexico}}|Black|0.5}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Sweden}}|Black|0.5}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Russia}}|Black|0.5}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Greece}}|Black|0.5}}
{{bar percent|{{Flag|Turkey}}|Black|0.5}}
{{bar percent|Other|grey|13.1}}
}}
|}

==Internal news publications==
Community-produced news publications include [[WP:Signpost|''The Signpost'']] which has been published since January 2005 on English Wikipedia. Other past and present community news publications include the "Wikiworld" web comic, the [[WP:Wikipedia Weekly|''Wikipedia Weekly'']] podcast, and newsletters of specific WikiProjects like [[Wikipedia:BUGLE|''The Bugle'']] from [[WP:Milhist|WikiProject Military History]] and the monthly newsletter from [[WP:GOCE|The Guild of Copy Editors]]. There are also a number of publications from the Wikimedia Foundation and multilingual publications such as the [https://blog.wikimedia.org Wikimedia Blog] and ''[[:outreach:This Month in Education|This Month in Education]]''.

== See also ==
* [[English Wikipedia blackout]]
* [[History of Wikipedia]]
* [[Reliability of Wikipedia]]
* [[Simple English Wikipedia]]
* [[Wikipedia for Schools]]
* [[Wikipedia community]]

== References ==
* [[Andrew Lih|Lih, Andrew]]. ''[[The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia]]''. [[Hyperion Books|Hyperion]], New York City. 2009. First Edition. ISBN 978-1-4013-0371-6 (alkaline paper).

== Notes ==
{{Reflist|colwidth=30em}}

== External links ==
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* [[:meta:English Wikipedia|English Wikipedia on Meta-Wiki]]

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[[Category:2001 establishments in the United States]]
[[Category:English-language encyclopedias|Wikipedia]]
[[Category:English-language websites]]
[[Category:Internet properties established in 2001]]
[[Category:Wikipedias by language]]
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[[Category:Wikipedia]]

Revision as of 18:58, 9 October 2015

Favicon of Wikipedia English Wikipedia
83%
Logo of the English Wikipedia
Screenshot
The homepage of the English Wikipedia
The homepage of the English Wikipedia
Type of site
Internet encyclopedia
OwnerWikimedia Foundation
Created byJimmy Wales, Larry Sanger[1]
URLen.wikipedia.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional, but required for certain tasks including
  • protected page edit 
  •  page creation 
  •  file upload 
Users48,402,087

The English Wikipedia is the English-language edition of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Founded on 15 January 2001 and reaching four million articles during July 2012, it is the first edition of Wikipedia and, as of September 2015, has the most articles of any of the editions (more than twice as many as the next in rank, the Swedish Wikipedia).[2] As of December 2024, nearly 10.8% of articles in all Wikipedias belong to the English-language edition. This share has gradually declined from more than 50 percent in 2003, due to the growth of Wikipedias in other languages.[3] There are 6,923,370 articles on the site (live count).[4] In December 2012, the combined text of the English Wikipedia's articles totaled roughly 9.7 gigabytes.[5][needs update]

The Simple English Wikipedia is a variation, with most of the articles using only basic English vocabulary. There is also the Old English (Ænglisc/Anglo-Saxon) Wikipedia (angwiki).

Pioneering edition

The English Wikipedia was the first Wikipedia edition and has remained the largest. It has pioneered many ideas as conventions, policies or features which were later adopted by some of the other-language Wikipedia editions. These ideas include "featured articles",[6] the neutral-point-of-view policy,[7] navigation templates,[8] the sorting of short "stub" articles into sub-categories,[9] dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation and arbitration,[10] and weekly collaborations.[11]

The English Wikipedia has adopted features from Wikipedias in other languages. These features include verified revisions from the German Wikipedia (dewiki) and town population-lookup templates from the Dutch Wikipedia (nlwiki).

Although the English Wikipedia stores images and audio files, as well as text files, many of the images have been moved to Wikimedia Commons with the same name, as passed-through files. However, the English Wikipedia also has fair-use images and audio/video files (with copyright restrictions), most of which are not allowed on Commons.

Many of the most active participants in the Wikimedia Foundation, and the developers of the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia, are English Wikipedia users.

Users and editors

English Wikipedia statistics
Number of user accounts Number of articles Number of files Number of administrators
48,402,087 6,923,370 930,865 846

The English Wikipedia reached 4,000,000 registered user accounts on 1 April 2007,[12] just a little over a year since it had crossed a threshold of 1,000,000 registered user accounts in late February 2006.[13]

Over 800,000 editors have edited Wikipedia more than 10 times.[14] 300,000 editors edit Wikipedia every month[citation needed]; of these, over 30,000 perform more than 5 edits per month, and a little over 3,000 perform more than 100 edits per month.[15] By 24 November 2011, a total of 500 million edits had been performed on the English Wikipedia.[citation needed]

As the largest Wikipedia edition, and because English is such a widely used language, the English Wikipedia draws many users and editors whose native language is not English. Such users may seek information from the English Wikipedia rather than the Wikipedia of their native language because the English Wikipedia tends to contain more information about general subjects. Successful collaborations have developed between non-native English speakers who add content to the English Wikipedia and native English speakers who act as copyeditors for them.[citation needed]

Arbitration Committee

The English Wikipedia has an Arbitration Committee (also known as ArbCom) that consists of a panel of editors that imposes binding rulings with regard to disputes between other editors of the online encyclopedia.[16] The Committee was created by Jimmy Wales on 4 December 2003 as an extension of the decision-making power he had formerly held as owner of the site.[17][18]

When initially founded, the Committee consisted of 12 arbitrators divided into three groups of four members each.[17][19] Since then, the Committee has gradually expanded to its membership to 18 arbitrators.[20][failed verification]

Like other aspects of the English Wikipedia, Wikipedia's sister projects have emulated the Arbitration Committee with their own similar versions.[21] For instance, in 2007, an Arbitration Committee was founded on the German Wikipedia called the Schiedsgericht.[22]

Controversies

Incidents of cyberbullying on Wikipedia have been reported in the mainstream press.[23][24][25] The Glen A. Wilson High School was the subject of such a threat in 2008,[23][24][25] and a 14-year-old boy was arrested for making a threat against Niles West High School on Wikipedia in 2006.[26]

A 2013 study from Oxford University concluded that the most disputed articles on the English Wikipedia tended to be broader issues, while on other language Wikipedias the most disputed articles tended to be regional issues; this is due to the English language's status as a global lingua franca, which means that many who edit the English Wikipedia do not speak English as a native language. The study stated that the most disputed entries on the English Wikipedia were: George W. Bush, anarchism, Muhammad, list of WWE personnel, global warming, circumcision, United States, Jesus, race and intelligence, and Christianity.[27]

Varieties of English

One controversy in the English Wikipedia concerns which national variety of the English language is to be preferred, with the most commonly advocated candidates being American English and British English.[28] Perennial suggestions range from standardizing upon a single form of English to forking the English Wikipedia project. A style guideline states, "the English Wikipedia has no general preference for a major national variety of the language" and "an article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation".[29] An article should use spelling and grammar variants consistently; for example, color and colour are not to be used in the same article, since they represent American and British English, respectively. The guide also states that an article must remain in its original national variant.

There has been a similar issue in the Chinese language Wikipedia concerning regional differences in writing. Efforts at a language fork for Portuguese Wikipedia have failed, and succeeded for Norwegian Wikipedia.

Varieties of English

Andrew Lih wrote that the English Wikipedia "didn't have the chance to go through a debate over whether there should be a British English Wikipedia or an American English Wikipedia" because the English Wikipedia was the original edition.[30][clarification needed] Editors agreed to use U.S. spellings for primarily American topics and British spellings for primarily British topics. In 2009 Lih wrote, "No doubt, American spellings tend to dominate by default just because of sheer numbers."[31]

Wikiprojects, and assessments of articles' importance and quality

A "WikiProject" is a group of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia. These groups often focus on a specific topic area (for example, women's history), a specific location or a specific kind of task (for example, checking newly created pages). The English Wikipedia currently has over 2,000 WikiProjects and activity varies. [32]

In 2007, in preparation for producing a print version, the English Wikipedia introduced an assessment scale of the quality of articles.[33] Articles are rated by Wikiprojects. The range of quality classes begins with "Stub" (very short pages), followed by "Start", "C" and "B" (in increasing order of quality). Community peer review is needed for the article to enter one of the highest quality classes: either "A", "good article" or the highest, "featured article". Of the about 4.4 million articles and lists assessed as of March 2015, a little more than 5000 (0.12%) are featured articles, and a little less than 2000 (0.04%) are featured lists. One featured article per day, as selected by editors, appears on the main page of Wikipedia.[34][35]

The articles can also be rated as per "importance" as judged by a Wikiproject. Currently, there are 5 importance categories: "low", "mid", "high", "top", and "???" for unclassified/unsure level. For a particular article, different Wikiprojects may assign different importance levels.

The Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team has developed a table (shown below) that displays data of all rated articles by quality and importance, on the English Wikipedia. If an article or list receives different ratings by two or more Wikiprojects, then the highest rating is used in the table, pie-charts, and bar-chart. The software regularly auto-updates the data.

Researcher Giacomo Poderi found that articles tend to reach featured status via the intensive work of a few editors.[36] A 2010 study found unevenness in quality among featured articles and concluded that the community process is ineffective in assessing the quality of articles.[37]

Quality-wise distribution of over 4.8 million articles and lists on the English Wikipedia, as of 3 April 2015[38]

  Featured articles (0.11%)
  Featured lists (0.04%)
  A class (0.03%)
  Good articles (0.48%)
  B class (2.05%)
  C class (3.99%)
  Start class (25.73%)
  Stub class (54.08%)
  Lists (3.50%)
  Unassessed (9.99%)

Importance-wise distribution of over 4.8 million articles and lists on the English Wikipedia, as of 5 April 2015[38]

  Top (0.91%)
  High (3.21%)
  Medium (12.29%)
  Low (49.37%)
  ??? (34.22%)
500,000
1,000,000
1,500,000
2,000,000
2,500,000
3,000,000
Top
High
Medium
Low
???
  •   Featured articles
  •   Featured lists
  •   A-class articles
  •   Good articles
  •   B-class articles
  •   C-class articles
  •   Start-class articles
  •   Stub articles
  •   Lists
  •   Unassessed articles and lists

[Note: The table above (prepared by the Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team) is automatically updated daily by User:WP 1.0 bot, but the bar-chart and the two pie-charts are not auto-updated. In them, new data has to be entered by a Wikipedia editor (i.e. user).]

Graphics

Internal news publications

Community-produced news publications include The Signpost which has been published since January 2005 on English Wikipedia. Other past and present community news publications include the "Wikiworld" web comic, the Wikipedia Weekly podcast, and newsletters of specific WikiProjects like The Bugle from WikiProject Military History and the monthly newsletter from The Guild of Copy Editors. There are also a number of publications from the Wikimedia Foundation and multilingual publications such as the Wikimedia Blog and This Month in Education.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ There is some controversy over who founded Wikipedia. Wales considers himself to be the sole founder of Wikipedia and has told the Boston Globe that "it's preposterous" to call Sanger the co-founder.[citation needed] However, Sanger strongly contests that description. He was identified as a co-founder of Wikipedia as early as September 2001 and referred to himself as being founder as early as January 2002.[citation needed]
    • Sidener, Jonathan (6 December 2004). "Everyone's Encyclopedia". San Diego Union Tribune. Retrieved 15 October 2006.
    • Meyers, Peter (20 September 2001). "Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You". New York Times. Retrieved 15 October 2006.
    • Sanger, Larry. "What Wikipedia is and why it matters". Retrieved 12 April 2006.
  2. ^ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias#All_Wikipedias_ordered_by_number_of_articles
  3. ^ Wikimedia Meta-Wiki (21 September 2008). "List of Wikipedias". Retrieved 21 September 2008.
  4. ^ The number of articles on the English Wikipedia is shown by the MediaWiki variable {{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}, with all Wikipedias as total {{NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|total}} = 64,081,719.
  5. ^ "Download Wikipedia In English – All 9.7GB Of It". 9 April 2012. Retrieved 2012-04-10.
  6. ^ English Wikipedia (30 January 2007). "Featured articles". Retrieved 30 January 2007.
  7. ^ English Wikipedia (25 January 2007). "Neutral point of view". Retrieved 30 January 2007.
  8. ^ Wikimedia Meta-Wiki (29 January 2007). "Help:Template". Retrieved 30 January 2007.
  9. ^ English Wikipedia (19 January 2007). "WikiProject Stub sorting". Retrieved 30 January 2007.
  10. ^ English Wikipedia (27 January 2007). "Resolving disputes". Retrieved 30 January 2007.
  11. ^ English Wikipedia (30 January 2007). "Article Creation and Improvement Drive". Retrieved 30 January 2007.
  12. ^ Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-04-02/News and notes. Retrieved 20 April 2007
  13. ^ Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-02-27/News and notes. Retrieved 20 April 2007
  14. ^ "Wikipedia Statistics - Tables - English". Stats.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  15. ^ "Wikipedia Statistics - Tables - English". Stats.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  16. ^ Schiff, Stacy (2 December 2006). "Know-alls". The Age. Australia: Fairfax Digital Network. Retrieved 15 June 2009.
  17. ^ a b Wales, Jimmy (4 December 2003). "WikiEN-l Wikiquette committee appointments". Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 9 June 2009.
  18. ^ Hoffman, David A.; Salil Mehra (2010). "Wikitruth Through Wikiorder". Emory Law Journal. 59 (2010). SSRN 1354424.
  19. ^ Hyatt, Josh (1 June 2006). "Secrets of Greatness: Great Teams". Fortune. Time Warner. Retrieved 15 June 2009.
  20. ^ Wales, Jimmy (20 December 2008). "ArbCom Appointments". Wikipedia. Retrieved 14 June 2009.
  21. ^ Wikidata (1 April 2015). "Wikipedia sitelinks for Arbitration Committee". Retrieved 1 April 2015.
  22. ^ Kleinz, Torsten (30 April 2007). "Wikipedia sucht Schiedsrichter" (in German). heise online. Retrieved 9 June 2009.
  23. ^ a b Hennessy-Fiske, Molly (29 April 2008). "Wikipedia threats went unchecked – Los Angeles Times". Los Angeles Times.
  24. ^ a b "Hacienda Heights school receives possible threat | abc7.com". Abclocal.go.com. 18 April 2008. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
  25. ^ a b "Student arrested for violent threats on Wikipedia". Los Angeles Times. 29 April 2008. Retrieved 19 January 2012.
  26. ^ "Teen charged after threat to school on Wikipedia". Bloomington, IL: Pantagraph.com. Associated Press. 31 October 2006. Retrieved 26 January 2011.
  27. ^ Gross, Doug. "Wiki wars: The 10 most controversial Wikipedia pages." (Archive) CNN. 24 July 2013. Retrieved on 26 July 2013.
  28. ^ English Wikipedia. "Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling)". Retrieved 25 February 2006.
  29. ^ English Wikipedia. "Wikipedia:Manual of Style". Retrieved 10 October 2007.
  30. ^ Lih, p. 135.
  31. ^ Lih, p. 136.
  32. ^ "Wikipedia: Wikiprojects". Retrieved 16 March 2015.
  33. ^ "Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment". Retrieved 28 October 2007.
  34. ^ "Comparing featured article groups and revision patterns correlations in Wikipedia". First Monday. Retrieved 13 July 2010.
  35. ^ Fernanda B. Viégas, Martin Wattenberg, and Matthew M. McKeon (22 July 2007). "The Hidden Order of Wikipedia" (PDF). Visual Communication Lab, IBM Research. Retrieved 30 October 2007. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  36. ^ Poderi, Giacomo, Wikipedia and the Featured Articles: How a Technological System Can Produce Best Quality Articles, Master thesis, University of Maastricht, October 2008.
  37. ^ Lindsey, David. "Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's featured articles". First Monday.
  38. ^ a b Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Statistics – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  39. ^ Zachte, Erik (14 November 2011). "Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report – Wikipedia Page Views Per Country – Trends". Wikimedia Statistics. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
  40. ^ Zachte, Erik (14 November 2011). "Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report – Page Edits Per Wikipedia Language – Breakdown". Wikimedia Statistics. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
  41. ^ "Usability and Experience Study". Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 19 January 2012.
  42. ^ "Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report - Page Edits Per Wikipedia Language - Breakdown". Stats.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 28 July 2014.