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{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2013}}
[[File:EnwikipediaArt.PNG|thumb|250px|The [[English Wikipedia|English edition of Wikipedia]] has grown to {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} articles, equivalent to [[Wikipedia:Size in volumes|over 2,000 print volumes]] of the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''. Including all language editions, Wikipedia has over 38&nbsp;million articles,<ref name = Grand20 /> equivalent to [[meta:Wikipedia as books|over 16,000 print volumes]].]]

[[File:First preserved Main Page of Wikipedia.jpeg|thumbnail|Wikipedia's Main Page as it appeared on December 20, 2001.]]

The '''History of Wikipedia''' formally began with the launch of [[Wikipedia]] on 15 January 2001 by [[Jimmy Wales]] and [[Larry Sanger]]. Its technological and conceptual underpinnings predate this; the earliest known proposal for an online encyclopedia was made by [[Rick Gates]] in 1993,<ref name="listserv.uh.edu">{{cite web | url= http://history-computer.com/Internet/Conquering/Wikipedia.html |title=Wikipedia of Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger | publisher = History Computer |year= 2010| accessdate= 9 November 2013}}</ref> but the concept of a [[free as in freedom|free-as-in-freedom]] online encyclopedia (as [[Alternative terms for free software|distinct]] from mere [[open source]] or [[freemium]])<ref>{{cite web | url =https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#open-source| title = Philosophy |publisher=GNU|accessdate=5 November 2013}}</ref> was proposed by [[Richard Stallman]] in December 2000.<ref name = "stallmanencyclopedia" />

Crucially, Stallman's concept specifically included the idea that no central organization should control editing. This "[[massively multiplayer]]" characteristic was in stark contrast to contemporary digital encyclopedias such as [[Encarta|Microsoft Encarta]], ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'', and even [[Bomis]]'s [[Nupedia]], which was Wikipedia's direct predecessor. In 2001, the license for Nupedia was changed to [[GFDL]], and Wales and Sanger launched Wikipedia using the concept and technology of a [[wiki]] pioneered in 1995 by [[Ward Cunningham]].<ref>{{cite web|url= http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiHistory | title =WikiHistory|publisher= [[WikiWikiWeb]]|accessdate= 15 May 2013}}</ref> Initially, Wikipedia was intended to complement Nupedia, an online encyclopedia project edited solely by experts, by providing additional draft articles and ideas for it. In practice, Wikipedia quickly overtook Nupedia, becoming a global project in multiple languages and inspiring a wide range of [[List of wikis|other online reference projects]].

According to [[Alexa Internet]], Wikipedia is the world's seventh-most-popular website in terms of overall visitor traffic.<ref name="AlexaSiteInfoOct26" /> Wikipedia's total worldwide monthly readership is approximately 495 million.<ref name=EconWikiPeaks>{{cite news|url=http://www.economist.com/news/international/21597959-popular-online-encyclopedia-must-work-out-what-next-wikipeaks|title=The future of Wikipedia: WikiPeaks?|work=[[The Economist]]|date=1 March 2014|accessdate=2 April 2014}}</ref> Worldwide in August 2015, WMF Labs tallied 18&nbsp;billion page views for the month.<ref>http://reportcard.wmflabs.org/</ref> According to [[comScore]], Wikipedia receives over 117&nbsp;million monthly unique visitors from the United States alone.<ref name="comScore2012">{{cite web|url=http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Market-Rankings/comScore-Ranks-the-Top-50-US-Digital-Media-Properties-for-January-2015|title=comScore Ranks the Top 50 U.S. Digital Media Properties for January 2015|publisher=comScore|date=24 February 2015|accessdate=17 March 2015}}</ref>

==Historical overview==

===Background===
The concept of compiling the world's knowledge in a single location dates to the ancient [[Library of Alexandria|Libraries of Alexandria]] and [[Library of Pergamum|Pergamum]], but the modern concept of a general-purpose, widely distributed, printed [[encyclopedia]] originated with [[Denis Diderot]] and the 18th-century French [[Encyclopédie|encyclopedist]]s. The idea of using automated machinery beyond the [[printing press]] to build a more useful encyclopedia can be traced to [[Paul Otlet]]'s 1934 book ''Traité de documentation''; Otlet also founded the [[Mundaneum]], an institution dedicated to indexing the world's knowledge, in 1910. This concept of a machine-assisted encyclopedia was further expanded in [[H. G. Wells]]' book of essays ''[[World Brain]]'' (1938) and [[Vannevar Bush]]'s future vision of the [[microfilm]]-based [[Memex]] in ''[[As We May Think]]'' (1945).<ref name =reaglechap2>Reagle, Joseph (2010). ''Good Faith Collaboration. The Culture of Wikipedia''. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-01447-2. Chapter 2: "The Pursuit of the Universal Encyclopedia".</ref> Another milestone was [[Ted Nelson]]'s [[hypertext]] design [[Project Xanadu]], which was begun in 1960.<ref name=reaglechap2/>

Advances in information technology in the late 20th century led to changes in the form of encyclopedias. While previous encyclopedias, notably the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'', were book-based, Microsoft's [[Encarta]], published in 1993, was available on CD-ROM and [[hyperlink]]ed. The development of the [[World Wide Web]] led to many attempts to develop [[internet encyclopedia project]]s. An early proposal for a web-based encyclopedia was [[Interpedia]] in 1993 by [[Rick Gates]];<ref name="listserv.uh.edu"/> this project died before generating any encyclopedic content. [[Free software]] proponent [[Richard Stallman]] described the usefulness of a "Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource" in 1999.<ref name = "stallmanencyclopedia">{{cite web|url = https://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/anencyc.txt |title=The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource|publisher=GNU |last=Stallman|first=Richard | authorlink =Richard Stallman|date=18 December 2000|accessdate=11 March 2014}}</ref> His published document "aims to lay out what the free encyclopedia needs to do, what sort of freedoms it needs to give the public, and how we can get started on developing it." On Wednesday 17 January 2001, two days after the founding of Wikipedia, the [[Free Software Foundation]]'s (FSF) [[GNUPedia]] project went online, competing with [[Nupedia]],<ref>{{cite web|url= http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9990&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=502603 |title=Slashdot Comments &#124; GNUPedia Project Starting |publisher=Slashdot.org |date=17 January 2001 |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref> but today the FSF encourages people "to visit and contribute to [Wikipedia]".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/|title=The Free Encyclopedia Project|publisher=GNU.org|origyear=1999|year=2012|accessdate=20 December 2012}}</ref>

===Formulation of the concept===
Wikipedia was initially conceived as a feeder project for the Wales-founded [[Nupedia]], an earlier project to produce a free online encyclopedia, volunteered by [[Bomis]], a web-advertising firm owned by [[Jimmy Wales]], [[Tim Shell]] and Michael E. Davis.<ref name="thehive"/><ref name="Jonathan Sidener">{{cite news
|first=Jonathan
|last=Sidener
|title=Everyone's Encyclopedia
|url=http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041206/news_mz1b6encyclo.html
|publisher=[[The San Diego Union-Tribune]]
|date=6 December 2004
|accessdate=25 March 2007
|quote=}}</ref><ref name="memoirofwiki"/> Nupedia was founded upon the use of highly qualified volunteer contributors and an elaborate multi-step [[peer review]] process.<ref>Kaplan Andreas, Haenlein Michael (2014) Collaborative projects (social media application): About Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Business Horizons, Volume 57 Issue 5, pp.617–626</ref> Despite its mailing list of interested editors, and the presence of a full-time editor-in-chief, [[Larry Sanger]], a graduate [[philosophy]] student hired by Wales,<ref name="resignation">[//meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=My_resignation--Larry_Sanger&oldid=523212 My resignation: Larry Sanger] (meta.wikimedia.com) – "I was more or less offered the job of editing Nupedia when I was, as an ABD philosophy graduate student, soliciting Jimbo's (and other friends') advice on a website I was thinking of starting. It was the first I had heard of Jimbo's idea of an open content encyclopedia, and I was delighted to take the job."</ref> the writing of content for Nupedia was extremely slow, with only 12 articles written during the first year.<ref name="memoirofwiki"/>

Wales and Sanger discussed various ways to create content more rapidly.<ref name="Jonathan Sidener"/> The idea of a [[wiki]]-based complement originated from a conversation between Larry M. Sanger and Ben Kovitz.<ref name="Ben_Kovitz">{{cite news
|title=Ben Kovitz
|url=http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BenKovitz
|publisher=[[WikiWikiWeb]]
|accessdate=25 March 2007
|quote=}} – see also Ben Kovitz' [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:BenKovitz&oldid=394519101 fuller] account which he links from there.</ref><ref name="Glyn Moody">{{cite news
|first=Glyn
|last=Moody
|url=http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1818630,00.html
|title=This time, it'll be a Wikipedia written by experts
|publisher=The Guardian
|date=13 July 2006
|accessdate=25 March 2007
|quote=
|location=London}}-- While casting around for a way to speed up article production, Sanger met with Ben Kovitz, an old friend, in January 2001. Kovitz introduced Sanger to the idea of the wiki, invented in 1995 by Ward Cunningham: web pages that anyone could write and edit. "My first reaction was that this really could be what would solve the problem," Sanger explains, "because the software was already written, and this community of people on WikiWikiWeb" – the first wiki – "had created something like 14,000 pages". Nupedia, by contrast, had produced barely two dozen articles. Sanger took up the idea immediately: "I wrote up a proposal and sent it [to Wales] that evening, and the wiki was then set up for me to work on." But this was not Wikipedia as we know it. "Originally it was the Nupedia Wiki – our idea was to use it as an article incubator for Nupedia. Articles could begin life on this wiki, be developed collaboratively and, when they got to a certain stage of development, be put it into the Nupedia system."</ref><ref name="Origins_of_Wikipedia">{{cite news
|first=Jonathan
|last=Sidener
|title=Wikipedia co-founder looks to add accountability, end anarchy
|url=http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060923/news_lz1n23wiki.html
|publisher=[[The San Diego Union-Tribune]]
|date=23 September 2006
|accessdate=25 March 2007
|quote=The origins of Wikipedia date to 2000, when Sanger was finishing his doctoral thesis in philosophy and had an idea for a Web site.}}</ref> Ben Kovitz was a [[computer programmer]] and regular on [[Ward Cunningham]]'s revolutionary wiki "the [[WikiWikiWeb]]". He explained to Sanger what wikis were, at that time a difficult concept to understand, over a dinner on Tuesday 2 January 2001.<ref name="Ben_Kovitz"/><ref name="Glyn Moody"/><ref name="Origins_of_Wikipedia"/><ref name="the hive">
{{cite news
|first=Marshall
|last=Poe
|title=The Hive
|url=http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia/3
|publisher=[[The Atlantic Monthly]]
|date=September 2006
|page=3
|accessdate=25 March 2007
|quote=}}-- Over tacos that night, Sanger explained his concerns about Nupedia's lack of progress, the root cause of which was its serial editorial system. As Nupedia was then structured, no stage of the editorial process could proceed before the previous stage was completed. Kovitz brought up the wiki and sketched out "[[wiki magic]]", the mysterious process by which communities with common interests work to improve wiki pages by incremental contributions. If it worked for the rambunctious hacker culture of programming, Kovitz said, it could work for any online collaborative project. The wiki could break the Nupedia bottleneck by permitting volunteers to work simultaneously all over the project. With Kovitz in tow, Sanger rushed back to his apartment and called Wales to share the idea. Over the next few days he wrote a formal proposal for Wales and started a page on Cunningham's wiki called "WikiPedia."</ref> Wales first stated, in October 2001, that "Larry had the idea to use Wiki software",<ref name="wikipedia-l-000671"/> though he later stated in December 2005 that Jeremy Rosenfeld, a Bomis employee, introduced him to the concept.<ref name="Wired News">
{{cite news
|title=Assignment Zero First Take: Wiki Innovators Rethink Openness
|url=http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/05/assignment_zero_citizendium
|publisher=[[Wired News]]
|date=3 May 2007
|accessdate=1 November 2007
|quote=
|deadurl=yes
|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140328235925/http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/05/assignment_zero_citizendium
|archivedate=2014-03-28}} Wired.com states: "Wales offered the following on-the-record comment in an e-mail to NewAssignment.net editor [and NYU Professor] [[Jay Rosen]] ...'Larry Sanger was my employee working under my direct supervision during the entire process of launching Wikipedia. He was not the originator of the proposal to use a wiki for the encyclopedia project – that was Jeremy Rosenfeld'."</ref><ref name="cadenhead">{{cite web|url=http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2828/wikipedia-founder-looks-out-number-1|author=Rogers Cadenhead|accessdate=15 October 2006|title=Wikipedia Founder Looks Out for Number 1}}</ref><ref name="rosenfeld">Also stated on Wikipedia, on Friday 2 December 2005 [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jimmy_Wales&diff=next&oldid=29849184 permanent reference]</ref><ref>Stated on Wikipedia on Monday 14 March 2005: [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=11139857 reference]</ref> Sanger thought a wiki would be a good platform to use, and proposed on the Nupedia [[mailing list]] that a wiki based upon [[UseModWiki]] (then v. 0.90) be set up as a "feeder" project for Nupedia. Under the subject "Let's make a wiki", he wrote:

{{quote|No, this is not an indecent proposal. It's an idea to add a little feature to Nupedia. Jimmy Wales thinks that many people might find the idea objectionable, but I think not... As to Nupedia's use of a wiki, this is the ULTIMATE "open" and simple format for developing content. We have occasionally bandied about ideas for simpler, more open projects to either replace or supplement Nupedia. It seems to me wikis can be implemented practically instantly, need very little maintenance, and in general are very low-risk. They're also a potentially great source for content. So there's little downside, as far as I can determine.}}
Wales set one up and put it online on Wednesday 10 January 2001.<ref>{{cite news |author=[[Larry Sanger]]|title=Let's make a wiki|date=10 January 2001|publisher=Nupedia mailing list |url=http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000676.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20030414014355/http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000676.html|archivedate=14 April 2003}}</ref>

===Founding of Wikipedia===
There was considerable resistance on the part of Nupedia's editors and reviewers to the idea of associating Nupedia with a wiki-style website. Sanger suggested giving the new project its own name, ''Wikipedia'', and Wikipedia was soon launched on its own domain, <tt>wikipedia.com</tt>, on Monday 15 January 2001. The [[bandwidth (computing)|bandwidth]] and [[server (computing)|server]] (located in San Diego) used for these initial projects were donated by Bomis. Many former Bomis employees later contributed content to the encyclopedia: notably [[Tim Shell]], co-founder and later CEO of Bomis, and programmer Jason Richey.

In December 2008, Wales stated that he made Wikipedia's first edit, a test edit with the text "Hello, World!"<ref>[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=258632986 Message by Jimmy Wales]. Wednesday 17 December 2008. Retrieved Saturday 30 January 2010.</ref> The oldest article still preserved is the article [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:UuU&oldid=291430 UuU], created on Tuesday 16 January 2001, at 21:08 UTC.<ref>"[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles]]". Wikipedia. Retrieved on Tuesday 30 January 2007.</ref><ref>''The Wikipedia Revolution'' by Andrew Lih.</ref> The existence of the project was formally announced and an appeal for volunteers to engage in content creation was made to the Nupedia mailing list on 17 January.<ref>Larry Sanger. [https://web.archive.org/web/20030331101007/http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000684.html "Wikipedia is up!"] Nupedia-l mailing list message. Wednesday 17 January 2001.</ref>

[[File:UuU.png|thumb|The "UuU" edit, the first edit that is still preserved on Wikipedia to this day, as it appears using the ''Nostalgia'' skin.]]
The project received many new participants after being mentioned on the [[Slashdot]] website in July 2001,<ref name="slashdot26july">{{cite web |title = Britannica and Free Content |url = http://slashdot.org/articles/01/07/26/0312258.shtml |publisher = Slashdot |date = 26 July 2001}}</ref> having already earned two minor mentions in March 2001.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/02/1422244&tid=99 |title = Nupedia and Project Gutenberg Directors Answer |publisher = Slashdot |date = 5 March 2001}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url = http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/29/2035230&tid=95 |title = Everything2 Hits One Million Nodes |publisher = Slashdot |date = 29 March 2001}}</ref> It then received a prominent pointer to a story on the community-edited technology and culture website [[Kuro5hin]] on 25 July.<ref>[http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/7/25/103136/121 Britannica or Nupedia? The Future of Free Encyclopedias] Wednesday 25 July 2001</ref> Between these relatively rapid influxes of traffic, there had been a steady stream of traffic from other sources, especially [[Google]], which alone sent hundreds of new visitors to the site every day. Its first major [[mainstream media]] coverage was in the ''[[New York Times]]'' on Thursday 20 September 2001.<ref>"[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E5D6123BF933A1575AC0A9679C8B63 Fact driven? Collegial? This site wants you]". ''New York Times''. Thursday 20 September 2001. Retrieved Wednesday 17 July 2013.</ref>

The project gained its 1,000th article around Monday 12 February 2001, and reached 10,000 articles around 7 September. In the first year of its existence, over 20,000 encyclopedia entries were created – a rate of over 1,500 articles per month. On Friday 30 August 2002, the article count reached 40,000.

Wikipedia's earliest edits were long believed lost, since the original [[UseModWiki]] software deleted old data after about a month. On Tuesday 14 December 2010, developer Tim Starling found backups on [[SourceForge]] containing every change made to Wikipedia from its creation in January 2001 to 17 August 2001.<ref>[http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-December/063088.html Announcement of finding of Wikipedia's earliest history]. Wikimedia.org. 2010. Retrieved 5 April 2013.</ref>

===Namespaces, subdomains, and internationalization===
Early in Wikipedia's development, it began to expand internationally, with the creation of new namespaces, each with a distinct set of usernames. The first subdomain created for a non-English Wikipedia was ''[[German Wikipedia|deutsche.wikipedia.com]]'' (created on Friday 16 March 2001, 01:38 UTC),<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-March/000049.html |title= Alternative language Wikipedias | work =Lists | publisher = Wikimedia |date= 15 March 2001 |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref> followed after a few hours by ''[[Catalan Wikipedia|Catalan.wikipedia.com]]'' (at 13:07 UTC).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://catalan.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=history&id=HomePage |title=History of the Catalan Homepage |publisher=Wikipedia |accessdate=13 April 2010 |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20010413083954/catalan.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=history&id=HomePage |archivedate=13 April 2001}}</ref> The Japanese Wikipedia, started as [[Japanese Wikipedia|nihongo.wikipedia.com]], was created around that period,<ref>[[Digital time capsule|The Wayback Machine]]: An early [https://web.archive.org/web/20010420120143/nihongo.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=browse&id=HomePage&revision=3 Japanese Wikipedia HomePage] (revision #3), dated Tuesday 20 March 2001 23:00. Retrieved Tuesday 4 November 2008.</ref><ref>An [[Internet Archive]]'s snapshot of English Wikipedia [https://web.archive.org/web/20010331173908/http://www.wikipedia.com/ HomePage], dated Friday 30 March 2001, showing links to the three first sister projects, "Deutsch (German)", "Catalan", and "Nihongo (Japanese)".</ref> and initially used only [[Romanization of Japanese|Romanized]] Japanese. For about two months Catalan was the one with the most articles in a non-English language,<ref>[[Wikipedia:Multilingual monthly statistics (2001)|Multilingual monthly statistics]]</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= http://ca.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C3%80bac&oldid=1 |title=First edition in the Catalan Wikipedia |language=ca |publisher= Wikipedia | accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref> although statistics of that early period are imprecise.<ref>This [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Multilingual_monthly_statistics_(2001)&oldid=192353617 table], for instance, misses Japanese and German articles such as [https://web.archive.org/web/20010421123743/nihongo.wikipedia.com/wiki/Nihongo_no_funimekusu this one] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20010411030440/deutsche.wikipedia.com/wiki/Nupedia_Deutsch-L_Sektion this one,] both dated 6 April 2001.</ref> The [[French Wikipedia]] was created on or around 11 May 2001,<ref>The [http://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikip%C3%A9dia:Historique_de_Wikip%C3%A9dia_en_fran%C3%A7ais&oldid=34816819 Documentation on the French Wikipedia] mentions the date of 23 March 2001, but this date is not supported by Wikipedia snapshots on the [[Internet Archive]], nor by Jason Richney's letter, which was dated 11 May 2001 (see below).</ref> in a wave of new language versions that also included [[Chinese Wikipedia|Chinese]], [[Dutch Wikipedia|Dutch]], [[Esperanto Wikipedia|Esperanto]], [[Hebrew Wikipedia|Hebrew]], [[Italian Wikipedia|Italian]], <!--[[Japanese Wikipedia |Japanese]], commenting out: although Japanese Wikipedia was announced together with the others on that email, it already existed under the domain nihongo.wikipedia.com-->[[Portuguese Wikipedia|Portuguese]], [[Russian Wikipedia|Russian]], [[Spanish Wikipedia|Spanish]], and [[Swedish Wikipedia|Swedish]].<ref>[http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-May/000116.html Letter of Jason Richey to wikipedia-l mailing list] 11 May 2001</ref> These languages were soon joined by [[Arabic Wikipedia|Arabic]]<ref>{{cite web | url=http://ar.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?HomePage |title= Homepage from the Internet Archive |publisher=Wikipedia |accessdate= 13 April 2010 | archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20011118054300/ar.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?HomePage |archivedate= 18 November 2001}}</ref> and [[Hungarian Wikipedia|Hungarian]].<ref>[http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Announcements_2001#May_2001 Wikipedia:Announcements] May 2001</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=International_Wikipedia&action=history |title = International Wikipedia |publisher=Wikipedia |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref> In September 2001, an announcement pledged commitment to the multilingual provision of Wikipedia,<ref>[[Wikipedia:Announcements 2001#September 2001|Wikipedia: Announcements 2001]]</ref> notifying users of an upcoming roll-out of Wikipedias for all major languages, the establishment of core standards, and a push for the translation of core pages for the new wikis. At the end of that year, when international statistics first began to be logged, [[Afrikaans Wikipedia|Afrikaans]], [[Norwegian Wikipedia|Norwegian]], and [[Serbian Wikipedia|Serbian]] versions were announced.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:International_wikipedias_statistics | title = International Wikipedias statistics |publisher=Wikipedia | accessdate = 13 April 2010}}</ref>

In January 2002, 90% of all Wikipedia articles were in English. By January 2004, fewer than 50% were English, and this internationalization has continued to increase as the encyclopedia grows. As of 2014, about 85.5% of all Wikipedia articles are contained within non-English Wikipedia versions.<ref name=Grand20 />

===Development of Wikipedia===
[[File:Old Wikipedia.png|thumb|right|A screenshot of Wikipedia's main page on 28 September 2002.]]
In March 2002, following the withdrawal of funding by Bomis during the [[dot-com bubble|dot-com bust]], Larry Sanger left both Nupedia and Wikipedia.<ref name="Stacy Schiff">{{cite news
|first=Stacy
|last=Schiff
|title=Know It All
|url=http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact
|work=[[The New Yorker]]
|date=31 July 2006
|accessdate=25 April 2009
|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090223141356/http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact <!--Added by H3llBot-->
|archivedate=23 February 2009}}</ref> By 2002, Sanger and Wales differed in their views on how best to manage open encyclopedias. Both still supported the open-collaboration concept, but the two disagreed on how to handle disruptive editors, specific roles for experts, and the best way to guide the project to success.

Wales went on to establish self-governance and [[Business development|bottom-up]] self-direction by editors on Wikipedia. He made it clear that he would not be involved in the community's day-to-day management, but would encourage it to learn to self-manage and find its own best approaches. As of 2007, Wales mostly restricts his own role to occasional input on serious matters, executive activity, advocacy of knowledge, and encouragement of similar reference projects.

Sanger says he is an "inclusionist" and is open to almost anything.<ref>{{cite web
| url = http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/citizendium.ars/3
| title = Citizendium: building a better Wikipedia
| first = Nate
| last = Anderson
| publisher = Ars Technica
| date = 25 February 2007
| accessdate =22 October 2011
}}</ref> He proposed that experts still have a place in the [[Web 2.0]] world. He returned briefly to academia, then joined the [[Digital Universe]] Foundation. In 2006, Sanger founded [[Citizendium]], an open encyclopedia that used real names for contributors in an effort to reduce disruptive editing, and hoped to facilitate "gentle expert guidance" to increase the accuracy of its content. Decisions about article content were to be up to the community, but the site was to include a statement about "family-friendly content".<ref>[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Family-Friendly_Policy "Family-Friendly Policy"]. en.citizendium.org. Retrieved 16 November 2013.</ref> He stated early on that he intended to leave Citizendium in a few years, by which time the project and its management would presumably be established.<ref name="Nate Anderson"/>

===Organization===
The Wikipedia project has grown rapidly in the course of its life, at several levels. Content has grown organically through the addition of new articles, new wikis have been added in English and non-English languages, and entire new projects replicating these growth methods in other related areas (news, quotations, reference books and so on) have been founded as well. Wikipedia itself has grown, with the creation of the [[Wikimedia Foundation]] to act as an umbrella body and the growth of software and policies to address the needs of the editorial community. These are documented below:

===Evolution of logo===
<gallery mode="packed">
File:Wiki logo Nupedia.jpg|Founding – Late 2001
File:Wiki logo The Cunctator.png|Late 2001 – 12 October 2003
File:Wikipedia-logo-en.png|13 October 2003 – 13 May 2010
File:Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg|13 May 2010 – present
</gallery>

==Timeline==
:''Articles summarizing each year are held within the Wikipedia project namespace and are linked to below. Additional resources for research are available within the Wikipedia records and archives, and are listed at the end of this article.''<!-- DONE THIS WAY SINCE MANY OF THESE LINKS WOULD BE SELFREFS, AND YET WORTHWHILE POINTING OUT THEIR EXISTENCE TO RESEARCHERS-->

===2000===
[[File:Bomis-staff-summer-2000.jpg|thumb|alt=The Bomis staff, summer 2000|The Bomis staff in the summer of 2000.]]

In March 2000, the [[Nupedia]] project was started. Its intention was to publish articles written by experts which would be licensed as [[free content]]. Nupedia was founded by Jimmy Wales, with Larry Sanger as editor-in-chief, and funded by the web-advertising company [[Bomis]].<ref name="hive">{{cite web|url=http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia/|title=The Hive|last=Poe|first=Marshall|publisher=[[The Atlantic]]|date=September 2006|accessdate=1 January 2007}}</ref>

===2001===
In January 2001, Wikipedia began as a side-project of Nupedia, to allow collaboration on articles prior to entering the peer-review process.<ref>{{cite news |author=[[Larry Sanger]] |title=Let's make a wiki |date=10 January 2001 |work=Nupedia-l mailing list| publisher=Internet Archive|url=http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000676.html |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20030414014355/http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000676.html |archivedate = 14 April 2003}}</ref> The name was suggested by Sanger on 11 January 2001.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000680.html|archiveurl=http://web.archive.org/web/20030414021138/http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2001-January/000680.html|title=[Nupedia-l] Re: [Advisory-l] The wiki...|archivedate=14 April 2003|work=nupedia.com}}</ref> The ''wikipedia.com'' and ''wikipedia.org'' domain names were registered on 12<ref>[[Network Solutions]] (2007) ''[http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=wikipedia.com WHOIS domain registration information results for wikipedia.com from Network Solutions]''. Retrieved 27 July 2007.</ref> and 13 January,<ref>[[Network Solutions]] (2007). [http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=wikipedia.org "WHOIS domain registration information results for wikipedia.org from Network Solutions]". Retrieved 27 July 2007.</ref> respectively, with ''wikipedia.org'' being brought online on the same day.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page |title=Wikipedia.org Site Info |publisher=[[Alexa Internet]] |accessdate=6 September 2010 }}</ref> The project formally opened on 15 January ("[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Day|Wikipedia Day]]"), with the first international Wikipedias – the French, German, [[Catalan language|Catalan]], Swedish, and Italian editions – being created between March and May. The "neutral point of view" (NPOV) policy was officially formulated at this time, and Wikipedia's first [[slashdot effect|slashdotter wave]] arrived on 26 July.<ref name="slashdot26july"/> The first media report about Wikipedia appeared in August 2001 in the newspaper ''[[Western Mail (Wales)|Wales on Sunday]]''.<ref>[[Western Mail (Wales)|Wales on Sunday]] (26 August 2001) ''Knowledge at your fingertips. Game On : Internet Chat.''(writing, "Both Encarta and Britannica are official publications with well-deserved reputations. But there are other options, such as the homemade encyclopaedias. One is Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com) which uses clever software to build an encyclopaedia from scratch. Wiki is software installed on a web server that allows anyone to edit any of the pages. At the Wikipedia, anyone can write about any subject they know about. The idea is that over time, enough experts will offer their knowledge for free and build up the world's ultimate hand-built database of knowledge. The disadvantage is that it's still an ongoing project. So far about 8,000 articles have been written and the editors are aiming for 100,000.")</ref> The [[September 11 attacks]] spurred the appearance of breaking news stories on the homepage, as well as information boxes linking related articles.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20011010233257/http://www.wikipedia.com/ October 2001 homepage screenshot] shows the "Breaking News" header up top, as well as the 11 September 2001 block of articles under "Current events"; the [https://web.archive.org/web/20011010230439/www.wikipedia.com/wiki/September_11,_2001_Terrorist_Attack 9/11 page] shows the activist nature of the page, as well as the large number of subtopics created to cover the event.</ref>

===2002===
2002 saw the end of funding for Wikipedia from [[Bomis]] and the departure of [[Larry Sanger]]. The [[fork (software development)|forking]] of the [[Spanish Wikipedia]] also took place with the establishment of the ''[[Enciclopedia Libre]]''. The first portable [[MediaWiki]] software went live on 25 January. [[Internet bot|Bot]]s were introduced, Jimmy Wales confirmed that Wikipedia would never run commercial advertising, and the first sister project ([[Wiktionary]]) and first formal [[Manual of Style]] were launched. A separate board of directors to supervise the project was proposed and initially discussed at [[Meta-Wikipedia]].{{citation needed|date=December 2014}}

===2003===
The English Wikipedia passed 100,000 articles in 2003, while the next largest edition, the German Wikipedia, passed 10,000. The [[Wikimedia Foundation]] was established, and Wikipedia adopted its jigsaw world [[logo]]. Mathematical formulae using [[TeX]] were reintroduced to the website. The [[:de:Wikipedia:München/Archiv#2003.10(Dienstag Erstes Treffen|first Wikipedian social meeting]] took place in [[Munich]], Germany, in October. The basic principles of Wikipedia's {{srlink|Wikipedia:ArbCom|Arbitration system and committee}} (known colloquially as "ArbCom") were developed, mostly by {{srlink|User:Florence Devouard|Florence Devouard}}, {{srlink|User:Fred Bauder|Fred Bauder}} and other early Wikipedians.{{citation needed|date=December 2014}}

[[Wikisource]] was created as a separate project on November 24, 2003, to host free textual sources.

===2004===
The worldwide Wikipedia article pool continued to grow rapidly in 2004, doubling in size in 12 months, from under 500,000 articles in late 2003 to over 1&nbsp;million in over 100 languages by the end of 2004. The English Wikipedia accounted for just under half of these articles. The website's [[server farm]]s were moved from [[California]] to [[Florida]], {{srlink|Wikipedia:Categories|Categories}} and [[CSS]] style configuration sheets were introduced, and the first attempt to block Wikipedia occurred, with the website being blocked in China for two weeks in June. The formal election of a board and Arbitration Committee began. The first formal projects were proposed to deliberately balance content and seek out [[systemic bias]] arising from Wikipedia's community structure.

''Bourgeois v. Peters'',<ref name="Bour v Pete">{{cite web|url=http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200216886.pdf |title=387 F.3d 1303 |format=PDF |accessdate=19 November 2013 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121221140312/http://www.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/ops/200216886.pdf |archivedate=2012-12-21}}</ref> (11th Cir. 2004), a court case decided by the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit]] was one of the earliest [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a court source|court opinions to cite and quote Wikipedia]].<ref>{{cite journal | url=http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1055&context=yjolt | title=The Citation of Wikipedia in Judicial Opinions | author=Peoples, Lee | journal=Yale Journal of Law and Technology |date=January 2010 | volume=12 | issue=1}}</ref> It stated: "We also reject the notion that the Department of Homeland Security's threat advisory level somehow justifies these searches. Although the threat level was 'elevated' at the time of the protest, 'to date, the threat level has stood at yellow (elevated) for the majority of its time in existence. It has been raised to orange (high) six times.{{'-}}"<ref name="Bour v Pete"/>

[[Wikimedia Commons]] was created in September 7, 2004 to host media files for Wikipedia in all languages.

===2005===
In 2005, Wikipedia became the most popular reference website on the Internet, according to [[Hitwise]], with the English Wikipedia alone exceeding 750,000 articles. Wikipedia's first multilingual and subject portals were established in 2005. A formal fundraiser held in the first quarter of the year raised almost US$100,000 for system upgrades to handle growing demand. China again blocked Wikipedia in October 2005.

The first major Wikipedia scandal, the [[Seigenthaler incident]], occurred in 2005, when a well-known figure was found to have a vandalized biography which had gone unnoticed for months. In the wake of this and other concerns,<ref name="Brandt">[[Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons|WP:BLP]] was started on 17 December 2005, with the narrative "I started this due to the Daniel Brandt situation". [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons&oldid=31753956 Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons]</ref> the first policy and system changes specifically designed to counter this form of abuse were established. These included a new [[m:CheckUser policy|Checkuser]] privilege policy update to assist in [[Sockpuppet (Internet)|sock puppetry]] investigations, a new feature called {{srlink|Wikipedia:Requests for page protection|semi-protection}}, a more strict policy on biographies of living people and the tagging of such articles for stricter review. A restriction of new article creation to registered users only was put in place in December 2005.<ref>[http://news.cnet.com/Growing-pains-for-Wikipedia---page-2/2100-1025_3-5981119-2.html?tag=mncol "Growing pains for Wikipedia"]. CNET. Retrieved 16 July 2010.</ref>

[[File:Wikimania - the Wikimentary.webm|thumb|thumbtime=00:17|thumb|right|200px|"Wikimania - the Wikimentary", Documentary about Wikimania 2005, featuring [[Jimmy Wales]], [[Ward Cunningham]]]]
Wikimania 2005, the first [[Wikimania]] conference, was held from 4 to 8 August 2005 at the ''Haus der Jugend'' in [[Frankfurt]], Germany, attracting about 380 attendees.

===2006===
The English Wikipedia gained its one-millionth article, [[Jordanhill railway station]], on 1 March 2006. The first approved Wikipedia article selection was made freely available to download, and "Wikipedia" became registered as a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation. The [[congressional staffer edits to Wikipedia|congressional aides biography scandals]] – multiple incidents in which congressional staffers and a campaign manager were caught trying to covertly alter Wikipedia biographies – came to public attention, leading to the resignation of the campaign manager. Nonetheless, Wikipedia was rated as one of the top five global brands of 2006.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20070321033410/http://www.brandchannel.com/start1.asp?fa_id=352 Similar Search Results: Google Wins] 29 January 2007</ref>

Jimmy Wales indicated at [[Wikimania 2006]] that Wikipedia had achieved sufficient volume and called for an emphasis on quality, perhaps best expressed in the call for [[Wikipedia:100,000 feature-quality articles|100,000 feature-quality articles]]. A new privilege, "oversight", was created, allowing specific versions of archived pages with unacceptable content to be marked as non-viewable. Semi-protection against anonymous vandalism, introduced in 2005, proved more popular than expected, with over 1,000 pages being semi-protected at any given time in 2006.

===2007===
Wikipedia continued to grow rapidly in 2007, possessing over 5&nbsp;million registered editor accounts by 13 August.<ref>See the special page: [[Special:Statistics]]: 5,078,036 registered user accounts as at 13 August 2007, excluding anonymous editors who have not created accounts.</ref> The 250 language editions of Wikipedia contained a combined total of 7.5&nbsp;million articles, totalling 1.74&nbsp;billion words in approximately 250 languages, by 13 August.<ref>Source: [[Wikipedia:Size comparisons]] as of 13 August 2007</ref> The English Wikipedia gained articles at a steady rate of 1,700 a day,<ref>From around Q3 2006 Wikipedia's growth rate has been approximately linear, source: [[Wikipedia:Statistics]] – new article count by month 2006–2007.</ref> with the wikipedia.org domain name ranked the 10th-busiest in the world. Wikipedia continued to garner visibility in [[:Category:Wikipedia publicity|the press]] – the [[Essjay controversy]] broke when a prominent member of Wikipedia was found to have lied about his credentials. [[Citizendium]], a competing online encyclopedia, launched publicly. A new trend developed in Wikipedia, with the encyclopedia addressing people whose notability stemmed from being a participant in a news story by adding a redirect from their name to the larger story, rather than creating a distinct biographical article.<ref>e.g., cases such as [[Crystal Gail Mangum]] and Daniel Brandt.</ref> On 9 September 2007, the English Wikipedia gained its two-millionth article, [[El Hormiguero]].<ref>[http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikipedia_Reaches_2_Million_Articles "English Wikipedia Reaches 2 Million Articles"]. [[Wikimedia Foundation]], 9 September 2007. Retrieved 3 June 2012.</ref> There was some controversy in late 2007 when the [[Volapük Wikipedia]] jumped from 797 to over 112,000 articles, briefly becoming the 15th-largest Wikipedia edition, due to automated stub generation by an enthusiast for the [[Volapük]] constructed language.<ref>{{cite journal |ref=harv |url=http://www.pcworld.pl/artykuly/56502/MySpace.kontra.Facebook.html#t_34252|title=Ciekawe wydarzenia w Internecie |journal=PC World (Polish) |date=1 December 2007|accessdate=26 April 2013|language=Polish}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|ref=harv|url=http://www.liberafolio.org/2007/volapukapedio|language=Esperanto |author=Yves Nevelsteen|date=15 September 2007|work=Libera Folio|title=Volapuko jam superas Esperanton en Vikipedio|accessdate=26 April 2013}}</ref>

According to the ''[[MIT Technology Review]]'', the number of regularly active editors on the English-language Wikipedia peaked in 2007 at more than 51,000, and has since been declining.<ref name="MIT">{{cite journal |last=Simonite |first=Tom |url=http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedia/ |title=The Decline of Wikipedia |date=22 October 2013 |journal=[[MIT Technology Review]] |accessdate=7 November 2013}}</ref>

===2008===
Various {{srlink|Wikipedia:WikiProject|WikiProjects}} in many areas continued to expand and refine article contents within their scope. In April 2008, the 10-millionth Wikipedia article was created, and by the end of the year the English Wikipedia exceeded 2.5&nbsp;million articles.

===2009===
By late August 2009, the number of articles in all Wikipedia editions had exceeded 14&nbsp;million.<ref name="wikistats">[https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesArticlesTotal.htm "Wikipedia Statistics, Article count (official)"]. Wikimedia.org. December 2014. Retrieved 20 December 2014.</ref> The three-millionth article on the English Wikipedia, [[Beate Eriksen]], was created on 17 August 2009 at 04:05 UTC.<ref>[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-08-17/News_and_notes&oldid=309138115#Three_million_articles "Three million articles"]. ''Wikipedia Signpost''. 17 August 2009. Retrieved 7 April 2012.</ref> On 27 December 2009, the [[German Wikipedia]] exceeded one&nbsp;million articles, becoming the second edition after the English Wikipedia to do so. A [[TIME magazine|''TIME'']] article listed Wikipedia among 2009's best websites.<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1918031_1918016_1917948,00.html "Wikipedia – 50 Best Websites 2009"]. ''TIME''. 24 August 2009. Retrieved 24 November 2011.</ref>

The Arbitration Committee of the English Wikipedia {{srlink|Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Scientology|decided in May 2009}} to restrict access to its site from [[Church of Scientology]] [[IP address]]es, to prevent self-serving edits by Scientologists.<ref>[[Telegraph]] 30 May 2009 20:30: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/wikipedia/5408761/Church-of-Scientology-members-banned-from-editing-Wikipedia.html Church of Scientology members banned from editing Wikipedia]</ref><ref name="Huff">{{cite news|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/29/wikipedia-bans-scientolog_n_208967.html|last=Shea|first=Danny|title=Wikipedia Bans Scientology From Site|date=29 May 2009|work=The Huffington Post|accessdate=29 May 2009}}</ref><ref name="Metz">{{cite web|url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/29/wikipedia_bans_scientology/|title=Wikipedia bans Church of Scientology|last=Metz|first=Cade|date=29 May 2009|work=The Register|accessdate=29 May 2009}}</ref> A "host of anti-Scientologist editors" were also topic-banned.<ref name="Huff" /><ref name="Metz" /> The committee concluded that both sides had "gamed policy" and resorted to "battlefield tactics", with articles on living persons being the "worst casualties".<ref name="Huff" /> Wikipedia content became licensed under [[Creative Commons]] in 2009.

===2010===
On 24 March, the European Wikipedia servers went offline due to an overheating problem. [[Failover]] to servers in Florida turned out to be broken, causing [[Domain Name System|DNS]] resolution for Wikipedia to fail across the world. The problem was resolved quickly, but due to DNS caching effects, some areas were slower to regain access to Wikipedia than others.<ref>{{cite web|last=Bergsma|first=Mark|title=Global Outage (cooling failure and DNS)|publisher=Wikimedia Technical Blog|url=http://techblog.wikimedia.org/2010/03/global-outage-cooling-failure-and-dns/|date=24 March 2010|accessdate=30 March 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Perez|first=Juan Carlos|title=Wikipedia Suffers Global Collapse|publisher=PC World|url=http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/192410/wikipedia_suffers_global_collapse.html|date=25 March 2010|accessdate=30 March 2010}}</ref>

On 13 May, the site released a new interface. New features included an updated logo, new navigation tools, and a link wizard.<ref name="New features">{{cite web |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:UsabilityInitiativePrefSwitch |title=New features |publisher=[[Wikipedia]] |accessdate=6 September 2010 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100822062045/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:UsabilityInitiativePrefSwitch |archivedate=2010-08-22}}</ref> However, the classic interface remained available for those who wished to use it. On 12 December, the English Wikipedia passed the 3.5-million-article mark, while the [[French Wikipedia]]'s millionth article was created on 21 September. The 1-billionth Wikimedia project edit was performed on 16 April.<ref>[[tools:~emijrp/wikimediacounter/onebillion.png|Total edits in Wikimedia projects – 1 billionth edit screenshot]]. Retrieved 19 November 2011.</ref>

===2011===
[[File:Armwikicake.gif|thumb|upright|One of [[Commons:Wikipedia 10 Photo gallery#Wikipedia 10 Cakes|many cakes]] made to celebrate Wikipedia's 10th anniversary<ref>{{cite web|url=https://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page |title=Wikipedia 10 |publisher=Ten.wikipedia.org |accessdate=26 February 2014}}</ref> in 2011.]]
[[File:Wikimania 2011 stamp - First Day Envelope.jpg|171x171px|thumb|right|First Day of Issue Cover of the "Wikimania 2011 – Haifa, Israel" stamp, issued by Israel Post on August 2, 2011 – The first-ever stamp dedicated to a Wikimedia-related project.]]

Wikipedia and its users held hundreds of celebrations worldwide to commemorate the site's 10th anniversary on 15 January.<ref>Wikipedia celebrates a decade of edit wars, controversy and Internet dominance [http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/011111-wikipedia-decade.html?hpg1=bn networkworld.com]</ref> The site began efforts to expand its growth in India, holding its first Indian conference in [[Mumbai]] in November 2011.<ref>[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15803308 "Wikipedia hosts India conference amid expansion push"]. BBC News. 19 November 2011.</ref><ref>{{Cite news|title=Wikipedia, 10 years old, targets India|publisher=Reuters|date=12 January 2011|url=http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1116765620110112|accessdate=13 January 2011}}</ref> The [[English Wikipedia]] passed the 3.6-million-article mark on 2 April, and reached 3.8&nbsp;million articles on 18 November. On 7 November 2011, the [[German Wikipedia]] exceeded 100&nbsp;million page edits, becoming the second language edition to do so after the English edition, which attained 500&nbsp;million page edits on 24 November 2011. The [[Dutch Wikipedia]] exceeded 1&nbsp;million articles on 17 December 2011, becoming the fourth Wikipedia edition to do so.

Between 4 and 6 October 2011, the [[Italian Wikipedia]] became intentionally inaccessible in protest against the [[Italian Parliament]]'s proposed [[DDL intercettazioni]] law, which, if approved, would allow any person to force websites to remove information that is perceived as untrue or offensive, without the need to provide evidence.<ref name=PCmagDDL>[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394150,00.asp#fbid=pWeBqlxi4Fc "Italian Wikipedia Hidden To Protest WireTap Law"]. [[PC Magazine]]. Retrieved 6 October 2011.</ref>

Also in October 2011, Wikimedia announced the launch of [[Wikipedia Zero]], an initiative to enable free mobile access to Wikipedia in developing countries through partnerships with mobile operators.<ref>{{cite news|last=Kapoor|first=Amit|title=Wikipedia seeks global operator partners to enable free access|url=http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/10/26/wikipedia-seeks-global-operator-partners-to-enable-free-access/|newspaper=Wikimedia blog|date=26 October 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Wikipedia Zero|url=http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero|publisher=MediaWiki|accessdate=27 May 2012}}</ref>

===2012===
[[File:Wikimedia Foundation Wikipedia Blackout SOPA January 18, 2012.theora.ogv|thumb|thumbtime=13|200px|The staff at the [[Wikimedia Foundation]] the moment the SOPA blackout happened]]
On 16 January, Wikipedia co-founder [[Jimmy Wales]] announced that the English Wikipedia would [[2012 Wikipedia blackout|shut down]] for 24 hours on 18 January as part of a protest meant to call public attention to the proposed [[Stop Online Piracy Act]] and [[PROTECT IP Act]], two anti-[[Copyright infringement|piracy]] laws under debate in the [[United States Congress]]. Calling the blackout a "community decision", Wales and other opponents of the laws believed that they would endanger free speech and online innovation.<ref>T.J. Ortenzi, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/wikipedia-blackout-coming-jan-18-says-co-founder-jimmy-wales/2012/01/16/gIQAh2Ke3P_blog.html Wikipedia blackout coming 18 January, says co-founder Jimmy Wales]. ''[[The Washington Post]]''. 16 January 2012.</ref> A similar blackout was staged on 10 July by the [[Russian Wikipedia]], in protest against a proposed Russian internet regulation law.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gccuL4nG-V0xDvR1v7LMPs7VrSqw?docId=N0109211341930943043A|title=Russian Wikipedia shuts in protest|date=10 July 2012|publisher=UKPA via Google}}{{dead link|date=October 2015}}</ref>

In late March 2012, the [[Meta:Wikimedia Deutschland|Wikimedia Deutschland]] announced [[Wikidata]], a universal platform for sharing data between all Wikipedia language editions.<ref>{{cite web|title=Wikidata announcement on Facebook|url=https://www.facebook.com/wikipedia/posts/158388724283345|publisher=Wikimedia Deutschland|accessdate=28 October 2015}}</ref> The US$1.7-million Wikidata project was partly funded by [[Google]], the [[Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation]], and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.<ref>[http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-57406789-52/wikidata-to-provide-structured-data-for-all-wikipedia-versions/ "Wikidata to provide structured data for all Wikipedia versions"]. CNET. 30 March 2012. Retrieved 1 April 2012.</ref> Wikimedia Deutschland assumed responsibility for the first phase of Wikidata, and initially planned to make the platform available to editors by December 2012. Wikidata's first phase became fully operational in March 2013.<ref>{{cite news|last=Perez|first=Sarah|title=Wikipedia's Next Big Thing: Wikidata, A Machine-Readable, User-Editable Database Funded By Google, Paul Allen And Others|url=http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/30/wikipedias-next-big-thing-wikidata-a-machine-readable-user-editable-database-funded-by-google-paul-allen-and-others/|newspaper=TechCrunch|date=30 March 2012}}</ref><ref name=WikidataLiveNow>{{cite web | url=http://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/02/13/wikidata-live-on-the-english-wikipedia/ | title=Wikidata live on the English Wikipedia | publisher=Wikimedia Deutschland | date=13 February 2013 | accessdate=15 February 2013 | author=Pintscher, Lydia}}</ref>

[[File:Justin_Anthony_Knapp-1.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Justin Knapp]]
In April 2012, [[Justin Knapp]] from [[Indianapolis, Indiana]], became the first single contributor to make over one&nbsp;million edits to Wikipedia.<ref>James Titcomb. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/9215151/First-man-to-make-1-million-Wikipedia-edits.html "First man to make 1 million Wikipedia edits"]. ''[[Daily Telegraph]]''. 20 April 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2013.</ref><ref>[http://mashable.com/2012/04/23/wikipedia-volunteer-editor/ "Wikipedia Volunteer Editor Reaches 1 Million Edits"]. [[Mashable]]. 24 April 2012. Retrieved 14 February 2013.</ref> Jimmy Wales congratulated Knapp for his work and presented him with the site's ''Special Barnstar'' medal and the ''Golden Wiki'' award for his achievement.<ref>{{cite web|title=Hardest working man on the internet passes one million Wikipedia edits|url=http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/20/one-million-wikipedia-edits/|publisher=Engadget.com|accessdate=3 September 2012}}</ref> Wales also declared that 20 April would be "Justin Knapp Day".<ref name=declared>{{cite news|title=Wikipedia Volunteer Editor Reaches 1 Million Edits|url=http://mashable.com/2012/04/23/wikipedia-volunteer-editor/|accessdate=24 October 2012|newspaper=Mashable|date=23 April 2012|author=Alissa Skelton}}</ref>

On 13 July 2012, the English Wikipedia gained its 4-millionth article, [[Ezbet el-Borg|Izbat al-Burj]].<ref name=4Million2012>{{cite web|title=English language Wikipedia hits 4 million articles!|url=http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2012/07/english-language-wikipedia-hits-4-million-articles/|work=Wikimedia UK Blog|publisher=[[Wikimedia UK]]|accessdate=13 July 2012}}</ref> In October 2012, historian and Wikipedia editor [[Richard J. Jensen]] opined that the English Wikipedia was "nearing completion", noting that the number of regularly active editors had fallen significantly since 2007, despite Wikipedia's rapid growth in article count and readership.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/surmounting-the-insurmountable-wikipedia-is-nearing-completion-in-a-sense/264111/|title=Surmounting the Insurmountable: Wikipedia Is Nearing Completion, in a Sense|work=The Atlantic|date=25 October 2012|accessdate=27 October 2012|first=Rebecca J.|last=Rosen}}</ref>

According to [[Alexa Internet]], Wikipedia was the world's sixth-most-popular website as of November 2012.<ref name=AlexaSiteInfoNov12>[http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org# Wikipedia.org Site Info]. Alexa.com. Retrieved 8 November 2012.</ref> [[AllThingsD|Dow Jones]] ranked Wikipedia fifth worldwide as of December 2012.<ref>http://allthingsd.com/20121220/the-fifth-biggest-site-in-the-world-operated-on-a-budget-of-27m-last-year, by Liz Gannes; AllThingsD became a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company Inc in 2005, and was absorbed into [[Wall Street Journal|WSJ.com]] during 2013.</ref>

===2013===
On 22 January 2013, the [[Italian Wikipedia]] became the fifth language edition of Wikipedia to exceed 1&nbsp;million articles, while the [[Russian Wikipedia|Russian]] and [[Spanish Wikipedia]]s gained their millionth articles in May 11 and 16 respectively. On 15 July the [[Swedish Wikipedia|Swedish]] and on 24 September the [[Polish Wikipedia]]s gained their millionth articles, becoming the eighth and ninth Wikipedia editions to do so.

On 27 January, the [[main belt asteroid]] [[274301 Wikipedia|274301]] was officially renamed "Wikipedia" by the [[Committee for Small Body Nomenclature#Minor planets|Committee for Small Body Nomenclature]].<ref name="TND-20130205">{{cite web |last=Workman |first=Robert |title=Asteroid Re-Named 'Wikipedia' |url=http://www.technewsdaily.com/16749-asteroid-named-wikipedia.html |date=5 February 2013 |publisher=[[TechMediaNetwork, Inc.|TechNewsDaily]] |accessdate=7 February 2013 }}</ref>

The first phase of the [[Wikidata]] database, automatically providing interlanguage links and other data, became available for all language editions in March 2013.<ref name=WikidataLiveNow/>

In April 2013, the [[Direction centrale du renseignement intérieur|French secret service]] was accused of attempting to censor Wikipedia by threatening a Wikipedia volunteer with arrest unless "classified information" about [[Pierre-sur-Haute military radio station|a military radio station]] was deleted.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/07/french-secret-service-wikipedia-page|title=French secret service accused of censorship over Wikipedia page|work=The Guardian|date=7 April 2013|accessdate=9 April 2013|location=London|first=Kim|last=Willsher}}</ref>

[[File:Wikimania 2013 - VisualEditor - The present and future of editing our wikis.webm|thumb|right|200px|A presentation about the Wikipedia [[VisualEditor]]]]
In July, the [[VisualEditor]] editing system was launched, forming the first stage of an effort to allow articles to be edited with a [[word processor]]-like interface instead of using [[wikimarkup]].<ref name=VisualEd2013/> An editor specifically designed for [[smartphone]]s and other mobile devices was also launched.<ref name=MobileWiki2013>[http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/07/25/edit-wikipedia-on-the-go/ "Edit Wikipedia on the go"]. Wikimedia.org. 25 July 2013. Retrieved 2 April 2014.</ref>

===2014===
[[File:Wikipedia Edit 2014.webm|thumb|left|200px|A video review of Wikipedia content in 2014 that encourages viewers to edit Wikipedia.]]
A print edition of the English Wikipedia, comprising 1,000 volumes and over 1,100,000 pages, was exhibited by German Wikipedia contributors in 2014.<ref name=EconWikiPeaks/> The project sought funding through [[Indiegogo]], and was intended to honor the contributions of Wikipedia's editors.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/20/wikipedia-1000-volume-print-edition-crowdfunding|title=Wikipedia 1,000-volume print edition planned|work=The Guardian|date=20 February 2014|accessdate=12 April 2014}}</ref> On 22 October 2014, [[Wikipedia Monument|the first monument to Wikipedia]] was unveiled in the Polish town of Slubice.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/poland/11153603/Polish-town-to-build-statue-honouring-Wikipedia.html | title=Polish town to build statue honouring Wikipedia | work=Daily Telegraph | date=10 October 2014 | accessdate=11 October 2014 | author=Day, Matthew}}</ref>

===2015===
[[File:Wikipedia_5_million_articles_milestone_video_November_2015.ogv|thumb|right|200px|Video marking English Wikipedia's milestone of [[Wikipedia:Five million articles|five million articles]] on 1 November 2015]]
In mid-2015, Wikipedia was the world's seventh-most-popular website according to [[Alexa Internet]],<ref name="AlexaSiteInfoOct26">{{cite web|url=http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org#|title=Wikipedia.org Site Info|publisher=[[Alexa Internet]]|accessdate=30 June 2015}}</ref> down one place from the position it held in November 2012. At the start of 2015, Wikipedia remained the largest general-knowledge encyclopedia online, with a combined total of over 36&nbsp;million mainspace articles across all 291 language editions.<ref name=Grand20>{{cite web|url=https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias#Grand_Total|title= List of Wikipedias – Grand Total (updated daily)|publisher=Wikimedia.org|accessdate=20 December 2014}}</ref> On average, Wikipedia receives a total of 10&nbsp;billion global [[Page view|pageviews]] from around 495 million unique visitors every month,<ref name=EconWikiPeaks/><ref>{{cite web|url=https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerCountryOverview.htm|title=Wikimedia Statistics|date=20 April 2011|accessdate= 14 October 2011}}</ref> including 85&nbsp;million visitors from the United States alone,<ref name=comScore2012/> where it is the sixth-most-popular site.<ref name="AlexaSiteInfoOct26" />

[[File:Print Wikipedia (no subtitles).webm|thumb|right|200px|Artist [[Michael Mandiberg]] talks about [[Print Wikipedia]]]]
''Print Wikipedia'' was an art project by [[Michael Mandiberg]] that printed out the 7473 volumes of [[Wikipedia]] as it existed on April 7, 2015. Each volume has 700 pages.<ref name="NYT">[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/17/books/moving-wikipedia-from-computer-to-many-many-bookshelves.html Jennifer Schuessler, “Moving Wikipedia From Computer to Many, Many Bookshelves” [[New York Times]], 16 June 2015]</ref>

==History by subject area==
===Hardware and software===
{{Main|MediaWiki}}

:''The [[software]] that runs Wikipedia, and the [[computer hardware]], [[server farm]]s and other systems upon which Wikipedia relies.''
* In January 2001, Wikipedia ran on [[UseModWiki]], written in [[Perl]] by [[Clifford Adams]]. The server has run on [[Linux]] to this day, although the original text was stored in files rather than in a database. Articles were named with the [[CamelCase]] convention.
* In January 2002, "Phase II" of the wiki software powering Wikipedia was introduced, replacing the older [[UseModWiki]]. Written specifically for the project by [[Magnus Manske]], it included a [[PHP]] [[wiki engine]].
* In July 2002, a [[rewrite (programming)|major rewrite]] of the software powering Wikipedia went live; dubbed "Phase III", it replaced the older "Phase II" version, and became [[MediaWiki]]. It was written by [[Lee Daniel Crocker]] in response to the increasing demands of the growing project.
* In October 2002, Derek Ramsey created a "bot", or program, to add a large number of articles about United States towns; these articles were automatically generated from [[U.S. census]] data. He thus increased the number of Wikipedia articles by 33,832.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lih|first=Andrew|title=The Wikipedia Revolution|date=March 17, 2009|publisher=Hachette Digital, Inc|isbn=9781401395858|pages=99–106|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=AWuZAAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Derek+Ramsey+%28Wikipedian%29%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=84cjU-uYHuGNygHaoYGABw&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Derek%20Ramsey%20%28Wikipedian%29%22&f=false|authorlink=Andrew Lih}}</ref> This has been called "the most controversial move in Wikipedia history".<ref>Lih, p. 99.</ref> An article in ''Wired News'' in 2005 referred to him as the "No. 1 most active Wikipedian".<ref>{{cite web|last=Terdiman|first=Daniel|title=Wiki Becomes a Way of Life|url=http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/03/66814?currentPage=all|publisher=Wired|accessdate=March 14, 2014|date=March 8, 2005 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121110155508/http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/03/66814?currentPage=all |archivedate=2012-11-10}}</ref>
* In January 2003, support for mathematical formulas in [[TeX]] was added. The code was contributed by Tomasz Wegrzanowski.
* On 9 June 2003, Wikipedia's [[ISBN]] interface was amended to make ISBNs in articles link to Special:Booksources, which fetches its contents from the user-editable page {{srlink|Wikipedia:Book sources|Wikipedia:Book sources}}. Before this, ISBN link targets were coded into the software and new ones were suggested on the {{srlink|Wikipedia:ISBN|Wikipedia:ISBN}} page. See [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AISBN&diff=1029062&oldid=1024040 the edit] that changed this.
* After 6 December 2003, various system messages shown to Wikipedia users were no longer [[hard coding|hard coded]], allowing Wikipedia {{srlink|WP:ADMIN|administrators}} to modify certain parts of MediaWiki's interface, such as the message shown to blocked users.
* On 12 February 2004, server operations were moved from [[San Diego, California]] to [[Tampa, Florida]].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2004-February/008418.html | accessdate =10 February 2007 | title = Server swapping soon}}</ref>
* On 29 May 2004, all the various websites were updated to a new version of the [[MediaWiki]] software.
* On 30 May 2004, the first instances of "categorization" entries appeared. Category schemes, like Recent Changes and Edit This Page, had existed from the founding of Wikipedia. However, Larry Sanger had viewed the schemes as lists, and even hand-entered articles, whereas the [[categorization]] effort centered on individual categorization entries in each article of the encyclopedia, as part of a larger automatic categorization of the articles of the encyclopedia.<ref>"[[Wikipedia:Categorization]]", Wikipedia. Retrieved on 30 January 2007.</ref>
* After 3 June 2004, administrators could edit the style of the interface by changing the [[Cascading Style Sheets|CSS]] in the monobook stylesheet at [[MediaWiki:Monobook.css]].
* Also on 30 May 2004, with MediaWiki 1.3, the Template namespace was created, allowing [[transclusion]] of standard texts.<ref>"[[Wikipedia:Template namespace]]", Wikipedia. Retrieved on 17 September 2007.</ref>
* On 7 June 2005 at 3:00&nbsp;a.m. [[Eastern Time Zone|Eastern Standard Time]], the bulk of the Wikimedia servers were moved to a new facility across the street. All Wikimedia projects were down during this time.
* In March 2013, the first phase of the [[Wikidata]] interwiki database became available across Wikipedia's language editions.<ref name=WikidataLiveNow/>
* In July 2013, the VisualEditor editing interface was inaugurated, allowing users to edit Wikipedia using a [[WYSIWYG]] text editor (similar to a [[word processor]]) instead of [[wikimarkup]].<ref name=VisualEd2013>{{cite news|title=Boot up: wireless contact lens, Wikipedia's visual editing, Samsung's share slide and more|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2013/jul/02/rabbit-contact-lens|work=The Guardian|date=2 July 2013|accessdate=2 July 2013|location=London|first=Charles|last=Arthur}}</ref> An editing interface optimised for mobile devices was also released.<ref name=MobileWiki2013/>

===Look and feel===

:''The external face of Wikipedia, its [[look and feel]], and the Wikipedia [[brand]]ing, as presented to users.''
* On 4 April 2002, BrilliantProse, since renamed Featured Articles,<ref>"[[Wikipedia:Featured articles]]". Wikipedia. Retrieved 30 January 2007.</ref> was moved to the Wikipedia namespace from the article namespace.
* Around 15 October 2003, a new Wikipedia logo was installed. The logo concept was selected by a voting process,<ref name="logovote">{{cite web| url = https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/International_logo_vote/Finalists| title = International logo vote/Finalists| accessdate =8 July 2006| work = Meta-Wiki| publisher = Wikimedia}}</ref> which was followed by a revision process to select the best variant. The final selection was created by David Friedland (who edits Wikipedia under the username ''"nohat"'') based on a logo design and concept created by Paul Stansifer.
* On 22 February 2004, Did You Know (DYK) made [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Did_you_know&oldid=2500457 its first Main Page appearance.]
* On 23 February 2004, a coordinated new look for the Main Page appeared [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Main_Page&oldid=2500386 at 19:46 UTC]. Hand-chosen entries for the Daily Featured Article, Anniversaries, In the News, and Did You Know rounded out the new look.
* On 10 January 2005, the multilingual portal at [http://www.wikipedia.org/ www.wikipedia.org] was set up, replacing a redirect to the English-language Wikipedia.
* On 5 February 2005, {{srlink|Portal:Biology|Portal:Biology}} was created, becoming the first thematic "portal" on the English Wikipedia.<ref>"[[Portal:Biology]]". English Wikipedia. Retrieved 31 January 2007.</ref> However, the concept was pioneered on the German Wikipedia, where [[:de:Portal:Recht|Portal:Recht]] (law studies) was set up in October 2003.<ref>[[:de:Wikipedia:WikiProjekt Portale/2003|Portals on German Wikipedia ordered by date of creation]].</ref>
* On 16 July 2005, the English Wikipedia began the practice of including the day's "featured pictures" on the Main Page.
* On 19 March 2006, following a vote, the Main Page of the English-language Wikipedia featured its first redesign in nearly two years.
* On 13 May 2010, the site released a new interface. New features included an updated logo, new navigation tools, and a link wizard.<ref name="New features"/> The "classic" Wikipedia interface remained available as an option.

===Internal structures===

:''Landmarks in the Wikipedia community, and the development of its organization, [[Wikipedia:Editorial oversight and control|internal structures]], and [[Wikipedia:Policy|policies]].''
* April 2001, Wales formally defines the "neutral point of view",<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/NeutralPointOfView |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20010416035757/http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/NeutralPointOfView |archivedate=16 April 2001 |title=NeutralPointOfView |publisher=Wikipedia |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref> Wikipedia's core non-negotiable editorial policy,<ref>"A few things are absolute and non-negotiable, though. NPOV for example." in [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-November/008096.html statement by Jimbo Wales in November 2003] and, [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-April/044379.html in this thread] reconfirmed by [http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-April/044388.html Jimbo Wales in April 2006] in the context of lawsuits.</ref> a reformulation of the "Lack of Bias" policy outlined by Sanger for Nupedia<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20010331211742/www.nupedia.com/policy.shtml Nupedia.com editorial policy guidelines]. Version 3.31 (16 November 2000). Retrieved 7 September 2007.</ref> in spring or summer 2000, which covered many of the same core principles.<ref>"Nupedia articles are, in terms of their content, to be unbiased. There may be respectable reference works that permit authors to take recognizable stands on controversial issues, but this is not one of them ... "On every issue ... is it very difficult or impossible for the reader to determine what the view is to which the author adheres?" ... for each controversial view discussed, the author of an article (at a bare minimum) mention various opposing views that are taken seriously by any significant minority of experts (or concerned parties) on the subject ... In a final version of the article, every party to the controversy in question must be able to judge that its views have been fairly presented, or as fairly as is possible in a context in which other, opposing views must also be presented as fairly as possible." [https://web.archive.org/web/20010331211742/www.nupedia.com/policy.shtml web.archive.org]</ref>
* In September 2001, collaboration by subject matter in {{srlink|Wikipedia:WikiProject|WikiProjects}} is introduced.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_proposal |title=Wikipedia:WikiProject proposal – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |work=English Wikipedia |date=18 May 2008 |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref>
* In February 2002, concerns over the risk of future censorship and commercialization by Bomis Inc (Wikipedia's original host) combined with a lack of guarantee this would not happen, led most participants of the [[:es:|Spanish Wikipedia]] to break away and establish it independently as the ''[[Enciclopedia Libre]]''.<ref>''[http://enciclopedia.us.es/index.php/Enciclopedia:Por_qu%E9_estamos_aqu%ED_y_no_en_es.wikipedia.org Why we are here and not in Wikipedia]'' (in Spanish, under GFDL)</ref> Following clarification of Wikipedia's status and non-commercial nature later that year, re-merger talks between Enciclopedia Libre and the re-founded Spanish Wikipedia occasionally took place in 2002 and 2003, but no conclusion was reached. As of October 2009, the two continue to coexist as substantial Spanish language reference sources, with around 43,000 articles (EL) and 520,000 articles (Sp.W)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Statistics |title=Estadísticas – Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre |language=es |publisher=Es.wikipedia.org |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref> respectively.
* Also in 2002, policy and style issues were clarified with the creation of the ''Manual of Style'', along with a number of other policies and guidelines.<ref>[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style&direction=next&oldid=171151 First substantial edit to Wikipedia:Manual of Style], Wikipedia (23 August 2002). Retrieved on 30 January 2007.</ref>
* November 2002 – new mailing lists for WikiEN and Announce are set up, as well as other language mailing lists (e.g. Polish), to reduce the volume of traffic on mailing lists.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_News/2002&oldid=486954 |title=Wikimedia News/2002 – Meta |publisher=Meta.wikimedia.org |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref>
* In July 2003, the rule against editing one's [[Wikipedia:autobiography|autobiography]] is introduced.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Autobiography&oldid=1220207 |title=Wikipedia:Autobiography – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |publisher=En.wikipedia.org |date=30 July 2003 |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref>
* On 28 October 2003, the first "real" meeting of Wikipedians happened in [[Munich]]. Many cities followed suit, and soon a number of regular Wikipedian get-togethers were established around the world. Several Internet communities, including one on the popular [[blog]] website [[LiveJournal]], have also sprung up since.
* From 10 July to 30 August 2004 the {{srlink|Wikipedia:Browse}} and {{srlink|Wikipedia:Browse by overview}} formerly on the Main Page were replaced by links to overviews. On 27 August 2004 the ''Community Portal'' was started,<ref>"[[Wikipedia:Community Portal]]", Wikipedia. Retrieved on 30 January 2007.</ref> to serve as a focus for community efforts. These were previously accomplished on an informal basis, by individual queries of the Recent Changes, in wiki style, as ad-hoc collaborations between like-minded editors.
* During September to December 2005 following the [[Seigenthaler controversy]] and other similar concerns,<ref name="Brandt" /> several anti-abuse features and policies were added to Wikipedia. These were:
::* The [[meta:CheckUser Policy|policy for "Checkuser"]] (a [[MediaWiki]] [[software tool|extension]] to assist detection of abuse via [[sock puppet (Internet)|internet sock-puppetry]]) was established in November 2005.<ref>"[[meta:CheckUser policy|CheckUser policy]]", [[Meta-Wiki]]. Retrieved on 25 January 2007. Checkuser function had previously existed, but was known as ''Espionage'' – for example, in the Arbitration Committee [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-09-26/Arbitration report|case of JarlaxleArtemis]].</ref> Checkuser function had previously existed, but was viewed more as a system tool at the time, so there had been no need for a policy covering use on a more routine basis.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-10-17/News and notes|Checkuser proposal]]</ref>
::*Creation of new pages on the English Wikipedia was restricted to editors who had created a user account.<ref>"[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-12-05/Page creation restrictions|Page creation restrictions]]", Wikipedia Signpost / English Wikipedia. Retrieved on 31 January 2007.</ref>
::* The introduction and rapid adoption of the policy [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living people]], giving a far tighter quality control and fact-check system to biographical articles related to living people.
::* The "semi-protection" function and policy,<ref>"[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-12-26/Semi-protection|Semi-protection policy]]", Wikipedia Signpost / English Wikipedia. Retrieved on 30 January 2007.</ref> allowing pages to be protected so that only those with an account could edit.
* In May 2006, a new "oversight" feature was introduced on the English Wikipedia, allowing a handful of highly trusted users to permanently erase page revisions containing copyright infringements or libelous or personal information from a page's history. Previous to this, page version deletion was laborious, and also deleted versions remained visible to other administrators and could be un-deleted by them.
* On 1 January 2007, the subcommunity named [[Wikipedia:Esperanza|Esperanza]] was disbanded by communal consent. Esperanza had begun as an effort to promote "[[Wikipedia:Wikilove|wikilove]]" and a social support network, but had developed its own subculture and private structures.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-01-02/Experanza|Esperanza organization disbanded after deletion discussion]] 2 January 2007</ref><ref name="Ezperanza">{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MFD/EA |title=Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Esperanza – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |publisher=En.wikipedia.org |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref> Its disbanding was described as the painful but necessary remedy for a project that had allowed editors to "see themselves as Esperanzans first and foremost".<ref name="Ezperanza" /> A number of Esperanza's subprojects were integrated back into Wikipedia as free-standing projects, but most of them are now inactive. When the group was founded in September 2005, there had been concerns expressed that it would eventually be condemned as such.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-09-19/Esperanza group|New group aims to promote Wiki-Love]] 19 September 2005</ref>
* In April 2007 the results of 4 months policy review by a working group of several hundred editors seeking to merge the core Wikipedia policies into one core policy (See: [[Wikipedia:Attribution]]) was polled for community support. The proposal did not gain consensus; a significant view became evident that the existing structure of three strong focused policies covering the respective areas of policy, was frequently seen as more helpful to quality control than one more general merged proposal.
* A one-day blackout of Wikipedia was called by [[Jimmy Wales]] on 18 January 2012, in conjunction with [[Google]] and over 7,000 other websites, to protest the [[Stop Online Piracy Act]] then under consideration by the [[United States Congress]].

===The Wikimedia Foundation and legal structures===

:''Legal and organizational structure of the [[Wikimedia Foundation]], its executive, and its activities as a [[foundation (nonprofit organization)|foundation]].''
* In August 2002, shortly after Jimmy Wales announced that he would never run commercial [[advertisement]]s on Wikipedia, the [[Uniform Resource Locator|URL]] of Wikipedia was changed from ''wikipedia.com'' to ''wikipedia.org'' (see: [[.com]] and [[.org]]).
* On 20 June 2003, the [[Wikimedia Foundation]] was founded.
* Communications committee was [//meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Communications_committee&oldid=623013 formed] in January 2006 to handle media inquiries and emails received for the foundation and Wikipedia via the newly implemented [[OTRS]] (a ticket handling system).
* Angela Beesley and [[Florence Nibart-Devouard]] were elected to the Board of [[Trustee]]s of the [[Wikimedia Foundation]]. During this time, Angela was active in editing content and setting policy, such as privacy policy, within the Foundation.<ref name=Riehle>Riehle, Dirk. [http://www.riehle.org/computer-science/research/2006/wikisym-2006-interview.html "How and Why Wikipedia Works: An Interview with Angela Beesley, Elisabeth Bauer, and Kizu Naoko"]. Riehle.org. 2006.</ref>
* On 10 January 2006, ''Wikipedia'' became a registered trademark of Wikimedia Foundation.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-01-16/Trademark_registered&oldid=35499220|title=Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-01-16/Trademark registered|accessdate=14 January 2007|date=16 January 2006|publisher=Wikipedia}}</ref>
* In July 2006, Angela Beesley resigned from the board of the [[Wikimedia Foundation]].<ref name=WFpressrelease>[http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Angela_Beesley_resigns_from_Wikimedia_Foundation_board "Angela Beesley resigns from Wikimedia Foundation board"], Wikimedia Foundation press release, 7 July 2006.</ref>
* In June 2006, Brad Patrick was hired to be the first executive director of the Foundation. He resigned in January 2007, and was later replaced by Sue Gardner (June 2007).
* In October 2006, [[Florence Nibart-Devouard]] became chair of the board of Wikimedia Foundation.

===Projects and milestones===
{{Main|Wikipedia:Statistics|List of Wikipedias|Wikipedia:Milestones}}

:''Sister projects and milestones related to articles, user base, and other statistics.''
*On 15 January 2001, the first recorded edit of Wikipedia was performed.
*In December 2002, the first sister project, [[Wiktionary]], was created; aiming to produce a [[dictionary]] and [[thesaurus]] of the words in all languages. It uses the same software as Wikipedia.
*On 22 January 2003, the English Wikipedia was again [[slashdot effect|slashdotted]] after having reached the '''100,000''' article milestone with the [[Hastings, New Zealand|Hastings]], New Zealand article. Two days later, the German-language Wikipedia, the largest non-English language version, passed the 10,000 article mark.
*On 20 June 2003, the same day that the [[Wikimedia Foundation]] was founded, "[[Wikiquote]]" was created. A month later, "[[Wikibooks]]" was launched. "[[Wikisource]]" was set up towards the end of the year.
*In January 2004, Wikipedia reached the '''200,000'''-article milestone in English with the article on [[Neil Warnock]], and reached 450,000 articles for both English and non-English Wikipedias. The next month, the combined article count of the English and non-English reached 500,000.
*On 20 April 2004, the article count of the English Wikipedia reached '''250,000'''.
*On 7 July 2004, the article count of the English Wikipedia reached '''300,000'''.
*On 20 September 2004, Wikipedia's total article count exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles in over 105 languages; the project received a flurry of related attention in the press.<ref>[[meta:PR-1mil-US|One million Wikipedia articles]]</ref> The one millionth article was published in the [[Hebrew Wikipedia]], and discusses the [[flag of Kazakhstan]].
*On 20 November 2004, the article count of the English Wikipedia reached '''400,000'''.
*On 18 March 2005, Wikipedia passed the '''500,000'''-article milestone in English, with [[Involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union]] being announced in a [[press release]] as the landmark article.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/500k_English_articles |title=Wikipedia Publishes 500,000th English Article |publisher=Wikimediafoundation.org |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref>
*In May 2005, Wikipedia became the most popular reference website on the Internet according to traffic monitoring company [[Hitwise]], relegating [[Dictionary.com]] to second place.
*On 29 September 2005, the English Wikipedia passed the '''750,000'''-article mark.
*On 1 March 2006, the English Wikipedia passed the '''1,000,000'''-article mark, with [[Jordanhill railway station]] being announced on the Main Page as the milestone article.<ref name="milestone_articles">While this article was announced as the milestone on the Main Page, multiple articles qualified due to the continuous creation and deletion of pages on the site.</ref>
*On 8 June 2006, the English Wikipedia passed the '''1,000'''-featured-article mark, with [[Iranian peoples]].<ref>[http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/English_Wikipedia_Announces_Thousandth_Featured_Article "English Wikipedia Announces Thousandth Featured Article"]. Wikimedia Foundation. 8 June 2006. Retrieved 21 December 2012.</ref>
*On 15 August 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation launched [[Wikiversity]].<ref>[http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Opening_Plenary_%28transcript%29#Wikiversity_.2826:35.29 Welcome speech], Jimbo Wales, Wikimania 2006 ([http://www.supload.com/listen?s=SI0OG2vN04i audio])</ref>
*On 1 September 2006, Wikipedia exceeded '''5,000,000''' articles across all 229 language editions.
*On 24 November 2006, the English Wikipedia passed the '''1,500,000'''-article mark, with [[Kanab ambersnail]] being announced on the Main Page as the milestone article.<ref name="milestone_articles"/>
*On 4 April 2007, the first Wikipedia CD selection in English was published as a free download.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://fixedreference.org/2006-Wikipedia-CD-Selection |title=A Schools Global Citizen Resource from SOS Children |publisher=Fixedreference.org |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref>
*On 22 April 2007, the English Wikipedia passed the '''1,750,000'''-article mark. [[RAF raid on La Caine HQ]] was the 1,750,000th article.
*On 9 September 2007, the English Wikipedia passed the '''2,000,000'''-article mark. [[El Hormiguero]] was accepted by consensus as the 2,000,000th article.
*On 28 March 2008, Wikipedia exceeded '''10&nbsp;million''' articles across all 251 language editions.
*On 11 October 2008, the English Wikipedia passed the '''2,500,000'''-article mark. While no attempt was made to officially identify the 2,500,000th article, [[Joe Connor (baseball)]] has been suggested as the possible article.
*On 17 August 2009, the English Wikipedia passed the '''3,000,000'''-article mark, with [[Beate Eriksen]] being announced on the Main Page as the milestone article.
*On 27 December 2009, the [[German Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the second Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 21 September 2010, the [[French Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the third Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 12 December 2010, the English Wikipedia passed the '''3,500,000'''-article mark.
*On 22 November 2011, Wikipedia exceeded '''20&nbsp;million''' articles across all 282 language editions.
*On 7 November 2011, the [[German Wikipedia]] exceeded '''100 million''' page edits.
*On 24 November 2011, the English Wikipedia exceeded '''500 million''' page edits.
*On 17 December 2011, the [[Dutch Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the fourth Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 13 July 2012, the English Wikipedia exceeded '''4,000,000''' articles, with [[Izbat al-Burj]].<ref name=4Million2012/>
*On 22 January 2013, the [[Italian Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the fifth Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 11 May 2013, the [[Russian Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the sixth Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 16 May 2013, the [[Spanish Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the seventh Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 15 June 2013, the [[Swedish Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the eighth Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 25 September 2013, the [[Polish Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the ninth Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 21 October 2013, Wikipedia exceeded '''30&nbsp;million''' articles across all 287 language editions.
*On 17 December 2013, the [[French Wikipedia]] exceeded '''100,000,000''' page edits.
*On 25 April 2014, the English Wikipedia passed the '''4,500,000''' article mark.
*On 8 June 2014, the [[Waray Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the tenth Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 15 June 2014, the [[Vietnamese Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the eleventh Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 17 July 2014, the [[Cebuano Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the twelfth Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 6 September 2015, the [[Swedish Wikipedia]] exceeded '''2,000,000''' articles, becoming the second Wikipedia language edition to do so.
*On 1 November 2015, the English Wikipedia exceeded '''5,000,000''' articles, with [[Persoonia terminalis]], and it has over 125,000 editors who have made 1 or more edits in the past 30 days.
*On 1 February 2016, the [[Japanese Wikipedia]] exceeded '''1,000,000''' articles, becoming the thirteenth Wikipedia language edition to do so.

===Fundraising===

Every year, Wikipedia runs a fundraising campaign to support its operations.
* One of the first fundraisers was held from 18 February 2005 to 1 March 2005, raising {{US$|94,000}}, which was {{US$|19,000}} more than expected.<ref>"[http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1 Fund drives/2005/Q1]". Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 25 January 2007.</ref>
* On 6 January 2006, the Q4 2005 fundraiser concluded, raising a total of just over {{US$|390,000}}.<ref>"[http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q4 Fund drives/2005/Q4]". Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 25 January 2007.</ref>
* The 2007 fundraising campaign raised US$1.5&nbsp;million from 44,188 donations.<ref name="wf7">[http://www.tgdaily.com/business-and-law-features/40927-updated-analysis-wikipedias-2008-fund-raising-campaign "UPDATED: Analysis: Wikipedia's 2008 fund raising campaign"]. TGDaily. 9 January 2009. Retrieved 4 January 2012.</ref>
* The 2008 fundraising campaign gained Wikipedia more than {{US$|6 million}}.<ref>[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28472542/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets MSNBC].</ref><ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/09/wikipedias-fundraising-mi_n_156679.html ''Huffington Post''].</ref>
* The 2010 campaign was launched on 13 November 2010.<ref>[http://news.softpedia.com/news/Wikipedia-Kicks-Off-2010-Fundraising-Campaign-166391.shtml "Wikipedia Kicks Off 2010 Fundraising Campaign"]. News.softpedia.com. 2010. Retrieved 10 November 2013.</ref> The campaign raised {{US$|16 million}}.<ref name="tf2011-05-17">[http://www.tgdaily.com/business-and-law-features/53332-wikipedia-hits-16-million-fundraising-target "Wikipedia hits $16&nbsp;million fundraising target"]. TGDaily. 3 January 2011. Retrieved 17 May 2011.</ref>
* The 2011 campaign raised {{US$|20 million}} from more than one million donors.<ref name="tf2012-01-02">[http://www.tgdaily.com/business-and-law-features/60532-wikimedia-donations-total-20-million-for-2011 "Wikimedia donations total US$20 million for 2011"]. TGDaily. 2 January 2012. Retrieved 4 January 2012.</ref>
*The 2012 campaign raised {{US$|25 million}} from around 1.2&nbsp;million donors.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Wikipedia-Fundraiser-Money-Total-Finished,news-16528.html|title=Wikipedia raises $25&nbsp;million during fundraising campaign|publisher=Tom's Guide|date=29 December 2012|accessdate=10 November 2012}}</ref>

===External impact===

* In 2007, Wikipedia was deemed fit to be used as a major source by the [[UK Intellectual Property Office]] in a [[Formula One]] trademark case ruling.<ref>In deciding [http://www.ipo.gov.uk/tm/t-decisionmaking/t-challenge/t-challenge-decision-results/o16907.pdf the trademark of F1 racing], the [[UK Intellectual Property Office]] considered both the reliability of Wikipedia, and its usefulness as a reliable source of evidence:
: "Wikipedia has sometimes suffered from the self-editing that is intrinsic to it, giving rise at times to potentially [[libel]]lous statements. However, inherently, I cannot see that what is in Wikipedia is any less likely to be true than what is published in a book or on the websites of news organisations. [Formula One's lawyer] did not express any concerns about the Wikipedia evidence [presented by the plaintiff]. I consider that the evidence from Wikipedia can be taken at face value."
The case turned substantively upon evidence cited from Wikipedia in 2006 as to the usage and interpretation of the term "F1".</ref>
* Over time, Wikipedia gained recognition amongst more traditional media as a "key source" for major new events, such as the [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake]] and related [[tsunami]], the [[2008 American Presidential election]],<ref>[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/16/AR2007091601699.html?hpid=topnews "On Wikipedia, Debating 2008 Hopefuls' Every Facet"]. ''Washington Post''. 17 September 2007. "...at the same time, it's hard to find a more up-to-date, detailed, thorough article on [[Barack Obama|Obama]] than Wikipedia's. As of Friday, Obama's article – more than 22 pages long, with 15 sections covering his personal and professional life – had a reference list of 167 sources."</ref> and the 2007 [[Virginia Tech massacre]]. The latter article was accessed 750,000 times in two days, with newspapers published local to the shootings adding that "Wikipedia has emerged as the clearinghouse for detailed information on the event."<ref>[http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/004178.php "Wikipedia emerges as key source for Virginia Tech shootings"]. ''[[New York Times]]'' via Cyberjournalist.net. 2007. "Even ''[[The Roanoke Times]]'', which is published near [[Blacksburg, Virginia|Blacksburg, Va.]], where the university is located, noted on Thursday that Wikipedia 'has emerged as the clearinghouse for detailed information on the event'."</ref>
* On 21 February 2007, Noam Cohen of the ''New York Times'' reported that some academics were banning the use of Wikipedia as a research tool.<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/education/21wikipedia.html "A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia as a Research Source"]. ''New York Times''. 21 February 2007.</ref>
* On 27 February 2007, an article in ''[[The Harvard Crimson]]'' newspaper reported that some professors at [[Harvard University]] included Wikipedia in their [[syllabus|syllabi]], but that there was a split in their perception of using Wikipedia.<ref>Child, Maxwell L. [http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=517305 "Professors Split on Wiki Debate"]. ''The Harvard Crimson''. 26 February 2007.</ref>
* In July 2013, a large-scale study by four major universities identified the most [[Wikipedia:Edit warring|contested]] articles on Wikipedia, finding that [[Israel]], [[Adolf Hitler]] and [[God]] were more fiercely debated than any other subjects.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23354613|title=Wikipedia 'edit wars' revealed|publisher=BBC|date=18 July 2013|accessdate=18 July 2013}}</ref>

====Effect of biographical articles====

Because Wikipedia biographies are often updated as soon as new information comes to light, they are often used as a reference source on the lives of [[:Category:Living people|notable people]]. This has led to attempts to manipulate and falsify Wikipedia articles for promotional or defamatory purposes (see [[#Controversies|Controversies]]). It has also led to novel uses of the biographical material provided. Some notable people's lives are being affected by their Wikipedia biography.
* November 2005: The [[Wikipedia biography controversy|Seigenthaler controversy]] occurred when a hoaxer asserted on Wikipedia that journalist John Seigenthaler had been involved in the [[Kennedy assassination]] of 1963.
* December 2006: German comedian [[Atze Schröder]] sued Arne Klempert, secretary of [[Wikimedia Deutschland]], because he did not want his real name published in Wikipedia. Schröder later withdrew his complaint, but wanted his attorney's costs to be paid by Klempert. A court decided that the artist had to cover those costs by himself.<ref>"Atze muss zahlen", Klemperts' blog "recent changes" on 27 June 2007: [http://recentchanges.de/blog/2007/06/atze-muss-zahlen/ Recentchanges.de].</ref>
* 16 February 2007: Turkish historian [[Taner Akçam]] was briefly detained upon arrival at [[Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport]] because of false information on his Wikipedia biography claiming he was a terrorist.<ref name=Independent>[http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2469270.ece "Caught in the deadly web of the internet"]. Robert Fisk. ''[[The Independent]]''. 21 April 2007. Retrieved 24 July 2007.</ref><ref name=CBC>{{cite web |url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tech/wikipedia2.html |title=A question of authority |first=Paul |last=Jay |date=22 June 2007 |work=[[CBC News]] |accessdate=24 July 2007 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070629051007/http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tech/wikipedia2.html |archivedate=2007-06-29}}</ref>
* November 2008: The German [[The Left (Germany)|Left Party]] politician [[Lutz Heilmann]] claimed that some remarks in his Wikipedia article caused damage to his reputation. He succeeded in getting a court order to make Wikimedia Deutschland remove a key search portal. The result was a national outpouring of support for Wikipedia, more donations to Wikimedia Deutschland, and a rise in daily pageviews of Lutz Heilmann's article from a few dozen to half a million. Shortly after, Heilmann asked the court to withdraw the court order.<ref>{{cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |title=Lawmaker apologizes for blocking Wikipedia |url=http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE4AI7NB20081119?feedType=RSS&feedName=oddlyEnoughNews&rpc=69 |publisher=Reuters |accessdate=20 November 2008 | date=19 November 2008}}</ref>
* December 2008: Wikimedia Nederland, the Dutch chapter, won a preliminary injunction after an entrepreneur was linked in "his" article with the criminal [[Willem Holleeder]] and wanted the article deleted. The judge in [[Utrecht (province)|Utrecht]] believed Wikimedia's assertion that it has no influence on the content of Dutch Wikipedia.<ref>[http://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Nederland_wint_kort_geding_Sijthoff/en News release of Vereniging Wikimedia Nederland]. Retrieved 10 December 2008.</ref>
* February 2009: When [[Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg|Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jakob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg]] became federal minister on 10 February 2009, an unregistered user added an eleventh given name in the article on German Wikipedia: ''Wilhelm''. Numerous newspapers took it over. When wary Wikipedians wanted to erase ''Wilhelm'', the revert was reverted with regard to those newspapers. This case about Wikipedia reliability and journalists copying from Wikipedia became known as ''Falscher Wilhelm'' ("wrong Wilhelm").<ref>{{cite web |url=http://wikimedia.de/fileadmin/wiki/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/pm_Medienkompetenz_1.pdf |title=Wikimedia Deutschland press release|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20101204025315/http://wikimedia.de/fileadmin/wiki/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/pm_Medienkompetenz_1.pdf |archivedate=2010-12-04|postscript=}}; [http://futurezone.orf.at/stories/1502467/ ORF Futurezone]. Retrieved 27 May 2010.</ref>
* May 2009: An article about the German journalist Richard Herzinger in the German Wikipedia was vandalized. The IP user added that Herzinger, who wrote for ''[[Die Welt]]'', was Jewish; the sighter marked this as "sighted" (meaning that there is no vandalism in the article). Herzinger complained about that to Wikipedians who immediately deleted the assertion. According to Herzinger, who wrote about the incident in a newspaper article,<ref>[http://www.welt.de/webwelt/article3807487/Wie-ich-im-Internet-zum-Juden-erklaert-wurde.html Welt.de: Wie ich im Internet zum Juden erklärt wurde].</ref> he is regularly called a Jew by right-wing extremists due to his perceived pro-[[Israel]] stance.
* October 2009: In 1990, the German actor [[Walter Sedlmayr]] was murdered. Years later, when [[Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber|the two murderers]] were released from prison, German law prohibited the media from mentioning their names. The men's lawyer also sent the Wikimedia Foundation a [[cease and desist]] letter requesting the men's names be removed from the English Wikipedia.<ref name="nyt">{{cite news
|title=Two German Killers Demanding Anonymity Sue Wikipedia's Parent
|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13wiki.html
|work=[[New York Times]]
|date=12 November 2009
|accessdate=13 November 2009
| first=John
| last=Schwartz
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2009/11/stopp.pdf |title=Copy of cease and desist letter (PDF)|work=Wired|format=PDF |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref>

===Early roles of Wales and Sanger===
{{anchor|Early roles of Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger}}
<!-- THE SECTION TITLE IS LINKED FROM ELSEWHERE INCLUDING THE JIMMY WALES AND LARRY SANGER ARTICLES -->

[[Larry Sanger|Sanger]] played an important role in the early stages of creating Wikipedia.<ref>{{cite news| first = Daniel| last = Terdiman| title = Wikipedia founder modifies his bio | url = http://www.cnet.com/news/wikipedia-founder-modifies-his-bio/#! | publisher = [[CNET]]| date = December 21, 2005}}</ref><ref name="co-founders"/> [[Jimmy Wales|Wales]] says that Sanger was his subordinate employee.<ref name="co-founders"/> Sanger initially brought the wiki concept to Wales and suggested it be applied to [[Nupedia]] and then, after some initial skepticism, Wales agreed to try it.<ref name="Glyn Moody"/> It was Jimmy Wales, along with other people, who came up with the broader idea of an open-source, collaborative encyclopedia that would accept contributions from ordinary people and it was Wales who invested in it.<ref name="memoirofwiki">"[http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213&tid=95&tid=149&tid=9 The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir – Part I]" and "[http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/19/1746205&tid=95 Part II]", [[Slashdot]], April 2005. Retrieved on 25 March 2007. "The actual development of this encyclopedia was the task he gave me to work on. So I arrived in San Diego in early February, 2000, to get to work. One of the first things I asked Jimmy is how free a rein I had in designing the project. What were my constraints, and in what areas was I free to exercise my own creativity? He replied, as I clearly recall, that most of the decisions should be mine; and in most respects, as a manager, Jimmy was indeed very hands-off. Nevertheless, I always did consult with him about important decisions, and moreover, I wanted his advice. Now, Jimmy was quite clear that he wanted the project to be in principle open to everyone to develop, just as open source software is (to an extent). Beyond this, however, I believe I was given a pretty free rein. So I spent the first month or so thinking very broadly about different possibilities." —Larry Sanger.</ref> Wales stated in October 2001 that "Larry had the idea to use Wiki software."<ref name="wikipedia-l-000671">
{{cite news
|first=Jimmy
|last=Wales
|url=http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2001-October/000671.html
|title=LinkBacks?
|date=30 October 2001
|format=Email
|publisher=Wikimedia
|accessdate=25 March 2007
|quote=}}</ref> Sanger coined the portmanteau "Wikipedia" as the project name.<ref name="memoirofwiki"/> In review, Larry Sanger conceived of a wiki-based encyclopedia as a strategic solution to Nupedia's inefficiency problems.<ref name="co-founders"/> In terms of project roles, Sanger spearheaded and pursued the project as its leader in its first year, and did most of the early work in formulating policies (including "Ignore all rules")<ref name="Ignore_all_rules">{{cite news
|first=
|last=
|title=Rules To Consider
|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010416035716/www.wikipedia.com/wiki/RulesToConsider
|work=Ignore all rules
|publisher=[[Internet Archive]]
|accessdate=25 March 2007
|quote=}}</ref> and "Neutral point of view"<ref name="Stacy Schiff"/> and building up the community.<ref name="co-founders"/> Upon departure in March 2002, Sanger emphasized the main issue was purely the cessation of Bomis' funding for his role, which was not viable part-time, and his changing personal priorities;<ref name="resignation"/> however, by 2004, the two had drifted apart and Sanger became more critical. Two weeks after the launch of Citizendium, Sanger criticized Wikipedia, describing the latter as "broken beyond repair."<ref name="Wikipedia 'broken beyond repair' says co-founder">{{cite news
|first=Iain
|last=Thomson
|title=Wikipedia 'broken beyond repair' says co-founder
|url=http://www.iwr.co.uk/information-world-review/news/2187709/wikipedia-broken-beyond-repair
|publisher=[[Information World Review]]
|date=13 April 2007
|accessdate=15 April 2007 }}</ref> By 2005 Wales began to dispute Sanger's role in the project, three years after Sanger left.<ref name="Dan_Mitchell_Insider_Editing">
{{cite news
|first=Dan
|last=Mitchell
|title=Insider Editing at Wikipedia
|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/24/technology/24online.ready.html?ex=1293080400&en=431aff478b00239e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
|work=[[The New York Times]]
|date=24 December 2005
|accessdate=25 March 2007}}</ref><ref name="Evan Hansen">{{cite news
|last=Hansen
|first=Evan
|title=Wikipedia Founder Edits Own Bio
|url=http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,69880,00.html
|work=[[Wired (magazine)|Wired]]
|publisher=[[Wired News]]
|date=19 December 2005
|accessdate=25 March 2007
|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20061230053039/http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0%2C1284%2C69880%2C00.html?
|archivedate=2006-12-30}}</ref><ref name="Seth Finkelstein">{{cite news
|first=Seth
|last=Finkelstein
|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/feb/12/wiki-answers-wikia
|title=What's in a name? Everything, when you're talking wiki value
|work=[[The Guardian]]
|date=12 February 2009
|accessdate=12 February 2009
|location=London}}</ref>

In 2005, Wales described himself simply as the founder of Wikipedia;<ref name="Dan_Mitchell_Insider_Editing" /> however, according to [[Brian Bergstein]] of the [[Associated Press]], "Sanger has long been cited as a co-founder."<ref name="co-founders"/> There is evidence that Sanger was called co-founder, along with Wales, as early as 2001, and he is referred to as such in early Wikipedia press releases and Wikipedia articles and in a September 2001 ''New York Times'' article for which both were interviewed.<ref name="sanger-NYTimes">{{cite news
|author=Peter 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
|publisher=The New York Times
|date=20 September 2001
|accessdate=18 April 2007
|quote=It's kind of surprising that you could just open up a site and let people work," said Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder and the chief executive of Bomis, a San Diego search engine company that donates the computer resources for the project. "There's kind of this real social pressure to not argue about things." Instead, he said, "there's a general consensus among all of the really busy volunteers about what an encyclopedia article needs to be like.}}</ref> In 2006, Wales said, "He used to work for me [...] I don't agree with calling him a co-founder, but he likes the title";<ref name="James Niccolai">James Niccolai, [http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=7177 "Wikipedia taking on the vandals in Germany"]. [[PC Advisor]]. 26 September 2006.</ref> nonetheless, before January 2004, Wales did not dispute Sanger's status as co-founder<ref>Bishop, Todd (26 January 2004). ''[[Seattle Post-Intelligencer]]''. ''[http://www.seattlepi.com/business/158020_msftnotebook26.html Microsoft Notebook: Wiki pioneer planted the seed and watched it grow.]''</ref> and, indeed, identified himself as "co-founder" as late as August 2002.<ref name="Yahoo!">{{cite news
|first=Jimmy
|last=Wales
|url=http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/xodp/message/1720
|title=3apes open content web directory
|work=[[Yahoo!|Yahoo! Tech Groups forum post]]
|publisher=[[WebCite]]
|archiveurl=http://www.webcitation.org/5fhXjrexf
|date=6 August 2002
|accessdate=3 April 2009
|archivedate=1 April 2009
|quote=I'm Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Nupedia and Wikipedia, the open content encyclopedias.}}</ref> In Sanger's introductory message to the Nupedia mailing list, he said that "Jimmy Wales contacted me and asked me to apply as editor-in-chief of Nupedia. Apparently, Bomis, Inc. (which owns Nupedia)... who could manage this sort of long-term project, he thought I would be perfect for the job. This is indeed my dream job".<ref name="archive2000">{{cite web|url=http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/nupedia-l/2000-April/000143.html |title=nupedia-l Introduction |publisher=Web.archive.org |accessdate=19 November 2013 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/20030710141440/http://www.nupedia.com:80/pipermail/nupedia-l/2000-April/000143.html |archivedate=10 July 2003 }}</ref> Sanger said "He [Wales] had had the idea for Nupedia since at least last fall".<ref name="archive2000"/>

As of March 2007: Wales emphasized this employer–employee relationship and his ultimate authority, terming himself Wikipedia's sole founder; and Sanger emphasized their statuses as co-founders, referencing earlier versions of Wikipedia pages (2004, 2006), press releases (2002–2004), and media coverage from the time of his involvement routinely terming them in this manner.<ref name="co-founders">{{cite news
|first=Brian
|last=Bergstein
|title=Sanger says he co-started Wikipedia
|url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17798723/
|work=[[msnbc.com]]
|agency=Associated Press
|date=25 March 2007
|accessdate=28 March 2007
|quote=The nascent Web encyclopedia Citizendium springs from Larry Sanger, a philosophy Ph.D. who counts himself as a co-founder of Wikipedia, the site he now hopes to usurp. The claim doesn't seem particularly controversial – Sanger has long been cited as a co-founder. Yet the other founder, Jimmy Wales, isn't happy about it.}} — Brian Bergstein.</ref><ref name="sanger-NYTimes"/><ref name="Sanger-Technology Review">
{{cite news
|first=Judy
|last=Heim
|url=http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/12586/
|title=Free the Encyclopedias!
|publisher=[[Technology Review]]
|date=4 September 2001
|accessdate=25 March 2007 }}</ref><ref name="SangerLinks">
{{cite news
|first=Larry
|last=Sanger
|url=http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html
|title=My role in Wikipedia (links)
|work=larrysanger.org
|publisher=Larry Sanger
|accessdate=25 March 2007
|quote=}}</ref>

===Controversies===
{{anchor|Controversies and criticism}}
{{Main|Criticism of Wikipedia|List of litigation involving Wikipedia|Reliability of Wikipedia}}
{{Wikinews|U.K. National Portrait Gallery threatens U.S. citizen with legal action over Wikimedia images}}

* January 2001: Licensing and structure. <!-- yes ... this quintuplet of paragraphs is too long for *this* article ... but instead of DELETING what you believe is overly verbose, please move the inappropriate content over to the GNUpedia article ... preferably after correcting any mistatements and filling in any gaps, if you happen to know something about the history --> After partial breakdown of discussions with [[Bomis]], [[Richard Stallman]] announced GNUpedia as a competing project.<ref name="archive1">{{cite web|url=http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/announcement.html |title=GNUPedia Project Announcement – GNU Project – Free Software Foundation (FSF) |publisher=Web.archive.org |accessdate=19 November 2013 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/20131109190613/http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/announcement.html |archivedate=9 November 2013 }}</ref> Besides having a nearly identical name, it was very similar functionally to Nupedia/Wikipedia (the former which launched in March 2000 but had as yet published very few articles—the latter of which was intended to be a source of seed-articles for the former). The goals and methods of GNUpedia were nearly identical to Wikipedia: anyone can contribute, small contributions welcome, plan on taking years, narrow focus on encyclopedic content as the primary goal, anyone can read articles, anyone can mirror articles, anyone can translate articles, use libre-licensed code to run the site, encourage peer review, and rely primarily on volunteers. GNUpedia was roughly intended to be an combination of Wikipedia and also [[Wikibooks]]. The main exceptions were:

:: 1.The strong prohibition against *any* sort of centralized control ("[must not be] written under the direction of a single organization, which made all decisions about the content, and... published in a centralized fashion. ...we dare not allow any organization to decide what counts as part of [our encyclopedia]"). In particular, [[deletionist]]s were not allowed; editing an article would require [[fork (software development)|fork]]ing it, making a change, and then saving the result as a 'new' article on the same topic.

:: 2. Assuming attribution for articles (rather than anonymous by default), requiring attribution for quotations, and allowing original authors to control straightforward translations, In particular, the idea was to have a set of N articles covering the [[Tiananmen Square protests of 1989]], with some to-be-determined mechanism for readers to endorse/rank/like/plus/star the version of the article they found best.

:: 3. Given the structure above, where every topic (especially controversial ones) might have a thousand articles purporting to be *the* GNUpedia article about [[Sarah Palin]], Stallman explicitly rejected the idea of a centralized website that would specify which article of those thousand was worth reading. Instead of an official [[card catalogue|catalogue]], the plan was to rely on search engines at first (the reader would begin by [[googling]] "gnupedia sarah palin"), and then eventually if necessary construct catalogues according to the same principles as articles were constructed. In wikipedia, there is an official central website for each language (en.wikipedia.org), and an official catalogue of sorts (category-lists and lists-of-lists), but as of 2013 search engines still provide about 60% of the inbound traffic.

: The goals which led to GNUpedia were published at least as early as 18 December 2000,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://ar.groups.yahoo.com/group/slec/messages/194 |title=slec : Mensajes : 194–223 de 3699 |publisher=Ar.groups.yahoo.com |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref><ref>{{no icon}} https://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/anencyc.txt</ref> and these exact goals were finalized on the 12th<ref name="archive1"/> and 13th<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/announcement.es.html |title=GNUPedia Anuncio del Proyecto – GNU Project – Free Software Foundation (FSF) |publisher=Web.archive.org |accessdate=19 November 2013 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/20130512002054/http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/announcement.es.html |archivedate=12 May 2013 }}</ref> of January 2001, albeit with a copyright of 1999, from when Stallman had first started considering the problem. The only sentence added between 18 December and the unveiling of GNUpedia the week of 12–16 January was this: "The [[GNU Free Documentation License]] would be a good license to use for courses."

: GNUpedia was 'formally' announced on the ''slashdot'' website,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://slashdot.org/story/01/01/16/2031215/gnupedia-project-starting |title=GNUPedia Project Starting |publisher=Slashdot |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref> on January 16, the same day that their mailing list first went online with a test-message. Wales posted to the list on January 17, the first full day of messages, explaining the discussions with Stallman concerning the change in Nupedia content-licensing, and suggesting cooperation.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gne/2001-01/msg00103.html |title=[Bug-gnupedia&#93; Nupedia |publisher=Lists.gnu.org |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gne/2001-01/msg00108.html |title=Re: [Bug-gnupedia&#93; Nupedia |publisher=Lists.gnu.org |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref> Stallman himself first posted on January 19, and, in his second post on January 22, mentioned that discussions about merging Wikipedia and GNUpedia were ongoing.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gne/2001-01/msg00497.html |title=Re: [Bug-gnupedia&#93; Important decisions should not be rushed |publisher=Lists.gnu.org |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref> Within a couple of months, Wales had changed his email [[Signature block|signature]] from the [[open source]] encyclopedia to the [[Free Software Foundation|free]] encyclopedia;<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gne/2001-02/msg00019.html |title=Re: [Bug-gne&#93;GNE 's Not Nupedia |publisher=Lists.gnu.org |date=8 February 2001 |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref> both Nupedia and Wikipedia had adopted the [[GFDL]]; and the merger<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gne/2001-02/msg00008.html |title=[Bug-gne&#93;About the project |publisher=Lists.gnu.org |date=3 February 2001 |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref> of GNUpedia into Wikipedia was effectively accomplished.
* November 2001: Wales announced that advertising would soon begin on Wikipedia, starting in early or mid-2002.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Advertising_on_Wikipedia |title=Advertising on Wikipedia – Meta |publisher=Meta.wikimedia.org |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref> Instead, in early 2002, Chief Editor [[Larry Sanger]] was fired, since his salary was the largest{{citation needed|date=October 2013}} expense in the operation of Wikipedia. By September 2002,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Advertising_on_Wikipedia&oldid=2254 |title=Advertising on Wikipedia – Meta |publisher=Meta.wikimedia.org |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref> Wales had publicly stated: "There are currently no plans for advertising on Wikipedia." By June 2003, the Wikimedia Foundation was formally incorporated.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-June/010743.html |title=[Wikipedia-l&#93; Announcing Wikimedia Foundation |publisher=Lists.wikimedia.org |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref> The Foundation is explicitly against paid advertising;<ref>{{cite web|url=https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/en#How_is_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_funded.3F |title=Frequently asked questions |publisher=Wikimedia Foundation |accessdate=19 November 2013}}</ref> although, it does "internally" advertise Wikimedia Foundation fundraising events on Wikipedia. As of 2013, the by-laws of the Wikimedia Foundation do not explicitly prohibit the adoption of a broader advertising policy, if such an action is deemed necessary—{{citation needed|date=October 2013}}such by-laws are subject to vote.{{citation needed|date=October 2013}}
* 2003: No notable controversies occurred.
* 2004: No notable controversies occurred.
* January 2005: The fake charity QuakeAID, in the month following the [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake]], attempted to use a Wikipedia page for promotional purposes.
* October 2005: [[Alan Mcilwraith]] was exposed as a fake war hero through a Wikipedia page.
* November 2005: The [[Seigenthaler controversy]] caused Brian Chase to resign from his employment, after his identity was ascertained by Daniel Brandt of [[Wikipedia Watch]]. Following this, the scientific journal ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' undertook a [[peer review]]ed study to test articles in Wikipedia against their equivalents in ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'', and concluded they are comparable in terms of accuracy.<ref>{{cite web|author=Nature |url=http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html |title=Internet encyclopaedias go head to head |publisher=Nature.com |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/multimedia/438900a_m1.html |title=The (Nature) peer review |publisher=Nature |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref> ''Britannica'' rejected their methodology and their conclusion.<ref>Britannica: [http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf Fatally Flawed. Refuting the recent study on encyclopedic accuracy by the journal Nature] (PDF)</ref> ''Nature'' refused to release any form of apology, and instead asserted the reliability of its study and a rejection of the criticisms.<ref>[http://www.nature.com/nature/britannica/index.html ''Nature's'' responses to Encyclopædia Britannica], ''Nature'' (23 March 2006). Retrieved on 25 January 2007.</ref>
* Early-to-mid-2006: The [[congressional staffer edits to Wikipedia|congressional aides biography scandals]] were publicized, whereby several political aides were caught trying to influence the Wikipedia biographies of several politicians. The aides removed undesirable information (including pejorative quotes, or broken campaign promises), added favorable information or "glowing" tributes, or replaced the article in part or whole by staff-authored biographies. The staff of at least five politicians were implicated: [[Marty Meehan]], [[Norm Coleman]], [[Conrad Burns]], [[Joe Biden]] and [[Gil Gutknecht]].<ref>{{cite web|author1=Nate Anderson|title=Congressional staffers edit boss's bio on Wikipedia|url=http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060130-6079.html|website=arstechnica|publisher=Condé Nast|accessdate=9 June 2014|date=31 January 2006}}</ref> The activities documented were:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Politician
! Editing undertaken
! Sources
|-
| [[Marty Meehan]]
| Replacement with staff-written biography
| [http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060130-6079.html Congressional staffers edit boss's bio on Wikipedia]
|-
| [[Norm Coleman]]
| Rewrite to make more favorable, claimed to be "correcting errors")
| {{cite journal | first = | last = | authorlink = | title =Web site's entry on Coleman revised Aide confirms his staff edited biography, questions Wikipedia's accuracy | journal =St. Paul Pioneer Press(Associated Press) | volume = | issue = | pages = | id = | url =http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/13750990.htm
}}{{dead link|date=October 2015}}
|-
| [[Conrad Burns]]<br />Montana
| Removal of quoted pejorative statements the Senator had made, and replacing them with "glowing tributes" as "the voice of the farmer"
| {{cite web |url=http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2006/02/09/news/wikipedia.txt |title=Burns' office may have tampered with Wikipedia entry |publisher=[[Bozeman Daily Chronicle]] |author=Williams, Walt |date=1 January 2007 |accessdate=13 February 2007}}
|-
| [[Joe Biden]]
| Removal of unfavorable information
| [http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060130-6079.html Congressional staffers edit boss's bio on Wikipedia]
|-
| [[Gil Gutknecht]]
| Staff rewrite and removal of information evidencing broken campaign promise.

(Multiple attempts)
| On 16 August 2006, the ''Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune'' reported that the office of Representative [[Gil Gutknecht]] tried twice — on 24 July 2006 and 14 August 2006 — to remove a 128-word section in the Wikipedia article on him, replacing it with a more flattering 315-word entry taken from his official congressional biography. Most of the removed text was about the 12-year term-limit Gutknecht imposed on himself in 1995 (Gutknecht [[election|ran]] for re-election in 2006, breaking his promise). A spokesman for Gutknecht did not dispute that his office tried to change his Wikipedia entry, but questioned the reliability of the encyclopedia. {{cite web |url=http://www.startribune.com/587/story/618899.html |title=Gutknecht joins Wikipedia tweakers |work=Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune|date=16 August 2006 |accessdate=17 August 2006 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060821074302/http://www.startribune.com/587/story/618899.html |archivedate=2006-08-21}}{{Failed verification|date=February 2007}}

Multiple attempts, first using a [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gil_Gutknecht&diff=65633218&oldid=65024590 named account], then an [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gil_Gutknecht&diff=69644632&oldid=69638576 anonymous IP account].
|}

In a separate but similar incident, the campaign manager for [[Cathy Cox]], Morton Brilliant, resigned after being found to have added negative information to the Wikipedia entries of political opponents.<ref>Information included the mention of an opponent's son's arrest in a fatal drunk driving accident, and allegations of questionable business practices of another opponent. {{cite web |url=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002958137_campaign28m.html |title=Online postings changed; ex-Gregoire aide resigns |work=Seattle Times |date=28 April 2006 |accessdate=27 July 2013 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110524041212/http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002958137_campaign28m.html |archivedate=2011-05-24}}</ref> Following media publicity, the incidents tapered off around August 2006.
* July 2006: Joshua Gardner was exposed as a [[5th Duke of Cleveland hoax|fake Duke of Cleveland]] with a Wikipedia page.
* January 2007: English-language Wikipedians in [[Qatar]] were briefly blocked from editing, following a spate of vandalism, by an administrator who did not realize that the country's internet traffic is routed through a single [[IP address]]. Multiple media sources promptly declared that Wikipedia was banning Qatar from the site.<ref>[http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196800476 "Wikipedia Founder Refutes Claims That It Banned Qatar"]. Thomas Claburn. ''[[InformationWeek]]''. 2 January 2007.</ref>
* On 23 January 2007, a [[Microsoft]] employee offered to pay [[Rick Jelliffe]] to review and change certain Wikipedia articles regarding an open-source document standard which was rival to a Microsoft format.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16775981/ |title=Microsoft offers cash for Wikipedia edit |publisher=[[MSNBC]] |author=Bergstein, Brian |date=23 January 2007 |accessdate=1 February 2007 }}</ref>
* In February 2007, ''[[The New Yorker]]'' magazine issued a rare editorial correction that a prominent [[English Wikipedia]] editor and administrator known as "Essjay", had invented a persona using fictitious credentials.<ref name="New Yorker">{{cite web
| url = http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact
| title = Annals of Information: Know It All: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?
| accessdate =16 April 2007
| last = Schiff
| first = Stacy
| authorlink = Stacy Schiff
| date = 24 July 2006
| work = [[The New Yorker]]
| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20060813110914/http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact
| archivedate = 2006-08-13
}}
</ref><ref name="Guardian">{{cite news
| url = http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,2028328,00.html
| title = Read me first
| accessdate =16 April 2007
| last = Finkelstein
| first = Seth
| date = 8 March 2007
| work = The Guardian
| archiveurl =
| archivedate =
| location=London
}}</ref> The editor, [[Essjay controversy|Ryan Jordan]], became a [[Wikia]] employee in January 2007 and divulged his real name; this was noticed by Daniel Brandt of Wikipedia Watch, and communicated to the original article author. (See: [[Essjay controversy]])
* February 2007: [[Fuzzy Zoeller]] sued a Miami firm because defamatory information was added to his Wikipedia biography in an anonymous edit that came from their network.
* 16 February 2007: Turkish historian [[Taner Akçam]] was briefly detained upon arrival at a Canadian airport because of false information on his biography indicating that he was a terrorist.
* In June 2007, an anonymous user [[Chris Benoit double-murder and suicide#Wikipedia controversy|posted hoax information]] that, by coincidence, foreshadowed the [[Chris Benoit murder-suicide]], hours before the bodies were found by investigators. The discovery of the edit attracted widespread media attention and was first covered in sister site [[Wikinews:Death of Nancy Benoit rumour posted on Wikipedia hours prior to body being found|Wikinews]].
* In October 2007, in their obituaries of recently deceased TV theme composer [[Ronnie Hazlehurst]], many British media organisations reported that he had co-written the [[S Club 7]] song "[[Reach (S Club 7 song)|Reach]]". In fact, he hadn't, and it was discovered that this information had been sourced from a hoax edit to Hazlehurst's Wikipedia article.<ref>[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/03/wikipedia_obituary_cut_and_paste/ "Braindead obituarists hoaxed by Wikipedia"]. Andrew Orlowski. ''[[The Register]]''. 3 October 2007.</ref>
* In February 2007,<!--<ref>Docket number L-001169-07 in Monmouth Court, New Jersey. Records may be searched here [http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/acms/disc/CV0227W0E.ASP].</ref>--> Barbara Bauer, a literary agent, sued Wikimedia for defamation and causing harm to her business, the Barbara Bauer Literary Agency.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.eff.org/cases/bauer-v-glatzer |title=Bauer v. Wikimedia et al. &#124; Electronic Frontier Foundation |publisher=Eff.org |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref> In ''Bauer v. Glatzer'', Bauer claimed that information on Wikipedia critical of her abilities as a literary agent caused this harm. The [[Electronic Frontier Foundation]] defended Wikipedia<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/05/02 |title=EFF and Sheppard Mullin Defend Wikipedia in Defamation Case &#124; Electronic Frontier Foundation |publisher=Eff.org |date=2 May 2008 |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref> and moved to dismiss the case on 1 May 2008.<ref>[http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/wikimedia/motiontoquashmemo-wikimedia.pdf Motion to quash case (PDF)]. EFF.org. 1 May 2008. Retrieved 19 October 2012.</ref> The case against the Wikimedia Foundation was dismissed on 1 July 2008.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.citmedialaw.org/threats/bauer-v-wikimedia |title=Bauer v. Wikimedia &#124; Citizen Media Law Project |publisher=Citmedialaw.org |date=31 January 2008 |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref>
* On 14 July 2009, the National Portrait Gallery issued a cease and desist letter for alleged breach of copyright, against a Wikipedia editor who downloaded more than 3,000 high-resolution images from the NPG website, and placed them on [[Wikimedia Commons]].<ref>Maev Kennedy [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/14/national-portrait-gallery-wikipedia-row "Legal row over National Portrait Gallery images placed on Wikipedia"]. ''The Guardian''. 14 July 2009.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=865802 |title=National Portrait Gallery receives support from BAPLA in its legal fight against Wikipedia |publisher=Bjp-online.com |accessdate=13 April 2010 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/20100116135932/http://www.bjp-online.com:80/public/showPage.html?page=865802 |archivedate=16 January 2010 }}</ref><ref>BBC [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8151989.stm Gallery in Wikipedia legal threat]</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?National_Portrait_Gallery_sues_Wikipedia&in_article_id=702647&in_page_id=34 |title=National Portrait Gallery sues Wikipedia |publisher=Metro.co.uk |date=14 July 2009 |accessdate=13 April 2010}}</ref><ref>BBC. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8156268.stm "Wikipedia painting row escalates"]. 17 July 2009.</ref> See [[National Portrait Gallery and Wikimedia Foundation copyright dispute]] for more.
* In April and May 2010, there was controversy over the hosting and display of sexual drawing and pornographic images including images of children on Wikipedia.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/may/10/ipad-apple |title=Wikipedia's porn purge, and cleaning up for the iPad |publisher=guardian.co.uk |date=12 May 2010 |accessdate=24 October 2010 |location=London |first=Jack |last=Schofield}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/07/wikipedia-purges-porn/ |title=EXCLUSIVE: Wikipedia's Parent Company Starts Purging Porn From Its Websites |publisher=[[Fox News]] |date=7 May 2010 |accessdate=24 October 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10104946.stm |title=Wikimedia pornography row deepens as Wales cedes rights |publisher=BBC |date=10 May 2010 |accessdate=24 October 2010}}</ref> It led to the mass removal of pornographic content from Wikimedia Foundation sites.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mail-archive.com/foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org/msg10574.html |title=Jimmy Wales – Where things stand now |date=8 May 2010 |accessdate=28 November 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10104946 |publisher=BBC |title=Wikimedia pornography row deepens as Wales cedes rights |date=10 May 2010 |accessdate=28 November 2010}}</ref>
* In November 2012, [[Lord Justice Leveson]] wrote in his report on British press standards, "''The Independent'' was founded in 1986 by the journalists Andreas Whittam Smith, Stephen Glover and Brett Straub..." He had used the Wikipedia article for ''[[The Independent]]'' newspaper as his source, but an act of vandalism had replaced Matthew Symonds (a genuine co-founder) with Brett Straub (an unknown character).<ref>{{cite news |title=Leveson's Wikipedia moment: how internet 'research' on The Independent's history left him red-faced |author=Andy McSmith |url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/levesons-wikipedia-moment-how-internet-research-on-the-independents-history-left-him-redfaced-8372446.html |newspaper=The Independent |date=30 November 2012 |accessdate=8 December 2012 |location=London}}</ref> ''The Economist'' said of the [[Leveson report]], "Parts of it are a scissors-and-paste job culled from Wikipedia."<ref>{{cite news |title=The Leveson Inquiry: Hacked to pieces. |url=http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21567944-somewhat-mediocre-report-could-yet-lead-better-press-rules-britain-hacked-pieces |newspaper=The Economist|date=8 December 2012 |accessdate=26 December 2012}}</ref>
* In late 2013, commentators publicly shared observations of the reappearance of many of the pornographic images deleted from Wikipedia since 2010.<ref name="XBIZ">{{Cite news|url=http://newswire.xbiz.com/view.php?id=169017|publisher=XBIZ.com|date=September 17, 2013|first=Lila|last=Gray|title=Wikipedia Gives Porn a Break |accessdate=October 20, 2013}}</ref>

===Notable forks and derivatives===

See {{srlink|Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks|this page}} for a partial list of Wikipedia mirrors and forks. No list of sites using the software is maintained.
A significant number of sites use the MediaWiki software and concept, popularized by [[Wikipedia]].

Specialized foreign language forks using the Wikipedia concept include [[Enciclopedia Libre]] (Spanish), ''Wikiweise'' (German), WikiZnanie (Russian), [[Susning.nu]] (Swedish), and [[Baidu Baike]] (Chinese). Some of these (such as ''Enciclopedia Libre'') use [[GFDL]] or compatible licenses as used by Wikipedia, leading to exchange of material with their respective language Wikipedias.

In 2006, [[Larry Sanger]] founded [[Citizendium]], based upon a modified version of [[MediaWiki]].<ref name="Jason Z Cohen">{{cite news
|first=Jason Z
|last=Cohen
|title=Citizendium's Larry Sanger: Experts Make It Better
|url=http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/61983.html?welcome=1205003304&welcome=1205003861&wlc=1234584689&wlc=1235641480
|work=LinuxInsider
|publisher=ECT News Network
|date=3 March 2008
|accessdate=8 March 2008}}</ref> The site cited its aims were 'to improve on the Wikipedia model with "gentle expert oversight", among other things'.<ref name="Nate Anderson">{{cite news
|first=Nate
|last=Anderson
|title=Citizendium: building a better Wikipedia
|url=http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/citizendium.ars
|publisher=Ars Technica
|date=25 February 2007
|accessdate=25 March 2007}}</ref><ref name="Caroline McCarthy">{{cite news
|first=Caroline
|last=McCarthy
|title=Citizendium: Wikipedia co-founder Sanger's Wikipedia rival
|url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9680301-2.html
|publisher=[[CNET News]]
|date=23 January 2007
|accessdate=5 April 2007}}</ref> (See also [[Nupedia]]).

===Publication on other media===

The [[German Wikipedia]] was the first to be partly published also using other media (rather than online on the internet), including releases on CD in November 2004<ref>{{cite web
|url= http://www.digitale-bibliothek.de/scripts/ts.dll?s=1&id=E0016306&mp=/art/1266/&sc=Wikipedia.htm
|title=Wikipedia, Die freie Enzyklopädie
|language=German
|accessdate=25 April 2007 }}{{dead link|date=October 2015}}</ref> and more extended versions on CDs or DVD in April 2005 and December 2006. In December 2005, the publisher Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, a sister company of Directmedia, published a 139-page book explaining Wikipedia, its history and policies, which was accompanied by a 7.5 GB DVD containing 300,000 articles and 100,000 images from the German Wikipedia.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.heise.de/newsticker/result.xhtml?url=/newsticker/meldung/67137&words=Wikipedia%20DVD
|title=Neue Wikipedia-DVD im Handel und zum Download
|language=German
|accessdate=25 April 2007 }}</ref> Originally, Directmedia also announced plans to print the German Wikipedia in its entirety, in 100 volumes of 800 pages each. Publication was due to begin in October 2006, and finish in 2010. In March 2006, however, this project was called off.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/71231
|title=Wikipedia wird noch nicht gedruckt
|language=German
|accessdate=25 April 2007 }}</ref>

In September 2008, [[Bertelsmann]] published a 1000 pages volume with a selection of popular German Wikipedia articles. Bertelsmann paid voluntarily 1 Euro per sold copy to [[Wikimedia Deutschland]].<ref>[http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/71231 Titelinformationen], Bertelsmann site. Retrieved 7 October 2008.</ref>

The first CD version containing a selection of articles from the [[English Wikipedia]] was published in April 2006 by [[SchoolsWP:SOSChildren|SOS Children]] as the ''[[2006 Wikipedia CD Selection]]''.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/education-cd.htm
|publisher=[[SchoolsWP:SOSChildren|SOS Children]]
|date=4 June 2006
|title=SOS Children releases 2006 Wikipedia CD Selection
|accessdate=25 April 2007 }}</ref> In April 2007, "Wikipedia Version 0.5", a CD containing around 2000 articles selected from the online encyclopedia was published by the [[Wikimedia Foundation]] and Linterweb. The selection of articles included was based on both the quality of the online version and the importance of the topic to be included. This CD version was created as a test-case in preparation for a DVD version including far more articles.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://wikipediaondvd.com/site.php
|title=Wikipedia 0.5 available on a CD-ROM
|accessdate=25 April 2007
|date=April 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url=http://tweakers.net/nieuws/47253/Wikipedia-maakt-cd-voor-internetlozen.html
|title=Wikipedia maakt cd voor internetlozen
|language=Dutch
|accessdate=25 April 2007
|date=25 April 2007
|publisher=[[tweakers.net]]}}</ref> The CD version can be purchased online, downloaded as a [[Disk image|DVD image file]] or [[Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Torrent Project/Version 0.5|Torrent file]], or accessed online at the project's [http://wikipediaondvd.com/nav/art/d/w.html website].

A free software project has also been launched to make a static version of Wikipedia available for use on [[iPod]]s. The "Encyclopodia" project was started around March 2006 and can currently be used on 1st to 4th generation iPods.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://encyclopodia.sourceforge.net/en/index.html
|title=Encyclopodia – the encyclopedia on your iPod
|publisher=[[Sourceforge]]
|accessdate=25 April 2007 }}</ref>

===Lawsuits===

In limited ways, the Wikimedia Foundation is protected by [[Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act]]. In the defamation action ''Bauer et al. v. Glatzer et al.'', it was held that Wikimedia had no case to answer because of this section.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://m.app.com/news.jsp?key=81411 |title=Judge tosses Matawan literary agent's defamation lawsuit against Wikipedia – Asbury Park Press |publisher=M.app.com |accessdate=13 April 2010 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828202217/http://m.app.com/news.jsp?key=81411 |archivedate=2008-08-28}}</ref> A similar law in France caused a lawsuit to be dismissed in October 2007.<ref>[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-11-05/French lawsuit]]. 5 November 2007.</ref> In 2013, a German appeals court (the [[Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart]]) ruled that Wikipedia is a "service provider" not a "content provider", and as such is immune from liability as long as it takes down content that is accused of being illegal.<ref>[https://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/12/02/legal-victory-german-court-wikimedia-foundation/ In legal victory, German court rules Wikimedia Foundation need not proactively check for illegal or inaccurate content], Wikimedia Blog</ref>

==See also==

* [[History of wikis]]
*''[[The Wikipedia Revolution]]''

{{Portal bar|Internet}}

==References==

{{Reflist|30em|refs=
<ref name="thehive">{{cite news | last = Poe | first = Marshall | authorlink = Marshall Poe | title = The Hive | work = The Atlantic Monthly |date = September 2006| url = http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia/ | accessdate =25 March 2007 | quote = Wales and Sanger created the first Nupedia wiki on 10 January 2001. The initial purpose was to get the public to add entries that would then be “fed into the Nupedia process” of authorization. Most of Nupedia’s expert volunteers, however, wanted nothing to do with this, so Sanger decided to launch a separate site called “Wikipedia.” Neither Sanger nor Wales looked on Wikipedia as anything more than a lark. This is evident in Sanger’s flip announcement of Wikipedia to the Nupedia discussion list. “Humor me,” he wrote. “Go there and add a little article. It will take all of five or ten minutes.” And, to Sanger’s surprise, go they did. Within a few days, Wikipedia outstripped Nupedia in terms of quantity, if not quality, and a small community developed. In late January, Sanger created a Wikipedia discussion list (Wikipedia-L) to facilitate discussion of the project.}}</ref>

<!-- <ref name="irish times interview nov 2009">{{cite news | last = McCann | first = Fiona | title = 'I wasn’t sure if anyone would use it' | work = The Irish Times | date = 27 November 2009 | page = 23 | url = http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2009/1127/1224259543540.html | accessdate =4 December 2009}}</ref> -->}}

==External links==
===Wikipedia records and archives===

:''Wikipedia's project files contain a large quantity of reference and archive material. Useful internal resources on Wikipedia history include:''

'''Historical summaries'''
* [[:Category:Wikipedia years]] – historical events by year
* [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles]]
* [[:meta:History of Wikipedia|History of Wikipedia]] – from the [[Wikipedia:Meta]]
* [[Wikipedia:Historic debates]]
* [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia records]]
* [[meta:Wikimedia News]] – news and milestones index from all Wikipedias
* [[Wikipedia:History of Wikipedia bots]]

'''Size and statistics'''
* [https://stats.wikimedia.org/ Stats.wikimedia.org] – the Wikimedia Foundation's main interface for all project statistics, including the various and combined Wikipedia's.
* [[Wikipedia:Milestones]]
* [[Wikipedia:Statistics]]
* [[Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia]]

'''Discussion and debate archives'''
* [[Wikipedia:Mailing lists]]
* [[Wikipedia:Announcement archive]]

'''Other'''
* [[Wikipedia:CamelCase and Wikipedia]]
* [//nostalgia.wikipedia.org Nostalgia Wikipedia] – a snapshot of Wikipedia from 20 December 2001, running a later version of MediaWiki for security reasons but using a skin that looks like the software of the time
* [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Larry_Sanger/Origins_of_Wikipedia&oldid=39843351 Larry Sanger on the origins of Wikipedia]
* [[Wikipedia:Volunteer Fire Department]] – handling of major editorial influx. Disbanded when no longer needed (2004)
* [[Wikipedia:Magnus Manske Day]] – MediaWiki software goes live into production
{{clear}}
'''Sister projects'''
{{wikimedia|Wikipedia|collapsible=true}}
{{clear}}
===Third party===

* [https://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/encyclopedia.html The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource] — Free Software Foundation endorsement of Nupedia (later updated to include Wikipedia). 1999.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20010303221706/www.wikipedia.com/wiki/HomePage Early Wikipedia snapshot] via Internet Archive. 28 February 2001.
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/technology/fact-driven-collegial-this-site-wants-you.html ''New York Times'' on Wikipedia]. September 2001.
* [[Larry Sanger]]. [http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/18/164213&from=rss "The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir"] and [http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/19/1746205&tid=95 "Part II"]. [[Slashdot]]. 18 April 2005 – 19 April 2005.
* Giles, Jim, [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html "Internet encyclopaedias go head to head"]. [[Nature (journal)|''Nature'']] comparison between Wikipedia and ''Britannica''. 14 December 2005 {{subscription required}}
* [http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf "Fatally Flawed: Refuting the recent study on encyclopedic accuracy by the journal ''Nature''"]. ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''. March 2006.
* [http://www.nature.com/nature/britannica/index.html ''Nature's'' responses to ''Encyclopædia Britannica'']. ''Nature''. 23 March 2006. {{subscription required}}

{{Wikipedia}}
{{Wikipedias}}

[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
[[Category:Computing timelines|Wikipedia]]
[[Category:History of Wikipedia| ]]

Revision as of 16:54, 9 February 2016

DO NOT MESS WITH MY FRIENd!!!!!!!!!

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