Wikipedia

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the free encyclopedia. For the different similar terms related to Wikipedia, see Wikipedia (terminology).

For Wikipedia's non-encyclopedic visitor introduction, see Wikipedia:About.

Wikipedia

Screenshot of Wikipedia's multilingual portal

URL http://www.wikipedia.org

Slogan The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit

Alexa rank #9[1]

Commercial? No

Type of site Online encyclopedia

Registration Optional

Available language(s) 236 active editions (253 in total)[2]

Owner Wikimedia Foundation

Created by Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger[3]

Launched January 15, 2001

Current status perpetual work-in-progress

Wikipedia (IPA: /ˌwɪkɨˈpiːdiə/,

/ˌwiːkiˈpiːdiə/, /ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/, or /ˌwiːkiˈpeɪdiə/) (Audio (U.S.) (help*info)) is a free,[4] multilingual, open content encyclopedia project operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a blend of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites) and encyclopedia. Launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger,[5] it is the largest, fastest-growing and most popular general reference work currently available on the Internet.[6][7]

As of December 2007, Wikipedia has approximately 9.25 million articles in 253 languages, comprising a combined total of over 1.74 billion words for all Wikipedias. The English Wikipedia edition passed the 2,000,000 article mark on September 9, 2007, and as of March 12, 2008 it had over 2,276,000 articles consisting of over 990,000,000 words.[2] Wikipedia's articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and nearly all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet. Having steadily risen in popularity since its inception,[1] it currently ranks among the top ten most-visited websites worldwide.[8]

Critics have questioned Wikipedia's reliability and accuracy, citing its open nature.[9] The criticisms are centered on its susceptibility to vandalism, such as the insertion of profanities or random letters into articles, and the addition of spurious or unverified information;[10] uneven quality, systemic bias and inconsistencies;[11] and for favoring consensus over credentials in its editorial process.[12] Scholarly work suggests that vandalism is generally short-lived.[13][14]

In addition to being an encyclopedic reference, Wikipedia has received major media attention as an online source of breaking news as it is constantly updated.[15][16] When Time Magazine recognized "You" as their Person of the Year 2006, praising the accelerating success of on-line collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, Wikipedia was the first particular "Web 2.0" service mentioned, followed by YouTube and MySpace.[17]

Contents [hide]

1 History

2 Content and internal structure

3 Software and hardware

4 Language editions

5 Reliability and bias

6 Criticism

7 Cultural significance

8 Wikia and Wikimedia

9 Related projects

10 See also

11 Further reading

11.1 Press coverage

11.2 Academic studies

12 References

13 External links

History

Main article: History of Wikipedia

Wikipedia originally developed from another encyclopedia project, Nupedia.

Wikipedia began as a complementary project for Nupedia, a free online English-language encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts and reviewed under a formal process. Nupedia was founded on March 9, 2000, under the ownership of Bomis, Inc, a web portal company. Its main figures were Jimmy Wales, Bomis CEO, and Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief for Nupedia and later Wikipedia. Nupedia was licensed initially under its own Nupedia Open Content License, switching to the GNU Free Documentation License before Wikipedia's founding at the urging of Richard Stallman.[18]

Jimmy Wales

Larry Sanger

Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales are the founders of Wikipedia.[3][19] While Wales is credited with defining the goal of making a publicly editable encyclopedia,[20] Sanger is usually credited with the counter-intuitive strategy of using a wiki to reach that goal.[21] On January 10, 2001, Larry Sanger proposed on the Nupedia mailing list to create a wiki as a "feeder" project for Nupedia.[22] Wikipedia was formally launched on January 15, 2001, as a single English-language edition at www.wikipedia.com,[23] and announced by Sanger on the Nupedia mailing list.[24] Wikipedia's policy of "neutral point-of-view"[25] was codified in its initial months, and was similar to Nupedia's earlier "nonbiased" policy. Otherwise, there were relatively few rules initially and Wikipedia operated independently of Nupedia.[20]

Graph of the article count for the English Wikipedia, from January 10, 2001, to September 9, 2007 (the date of the two-millionth article).

Wikipedia gained early contributors from Nupedia, Slashdot postings, and search engine indexing. It grew to approximately 20,000 articles, and 18 language editions, by the end of 2001. By late 2002 it had reached