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'''Wikipedia''' is the name of an [[open content]], [[WikiWiki]] [[encyclopedia]] found at http://www.wikipedia.com/, as well as of its supporting, very active encyclopedia-building project. The particular version of wiki software that runs Wikipedia is [[UseModWiki]], for which [[CliffordAdams|Clifford Adams]] is responsible. The main and original wikipedia is in English (American, British, or other, depending on the participant), but there are a number of [[international Wikipedia|Wikipedias in other languages]] as well, the most active of which, as of September 2001, is the [http://de.wikipedia.com/ German-language Wikipedia]. |
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Wikipedia, like [[Nupedia]], is supported by [[free software]] exponent [[Richard Stallman]] and the [[Free Software Foundation]]; Stallman is one of people who articulated the usefulness of a "free universal encyclopedia" (see his essay online,"[http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia.html The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource]") before Wikipedia and Nupedia were founded. |
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[[Image:wiki.png|right|Wikipedia logo]] |
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'''Wikipedia''' is a [[World Wide Web|Web-based]], multi-lingual, "[[copyleft]]" [[encyclopedia]] designed to be read and changed by anyone. It is collaboratively edited and maintained by thousands of users via the [[wiki]] software, an [[opensource]] program first started by [[Ward Cunningham]], and it is hosted and supported by the [[non-profit]] [[Wikimedia|Wikimedia Foundation]]. In addition to typical encyclopedia entries, Wikipedia includes information more often associated with [[almanac]]s, [[gazetteer]]s, and specialist [[magazine]]s, as well as coverage of [[current events]]. |
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=== Essential characteristics of the project === |
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== Overview == |
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[[Image:Wikipedia mainpage of.PNG|right|thumb|270px|Wikipedia's front page.]] |
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There are three essential characteristics of the Wikipedia project, which together define its niche on the World Wide Web: |
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#It is, or aims to become, primarily an [[encyclopedia]]. |
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#It is a [[wiki]], in that it can be edited by ''anyone'' (except for blocked users, and excluding protected pages). |
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#It is [[free content]], and uses the [[copyleft]] [[GNU Free Documentation License]]. |
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There are three essential characteristics of the Wikipedia project, which together define its niche on the [[World Wide Web]] and indeed which make it entirely unique, so far. |
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=== Editable by everyone === |
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Wikipedia's content is created by its users. Any visitor to Wikipedia can edit its articles, and many do, although in practice it seems that half of all edits are done by just 2.5% of the users. Pages are always subject to editing, so no article is ever finished. As such, Wikipedia is subject to some unique "hardships" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_is_not_so_great]. It has "self-healing" systems in place to deal with these challenges, and even a page designed to explain them [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections]. Users specifically don't need to be logged in to make edits, and these so-called ''anonymous edits'' make up around 18% of all edits; the user's IP address is used instead of a username, so contributors seeking genuine "anonymity" - as well as other benefits - are generally advised to create an account and log in. |
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First and foremost, the Wikipedia project is self-consciously an ''encyclopedia''--rather than a dictionary, discussion forum, web portal, etc. See [[encyclopedia]] as well as [[what Wikipedia is not]]. |
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=== Free content license === |
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All original material contributed to Wikipedia is deemed to be [[free content]] under the [[GNU Free Documentation License]], meaning that it may be freely used, freely edited, freely copied and freely redistributed subject to the restrictions of that license. |
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The project is also essentially and self-consciously a wiki--which allows for general public authorship and editing of any page. For information on the wiki format, see the [[WikiWiki]] article. Wikipedia is the first serious general encyclopedia to be developed using this format. While Wikipedia has altered, for purposes of creating an encyclopedia, much of the original culture which surrounds [[WikiWikiWeb]]s, it continues to retain the community-managed and -built aspect to nearly all <nowiki>WikiWikiWebs</nowiki>. |
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=== Downloadable database === |
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Anyone who wishes to use Wikipedia's [[free content]] may at any time [[Wikipedia:Database download|download]] a nearly-current version of the entire article database to use for any purpose, within the terms of the GFDL. |
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Also essential to the project and its success is the fact that it is [[open content]]. Open content text and media are licensed by the copyright holder to the general public, permitting anyone to redistribute and alter the text free of charge, and guaranteeing that no one be able to restrict access to amended versions of the content. The participants' understanding that their efforts will be freely distributable is one of the main incentives they have to participate. |
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A number of sites, such as [[Wikinfo]], [http://www.intelipedia.com Intelipedia],[[wordiq]] [http://wordiq.com], [[thefreedictionary.com]] [http://thefreedictionary.com], [[4reference]] [http://4reference.net] and [[nationmaster]] [http://nationmaster.com] have used this to [[mirror (computing)|mirror]] or [[fork (software)|fork]] Wikipedia's content. |
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=== Vandalism === |
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One pertinent issue on Wikipedia is "[[vandalism]]": silly or offensive edits of the site's articles. Many people do it just for the kick of editing a web page. For example, [[Sarah Lane]], presenter of "Sarah's Blog Report", part of ''[[The Screen Savers]]'' TV program on [[TechTV]], "vandalized" the Wikipedia page on [[monkeypox]] live on-air [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Monkeypox&diff=1028814&oldid=1028793]—leading to a surge of vandalism on that page by viewers of the TV show. Lane later wrote that: "Although this excites me in its ease and simplicity, it's a little frightening. I mean, what if I had instead written, 'My boss is a big fat **** and his phone number is ****'? Sure, somebody would delete it, but this calls for some seriously dedicated moderators." [http://web.archive.org/web/20030814003517/www.techtv.com/screensavers/answerstips/jump/0,24331,3463497,00.html] |
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=== A few commonly-followed policies === |
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"Because Wikipedia is a [[radical]]ly free, open [[project]], it attracts an [[anarchism|anarchistic]] element," [[Larry Sanger]] admitted to ''[[Wired News]]''. "Fortunately, most of us are willing to take a definite stand against vandalism ... and to get rid of it instantly." [http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,57364,00.html] |
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Wikipedia's participants commonly follow, and enforce, a few basic policies that seem essential to keeping the project running smoothly and productively. The following are just a few of those policies; for more information, please see [[Wikipedia policy]]. |
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According to a ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'' article from [[February 2004]], researchers have found that there are frequent instances of vandalism at [[Wikipedia]], but that these are often quickly resolved: |
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First, because we have a huge variety of participants of all ideologies, and from around the world, Wikipedia is committed to making its articles as unbiased as possible. The aim is not to write articles from a single ''objective'' point of view--this is a common misunderstanding of the policy--but rather, to fairly and sympathetically present all views on an issue. See [[neutral point of view]] page for further explanation, and for a very lengthy discussion. |
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:"Recent research by a team from [[International Business Machines|IBM]] found that most vandalism suffered by Wikipedia had been repaired within five minutes. 'We were surprised at how often we found vandalism, and then surprised again at how fast it was fixed,' says Martin Wattenberg, a researcher in the IBM TJ Watson Research Center, in [[Cambridge]], [[Massachusetts|Mass.]]" [http://www.research.ibm.com/history/results.htm] <!-- original link unavailable as of 2004-07-05 [http://www.theproduct.com/6m105/readings/spring04/encyclopedia.pdf] --> |
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Second, there are a number of important [[naming conventions]] with which participants familiarize themselves. |
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== History == |
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''Main article: [[History of Wikipedia]]'' |
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Third, Wikipedians use so-called "<nowiki>/Talk</nowiki>" pages to discuss changes to the text--rather than, with a few exceptions, discussing the changes within the text itself. See the page about [[Talk Page|talk page]]s as well as the [[editing policy]] page. |
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Wikipedia began as an [[English language]] project on [[January 15]], [[2001]], and soon gained its first other language, [[French language|French]], on [[March 23]], [[2001]]. There has since been a great deal of effort devoted to making it [[multilingual]], and it currently contains over 400,000 articles in [[English language|English]] and over 700,000 in other languages ([[as of 2004|as of November 2004]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Multilingual_statistics]). |
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Fourth, there are a number of kinds of entries which are generally discouraged, because they do not, strictly speaking, constitute encyclopedia articles. See [[what Wikipedia is not]]. |
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Wikipedia was created as an editor-free offshoot of [[Nupedia]], a free encyclopedia project founded by [[Jimmy Wales]]. [[Larry Sanger]] was employed by Wales to work on Nupedia as the editor-in-chief and later worked on Wikipedia, and was closely involved in setting up the project and establishing the policy framework. He had considerable influence on the direction of the project during his tenure, until he left the project in February 2002. Wales remains actively involved to this day, contributing both time and resources to the project, and is a board member of the [[Wikimedia Foundation]] which now oversees the project. There is no editor-in-chief, as such, and no paid employees. Instead, the project relies on the contributions of many thousands of volunteers (referred to as ''Wikipedians''). |
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Fifth, there are a variety of rules that have been proposed and which have varying amounts of support within the Wikipedia community. The most widely-supported rule is: "If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the wiki, then ignore them entirely and go about your business." It is perhaps surprising, therefore, that the wiki is as well-disciplined and good-natured as it is. See the [[rules to consider]] page for more information. |
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On [[September 20]], [[2004]], Wikipedia reached one million articles [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/PR-1mil-US] in 105 languages, and received a flurry of related attention in the press. The one millionth article was published in the [[Hebrew language]] Wikipedia, and discusses the [[flag of Kazakhstan]] [http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%93%D7%92%D7%9C_%D7%A7%D7%96%D7%97%D7%A1%D7%98%D7%9F]. |
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For a more detailed history of the project, see [[History of Wikipedia]]. |
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=== Wikipedia's personnel === |
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Known applications of the idea of collecting all of the world's knowledge under a single roof go back to the ancient [[Library of Alexandria]] and [[Pergamon]]. The modern notion of the general purpose, widely distributed, printed [[encyclopedia]] dates from shortly before [[Denis Diderot]] and the [[18th century]] [[encyclopedist]]s. |
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Wikipedia has been built by scores--probably hundreds, as of September 2001--of volunteer scholars, hobbyists, students, and generally-knowledgeable people from around the world who happened to show up at the website and who, seeing the activity and the ease of article-creation, felt inspired to donate some of their knowledge. Participants in the project are called [[Wikipedians]]. Numbers of participants have dramatically increased since its inception, and the number of extremely highly-educated participants is growing as well. |
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The idea of using automated machinery beyond the [[printing press]] to build a more useful encyclopedia can be traced to [[H. G. Wells]]' short story ''[[World Brain]]'' ([[1937]]) and [[Vannevar Bush]]'s future vision of the [[microfilm]] based [[Memex]] in ''[[As We May Think]]'' ([[1945]]). An important milestone along this path is also [[Ted Nelson]]'s [[Project Xanadu]] ([[1960]]). |
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There is no editor-in-chief per se, and two people who founded and are paid, by Bomis, Inc., to work on and manage the encyclopedia, [[Jimbo Wales|Jimmy Wales]] and [[Larry Sanger]], like to think of themselves as mere participants who are charged with seeing to it that the project does not stray from the path on which it is already travelling. However, since it is Larry's paid occupation to oversee Wikipedia (and [[Nupedia]]), he makes the final decision on issues where community consensus cannot be reached. Other Bomis employees who have done some work on the encyclopedia include [[TimShell]], one of the co-founders of Bomis, as well as programmers Jason Richey and Toan Vo. |
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With the development of the [[Internet]], many people attempted to develop [[Internet encyclopedia project]]s. [[Free software]] exponent [[Richard Stallman]] articulated the usefulness of a "Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource" in [[1999]]. He described Wikipedia's formation as "exciting news", and his [[Free Software Foundation]] encourages people "to visit and contribute to the site". One never-realized predecessor was the [[Interpedia]], which [[Robert McHenry]] has linked conceptually to Wikipedia.[http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html] |
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== Site policies == |
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Wikipedia's participants (Wikipedians) commonly follow, and enforce, a few basic policies. |
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=== A brief history of Wikipedia === |
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* '''Neutral point of view''': Because there are potentially a huge variety of participants of all [[ideology|ideologies]] and nationalities Wikipedia is committed to making its articles as unbiased as possible. There has been criticism that the shared [[systemic bias]] of participants can color the neutrality of an article — see "[[#Neutral Point Of View|Neutral Point Of View]]", below. According to advocates of the NPOV policy, the aim is not to write articles from a single ''objective'' point of view, but rather, to fairly present all views on an issue, attributed to their adherents in a neutral way. However, establishing a consensus on what views should be thus attributed can require much heated discussion and debate, and at any rate the attribution never extends to every single statement within an article. Thus, some people have claimed that NPOV is more of an [[ideology]] than an actual policy. |
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* '''No original research''': Because there is no explicit peer review for content submitted to Wikipedia, submissions must be verifiable by readers and other contributors; unverifiable information, or facts newly discovered that have not been published elsewhere (and therefore cannot be qualified by "according to ''source'', ..."), are not welcome. See "No Original Research", below. |
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* '''Limit discussion to ''talk'' pages''': Wikipedians use "talk" pages or other "out of band" methods to discuss changes to articles, rather than discussing the changes within the articles themselves. This marked a break from other wikis of the time, such as Ward Cunningham's [[WikiWiki]]. |
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* '''Focus on encyclopedic content''': There are a number of kinds of entries which are generally discouraged, because they do not, strictly speaking, constitute encyclopedia articles. For example, Wikipedia entries are not [[dictionary]] definitions, and the wholesale addition of source material such as the text of laws and speeches is generally frowned upon. However, some of Wikipedia's sister projects, such as [[Wiktionary]] and [[Wikisource]], are designed to be repositories for many alternative forms of reference material that do not fit well into Wikipedia. |
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Wikipedia had its origin in a conversation between two old Internet friends, [[Larry Sanger]], editor-in-chief of [[Nupedia]], and [[Ben Kovitz]], a computer programmer and polymath, on the evening of [[January 2]], [[2001]], in [[San Diego, California]]. Kovitz is (or was) a [[http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors Ward's Wiki]] regular. When Kovitz explained the basic wiki concept to Sanger over dinner, Sanger immediately saw that the wiki format would be an excellent format whereby a more open, less formal encyclopedia project could be pursued. For months prior to this, Sanger and his boss, [[JimboWales|Jimmy Wales]], president and CEO of Bomis, Inc., had been discussing various ways to supplement Nupedia with a more open, complementary project. |
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There are a variety of sometimes contradictory rules, guidelines, policies, and common practices that have been proposed and which have varying amounts of support within the Wikipedia community. When these proposed rules are violated, the community decides on a case-by-case basis whether they should be more strictly enforced or not. |
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So it did not take much for Sanger to persuade Wales to set up a wiki for Nupedia. Nupedia's first wiki went online on [[January 10]]. There was considerable resistance on the part of Nupedia's editors and reviewers, however, to making Nupedia closely associated with a website in the wiki format. Therefore, the new project was given the name "Wikipedia" and launched on its own address, Wikipedia.com, on [[January 15]]. |
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There are also a number of important style conventions, particularly with respect to article naming; for example, when several names exist, the most common one in the respective Wikipedia language is preferred. |
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The project has received large numbers of participants from being mentioned, three times, on the tech website [[Slashdot]]--there were two minor mentions [[March 5]] and [[March 30]], and then a prominent feature (also featured on the community-edit tech website [[Kuro5hin]]) on [[July 26]]. Between these relatively rapid influxes of traffic, there has been a steady stream of traffic from other sources--especially from [[Google]], which alone daily sends hundreds of new visitors to the site. |
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=== Neutral point of view === |
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Wikipedia is grounded in the idea that all of its articles need to be written from a [[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|neutral point of view.]] The neutral point of view attempts to present ideas and facts in such a fashion that both supporters and opponents can agree. Of course, total agreement is not possible; there are ideologues in the world who will not concede to any presentation other than a forceful statement of their own point of view. But Wikipedia seeks a type of writing that is agreeable to essentially rational people who may differ on particular points. According to [[Jimbo Wales]]: |
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The project passed 1,000 pages around [[February 12]], and regularly passed other milestones in ensuing months. In the first eight months of its existence, over 9,000 encyclopedia entries were created--a rate of over 1,000 articles per month. This rate has more or less steadily increased since the inception of the project. |
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:"Perhaps the easiest way to make your writing more encyclopedic, is to write about what people believe, rather than what is so. If this strikes you as somehow subjectivist or collectivist or imperialist, then ask me about it, because I think that you are just mistaken. What people believe is a matter of their perception of fact, and we can present that quite easily from the neutral point of view." |
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For further history, see the archives of the [[Wikipedia Announcements]] page. |
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The neutral point of view policy states that one should write articles without bias, representing all views fairly. However, like all collaborative projects, Wikipedia has a built-in [[bias]] derived from the demographic make-up of its participants. In Wikipedia's case, this manifests itself in a tendency for contributors to create articles that relate to the interests of computer-literate American and British editors. An example of this effect can be seen by comparing the article on [[Coronation Street]], a British soap opera — which at the start of [[2005]] totalled 6,933 words, not including the other 14 articles (4,746 words) devoted to its actors and characters — to the article on the [[Rwandan Genocide]] — 2,840 words on how 800,000 people died in 100 days. There are similarly long articles on U.S. television programs, actors, characters, pop groups, albums, and video games. |
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More essential information about Wikipedia can be found in the [[Wikipedia FAQ]]. |
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This bias has few defenders on Wikipedia. The presence of articles written from an exclusively U.S. or British point of view is largely a reflection of the fact that there are many Americans and British editors working on Wikipedia. Greater diversity can be achieved by active collaboration from people outside these areas, of whom there are many. |
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=== Antecedents of Wikipedia === |
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Another grounding principle of Wikipedia is that it is not a place to contribute or look for research that has not yet been published elsewhere. This helps avoid arguments about new untested theories and claims, and limits the contribution of observations and claims which are unverifiable by others. |
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In 1993, a project called [[interpedia]] was being discussed, first on a high-traffic mailing list, and then on its own usenet newsgroup <tt>comp.infosystems.interpedia</tt> (see [http://www.landfield.com/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/comp/comp.infosystems.interpedia]). This was intended to be a distributed internet encyclopedia which would allow anyone to contribute by writing web pages and submitting them to the central catalog of all interpedia pages. There was some disagreement about whether all pages should be in HTML, plain text, or whether all formats should be allowed. Another point of discussion was whether outside internet resources not specifically written for the interpedia could become part of it by simply including them in the catalog. |
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Original images and media are welcome if the creator is willing to license them under the terms of the [[GFDL]], other compatible free or "copyleft" licenses, or release them into the [[public domain]]. |
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Articles did not have to be neutral: several independent "Seal-of-approval" (SOAP) agencies were envisioned which would rate interpedia articles based on criteria of their own choosing; users could then decide which agencies' recommendations to follow. |
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== Criticisms == |
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The project never left the planning stage and died; it was taken over by the explosion of the web and the emergence of high-quality search engines. |
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''Main article: [[Criticism of Wikipedia]]'' |
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''We need someone to research and write something about the history of other attempts to make free encyclopedias online. Wikipedia is the <b>first</b> completely free (in the "libre" sense) online encyclopedia to achieve any significant size, but it's not the first attempted free online encyclopedia, not by a long shot.'' |
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Wikipedia's utility as a reference work has been questioned. The lack of authority and accountability are considered disqualifying factors by some people. For example, librarian Philip Bradley acknowledged in an interview with ''[[The Guardian]]'' that the concept behind the site was in theory a "lovely idea", but that he would not use it in practice and is "not aware of a single librarian who would. The main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, the publishers have to ensure that their data is reliable, as their livelihood depends on it. But with something like this, all that goes out the window." People supporting the idea of Wikipedia counter these arguments by saying that Wikipedia is a more independent source than most traditional encyclopedias and that the reliability is potentially greater than that of a traditional source, since errors can be corrected immediately. |
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---- |
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<h3>Introduction to Wikipedia for participants</h3> |
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''The rest of this article is an introduction to Wikipedia for participants. A more complete introduction can be found at [[Welcome, newcomers]].'' |
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Wikipedia's [[systemic bias]] of covering some topics in much greater depth than others is also considered significant, something that even the site's proponents admit. In an interview with ''The Guardian'', the executive team of ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' noted that "people write of things they're interested in, and so many subjects don't get covered; and news events get covered in great detail. The entry on [[Hurricane Frances]] is five times the length of that on [[Chinese art]], and the entry on [[Coronation Street]] is twice as long as the article on [[Tony Blair]]." In reply, a user on the Wikipedia discussion board noted that the Wikipedia entry on Tony Blair still was several times longer than the corresponding entry in ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. It is also noted that Wikipedia tends to cover topics that might not be included at all in a print encyclopedia such as topics dealing with the [[occult]], the [[Western mystery tradition]], [[sexuality]], random [[esoterica]], obscure corners of [[philosophy]], and other offbeat areas of human knowledge. |
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We invite everyone to contribute. If you're visiting Wikipedia for the first time, [[Welcome, newcomers|welcome]]! Just pick a topic, write an article. Click on the "Edit text of this page" link at the bottom of every page to edit a page; for more information, see [[how does one edit a page|our editing instructions]]. The articles don't have to be long; a little bit in the early stages will help a lot. You can do so anonymously or give yourself credit. If you see an error, you can instantly edit an article to fix it. |
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A common Wikipedia maxim is "Out of mediocrity, excellence." The site founder admits that the variation in quality between different articles and topics is significant, but considers the average quality "pretty good", and getting better by the day. The "competing" ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' claims it does not feel threatened. "The premise of Wikipedia is that continuous improvement will lead to perfection; that premise is completely unproven," said the reference work's executive editor, Ted Pappas, to ''The Guardian''. It should be noted, however, that Wikipedia articles have been referenced in enhanced perspectives provided on-line in the journal ''[[Science (journal)|Science]]'', one of the most prestigious (and unmercifully selective) scientific publications in the world. The first of these perspectives to provide a hyperlink to Wikipedia was "A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light", by Hartmut Linden, in the [[August 2]], [[2002]] issue. Since then, dozens of enhanced perspectives have provided hyperlinks to Wikipedia. A search on "Wikipedia" in ''Science'''s web site [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?volume=&firstpage=&DOI=&author1=&author2=&titleabstract=&fulltext=wikipedia&fmonth=Oct&fyear=1995&tmonth=Dec&tyear=2004&hits=100&sendit.x=0&sendit.y=0] turns up 43 instances as of [[December 10]], [[As of 2004|2004]], with the perspective "Turning on a Dime", by Ulrike K. Müller and David Lentink, as the latest in that date range. |
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Let's discuss the mechanisms of Wikipedia on [[Wikipedia policy]] (and in particular see the [[naming conventions]] page), and see the [[Wikipedia FAQ]] for answers to many questions. See also [[tips on contributing to Wikipedia]]. |
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Finally, by containing a large number of internally linked pages, it receives high rankings from Google. This can also result in high rankings for the often identical Wikipedia [[mirror site|mirrors]]. This makes it more likely that web searches will return identical results. |
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You might be wondering: [[why Wikipedia is so great|just why is Wikipedia so great, anyway]]? |
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(See also the section of external links to [[Wikipedia#Reviews, endorsements, criticisms, and discussion|reviews, endorsements, criticisms, and discussion of Wikipedia]], below.) |
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If you've got a minute, think about [[publicize Wikipedia|publicizing Wikipedia]]. Think about leveraging effort--in the time it takes you to write two decent articles, you might be able to get ten people on board who can write ten decent articles apiece. |
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== Software and hardware == |
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[[Image:Wikimedia-servers.jpg|thumb|250px|Nine servers in a rack in [[Florida]] delivered Wikipedia to the world.]] |
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If you think that the system here is a little too chaotic and unregulated--and you can write authoritatively on some subjects--try the Nupedia [http://chalkboard.nupedia.com Chalkboard], which has more rules, but the same wiki format. A formal, peer-reviewed project is [http://www.nupedia.com Nupedia], but Nupedia often lacks Wikipedia's instantaneous feedback mechanisms. |
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The software that originally ran Wikipedia was [[UseModWiki]], written by [[Clifford Adams]] ("Phase I"). At first it required [[CamelCase]] for links; soon it was also possible to use the current linking method that uses double brackets. In [[January 2002]], Wikipedia began running on a [[PHP programming language|PHP]] [[wiki software|wiki engine]], which used an underlying [[MySQL]] [[database]], added many features (and abolished the behaviour of CamelCase words automatically becoming links), and was specifically written for the Wikipedia project by [[Magnus Manske]] ("Phase II"). After a while, the site started to slow down to such an extent that editing became almost impossible. Several rounds of modifications to the software provided only temporary relief. Then [[Lee Daniel Crocker]] rewrote the software from scratch. The new version, a major improvement, has been running since [[July 2002]]. This "Phase III" software is now called [[MediaWiki]], and is used by many other wiki projects. [[Brion Vibber]] has since taken the lead in fixing bugs and tuning the database for performance. |
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[[Wikipedia]] subpages: |
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In late [[2003]], server outages began to seriously diminish the productivity of Wikipedia contributors. Many reported difficulty editing articles as a result of time-outs and severe slowness. This was due to congestion on the single server that was running all the Wikipedias at the time. |
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* [[/Building membership]] |
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* [[/Article a day queue]] |
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* [[/Our Replies to Our Critics]] |
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* [[/Magic Button]] |
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* [[/Most popular pages]] |
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* [[/Logos and slogans]] |
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[[/Talk]] |
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As of December [[As of 2004|2004]], the project runs on (quite a bit more than) nine dedicated servers, located in [[Florida]]. This new configuration includes a single database server and four web servers, all running [[Fedora Core]]. The web servers serve pages as requested, performing page rendering for all the Wikipedias. To increase speed further, rendered pages for anonymous users are cached in a filesystem until invalidated, allowing page rendering to be skipped entirely for most common page accesses. Cached requests are served by two [[Squid cache|Squid]] servers; the new servers are linked via two file system [[Network File System|NFS]] servers (one primary and one backup — the primary NFS server is currently also the email server). As of [[January 2005]], editors are reporting that the system has slowed down to the point of being difficult to use, but extensive active work, including the expansion of the server cluster, is underway to fix the problems. [http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Wikipedia_Status] |
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== Language editions == |
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As of [[December 2004]], Wikipedia has over 1.3 million articles spread over 200 language editions. Major language editions: |
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[[English Wikipedia]] 430,000 articles |
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[[German Wikipedia]] 179,000 |
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[[Japanese Wikipedia]] 89,000 |
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[[French Wikipedia]] 73,000 |
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[[Swedish Wikipedia]] 54,000 |
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[[Polish Wikipedia]] 48,000 |
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[[Dutch Wikipedia]] 44,000 |
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[[Spanish Wikipedia]] 38,000 |
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[[Italian Wikipedia]] 31,000 |
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[[Portuguese Wikipedia]] 27,000 |
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[[Chinese Wikipedia]] 17,000 |
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[[Hebrew Wikipedia]] 13,000 |
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[[Romanian Wikipedia]] 11,000 |
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See [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Complete_list_of_language_Wikipedias_available] for the complete list. |
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See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesArticlesTotal.htm] for the complete table of the size of each edition. |
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== Sister projects == |
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Wikipedia has the following sister projects, part of the [[Wikimedia]] family: |
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* [[Wiktionary]], a free [[dictionary]] project |
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* [[Wikibooks]], a free textbook project |
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* [[Wikiquote]], a free [[encyclopedia]] of [[quotations]] |
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* [[Wikisource]], a repository of source texts in any language which are either in the public domain or are released under the GFDL |
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* [[Wikinews]], a news site, which is currently being tested |
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There are many other conceptually related projects, including [[Wikitravel]]. |
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In [[February 2002]], most participants of the [[Spanish Wikipedia]] didn't agree with the march of the project and broke away to establish the [[Enciclopedia Libre]]. |
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== Awards and nominations == |
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=== 2004 === |
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In [[May 2004]], Wikipedia won two major awards. The first was a Golden Nica for Digital Communities, awarded by '''[[Prix Ars Electronica]]'''; this came with a [[Euro|'''€''']]10,000 grant and an invitation to present at the PAE Cyberarts Festival in [[Austria]] later that year. The second was a Judges' '''[[The Webby Awards|Webby award]]''' for "Community" [http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/winners-2004.php]. Wikipedia was also nominated for a "Best Practices" Webby. |
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In [[September 2004]], the Japanese Wikipedia won an award from the country's major Advertisers' Association. This award, normally given to individuals for great contributions to the Web in Japanese, was accepted by a long-standing contributor on behalf of the project. |
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== Media coverage == |
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Mainstream media organisations mention Wikipedia from time to time. |
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*[[4 December]] [[2004]] - [[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]] [[Radio National]] ''[http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/buzz/default.htm The Buzz]'' "Cutting through the hype of our technological age" - presenter [[Richard Aedy]] conducted an interview with Wikipedia founder [[Jimmy Wales]], that also canvassed the new [[Wikinews]] project. Aedy professed to be a fan of Wikipedia. |
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==In web browsers== |
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[[Coeus]] is an [[Internet Explorer]] add-on which adds built-in Wikipedia searching. |
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[[Mozilla Firefox]] includes a Wikipedia search as a standard feature. |
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== External links == |
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{{Wiktionary}} |
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Front page of the English Wikipedia] |
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:FAQ Wikipedia Frequently Asked Questions] |
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*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction Introduction to Wikipedia] |
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=== Related sites === |
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* [http://meta.wikipedia.org/ Meta-Wikipedia] - Policy-related and technical discussions about Wikipedia and its sister projects; includes a guide on how users can set up their own [[MediaWiki]] sites. |
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* [http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net/ MediaWiki Phase III Software] at [[SourceForge]] |
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* [http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=Copies_of_Wikipedia_content OpenFacts: Copies of Wikipedia content] |
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* [http://www.cafeshops.com/wikipedia The Wikipedia Cafeshop] |
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_releases Archive of Wikipedia press releases] |
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* [http://meta.wikipedia.org/Trophy_box Wikipedia Trophy Box] |
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_comparisons Size comparisons] |
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/Sitemap.htm Wikipedia statistics] |
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=== Essays === |
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* [http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia.html The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource] by [[Richard Stallman]] (RMS) |
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* [http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/history/ IBM History Flow]: Technical experiment on "visualizing dynamic, evolving documents and the interactions of multiple collaborating authors". Uses various Wikipedia articles as example data. [http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&start=6&q=http://web.media.mit.edu/~fviegas/papers/history_flow.pdf CHI paper] about History Flow and vandalism. |
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* [http://aronsson.se/wikipaper.html Operation of a Large Scale, General Purpose Wiki Website], November 2002, by Lars Aronsson, founder of [[susning.nu]]. |
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* [http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html Coase's Penguin] by Yochai Benkler. |
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_in_academic_studies Wikipedia in academic studies] |
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=== Peer-reviewed articles === |
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* Andrea Ciffolilli. '[http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/ciffolilli/index.html Phantom authority, self-selective recruitment and retention of members in virtual communities: The case of Wikipedia]', ''First Monday'', December 2003. |
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* Andrew Lih. '[http://journalism.utexas.edu/onlinejournalism/wikipedia.pdf Wikipedia as Participatory Journalism: Reliable Sources? Metrics for evaluating collaborative media as a news resource]' (PDF), ''5th International Symposium on Online Journalism'', April 2004. |
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=== Reviews, endorsements, criticisms, and discussion === |
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Press_coverage Wikipedia's press coverage] |
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* [[1999]] [http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/encyclopedia.html FSF endorsement of Nupedia (later updated to include Wikipedia)] |
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* [[July]] [[2001]] [http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/7/25/103136/121 Britannica or Nupedia? The Future of Free Encyclopedias] - Larry Sanger's response to [[Britannica]]'s decision to charge fees (July 2001). |
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* [[November]] [[2001]] [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-September/000481.html RMS describes Wikipedia as "exciting news"] |
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* [[January]] [[2003]] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,884666,00.html Guardian Online: "Common Knowledge"] |
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* [[August]] [[2003]] [http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/08/03/wikipedia/index.html CNN Article about Wikipedia] |
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* [[September]] [[2003]] ''[[Science (journal)|Science]]'' magazine's NetWatch section gives [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/301/5638/1299c a favourable short review] of "The People's Encyclopedia" |
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* [[June]] [[2004]] [http://economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2747734 The Economist: Beyond capitalism?] discusses open source and Wikipedia |
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* [[October]] [[2004]] [http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=10909&hed=Wiki+wars# Wiki wars] An article on Red Herring about contentious articles on Wikipedia |
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* [[October]] [[2004]] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1335892,00.html Simon Waldman on Wikipedia's success] |
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* [[October]] [[2004]] [http://theonion.com/opinion/index.php?issue=4045&o=2 Satirical article in The Onion] |
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* [[November]] [[2004]] [http://www.techcentralstation.com/111504A.html "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia"] [[Robert McHenry]], a former Britannica editor, reviews Wikipedia at Tech Central Station |
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criticisms Criticisms of Wikipedia] |
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* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections Responses to common criticisms] |
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[[Category:Encyclopedias]] |
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[[Category:Online encyclopedias]] |
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Revision as of 04:45, 15 January 2005
Wikipedia is the name of an open content, WikiWiki encyclopedia found at http://www.wikipedia.com/, as well as of its supporting, very active encyclopedia-building project. The particular version of wiki software that runs Wikipedia is UseModWiki, for which Clifford Adams is responsible. The main and original wikipedia is in English (American, British, or other, depending on the participant), but there are a number of Wikipedias in other languages as well, the most active of which, as of September 2001, is the German-language Wikipedia.
Wikipedia, like Nupedia, is supported by free software exponent Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation; Stallman is one of people who articulated the usefulness of a "free universal encyclopedia" (see his essay online,"The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource") before Wikipedia and Nupedia were founded.
Essential characteristics of the project
There are three essential characteristics of the Wikipedia project, which together define its niche on the World Wide Web and indeed which make it entirely unique, so far.
First and foremost, the Wikipedia project is self-consciously an encyclopedia--rather than a dictionary, discussion forum, web portal, etc. See encyclopedia as well as what Wikipedia is not.
The project is also essentially and self-consciously a wiki--which allows for general public authorship and editing of any page. For information on the wiki format, see the WikiWiki article. Wikipedia is the first serious general encyclopedia to be developed using this format. While Wikipedia has altered, for purposes of creating an encyclopedia, much of the original culture which surrounds WikiWikiWebs, it continues to retain the community-managed and -built aspect to nearly all WikiWikiWebs.
Also essential to the project and its success is the fact that it is open content. Open content text and media are licensed by the copyright holder to the general public, permitting anyone to redistribute and alter the text free of charge, and guaranteeing that no one be able to restrict access to amended versions of the content. The participants' understanding that their efforts will be freely distributable is one of the main incentives they have to participate.
A few commonly-followed policies
Wikipedia's participants commonly follow, and enforce, a few basic policies that seem essential to keeping the project running smoothly and productively. The following are just a few of those policies; for more information, please see Wikipedia policy.
First, because we have a huge variety of participants of all ideologies, and from around the world, Wikipedia is committed to making its articles as unbiased as possible. The aim is not to write articles from a single objective point of view--this is a common misunderstanding of the policy--but rather, to fairly and sympathetically present all views on an issue. See neutral point of view page for further explanation, and for a very lengthy discussion.
Second, there are a number of important naming conventions with which participants familiarize themselves.
Third, Wikipedians use so-called "/Talk" pages to discuss changes to the text--rather than, with a few exceptions, discussing the changes within the text itself. See the page about talk pages as well as the editing policy page.
Fourth, there are a number of kinds of entries which are generally discouraged, because they do not, strictly speaking, constitute encyclopedia articles. See what Wikipedia is not.
Fifth, there are a variety of rules that have been proposed and which have varying amounts of support within the Wikipedia community. The most widely-supported rule is: "If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the wiki, then ignore them entirely and go about your business." It is perhaps surprising, therefore, that the wiki is as well-disciplined and good-natured as it is. See the rules to consider page for more information.
Wikipedia's personnel
Wikipedia has been built by scores--probably hundreds, as of September 2001--of volunteer scholars, hobbyists, students, and generally-knowledgeable people from around the world who happened to show up at the website and who, seeing the activity and the ease of article-creation, felt inspired to donate some of their knowledge. Participants in the project are called Wikipedians. Numbers of participants have dramatically increased since its inception, and the number of extremely highly-educated participants is growing as well.
There is no editor-in-chief per se, and two people who founded and are paid, by Bomis, Inc., to work on and manage the encyclopedia, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, like to think of themselves as mere participants who are charged with seeing to it that the project does not stray from the path on which it is already travelling. However, since it is Larry's paid occupation to oversee Wikipedia (and Nupedia), he makes the final decision on issues where community consensus cannot be reached. Other Bomis employees who have done some work on the encyclopedia include TimShell, one of the co-founders of Bomis, as well as programmers Jason Richey and Toan Vo.
A brief history of Wikipedia
Wikipedia had its origin in a conversation between two old Internet friends, Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief of Nupedia, and Ben Kovitz, a computer programmer and polymath, on the evening of January 2, 2001, in San Diego, California. Kovitz is (or was) a [Ward's Wiki] regular. When Kovitz explained the basic wiki concept to Sanger over dinner, Sanger immediately saw that the wiki format would be an excellent format whereby a more open, less formal encyclopedia project could be pursued. For months prior to this, Sanger and his boss, Jimmy Wales, president and CEO of Bomis, Inc., had been discussing various ways to supplement Nupedia with a more open, complementary project.
So it did not take much for Sanger to persuade Wales to set up a wiki for Nupedia. Nupedia's first wiki went online on January 10. There was considerable resistance on the part of Nupedia's editors and reviewers, however, to making Nupedia closely associated with a website in the wiki format. Therefore, the new project was given the name "Wikipedia" and launched on its own address, Wikipedia.com, on January 15.
The project has received large numbers of participants from being mentioned, three times, on the tech website Slashdot--there were two minor mentions March 5 and March 30, and then a prominent feature (also featured on the community-edit tech website Kuro5hin) on July 26. Between these relatively rapid influxes of traffic, there has been a steady stream of traffic from other sources--especially from Google, which alone daily sends hundreds of new visitors to the site.
The project passed 1,000 pages around February 12, and regularly passed other milestones in ensuing months. In the first eight months of its existence, over 9,000 encyclopedia entries were created--a rate of over 1,000 articles per month. This rate has more or less steadily increased since the inception of the project.
For further history, see the archives of the Wikipedia Announcements page.
More essential information about Wikipedia can be found in the Wikipedia FAQ.
Antecedents of Wikipedia
In 1993, a project called interpedia was being discussed, first on a high-traffic mailing list, and then on its own usenet newsgroup comp.infosystems.interpedia (see [1]). This was intended to be a distributed internet encyclopedia which would allow anyone to contribute by writing web pages and submitting them to the central catalog of all interpedia pages. There was some disagreement about whether all pages should be in HTML, plain text, or whether all formats should be allowed. Another point of discussion was whether outside internet resources not specifically written for the interpedia could become part of it by simply including them in the catalog.
Articles did not have to be neutral: several independent "Seal-of-approval" (SOAP) agencies were envisioned which would rate interpedia articles based on criteria of their own choosing; users could then decide which agencies' recommendations to follow.
The project never left the planning stage and died; it was taken over by the explosion of the web and the emergence of high-quality search engines.
We need someone to research and write something about the history of other attempts to make free encyclopedias online. Wikipedia is the first completely free (in the "libre" sense) online encyclopedia to achieve any significant size, but it's not the first attempted free online encyclopedia, not by a long shot.
Introduction to Wikipedia for participants
The rest of this article is an introduction to Wikipedia for participants. A more complete introduction can be found at Welcome, newcomers.
We invite everyone to contribute. If you're visiting Wikipedia for the first time, welcome! Just pick a topic, write an article. Click on the "Edit text of this page" link at the bottom of every page to edit a page; for more information, see our editing instructions. The articles don't have to be long; a little bit in the early stages will help a lot. You can do so anonymously or give yourself credit. If you see an error, you can instantly edit an article to fix it.
Let's discuss the mechanisms of Wikipedia on Wikipedia policy (and in particular see the naming conventions page), and see the Wikipedia FAQ for answers to many questions. See also tips on contributing to Wikipedia.
You might be wondering: just why is Wikipedia so great, anyway?
If you've got a minute, think about publicizing Wikipedia. Think about leveraging effort--in the time it takes you to write two decent articles, you might be able to get ten people on board who can write ten decent articles apiece.
If you think that the system here is a little too chaotic and unregulated--and you can write authoritatively on some subjects--try the Nupedia Chalkboard, which has more rules, but the same wiki format. A formal, peer-reviewed project is Nupedia, but Nupedia often lacks Wikipedia's instantaneous feedback mechanisms.
Wikipedia subpages: