Wikipedia

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This is  an article discussing the English Wikipedia, for the German version, see German Wikipedia.

Wikipedia

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URL	http://www.wikipedia.org/
Commercial?	No
Type of site	Internet encyclopedia project
Registration	Optional
Available language(s):	multi-lingual (171 active editions)
Owner	Wikimedia Foundation
Created by	Jimmy Wales and  Larry Sanger

Wikipedia is  a multilingual, Web-based free content encyclopedia project. The name is  a portmanteau of the words wiki and  encyclopedia. Wikipedia is  written collaboratively by volunteers, allowing most articles to be changed by almost anyone with access to the Web site. Its main servers are  in Tampa, Florida, with additional servers in Amsterdam and  Seoul.

Wikipedia was launched as an  English language project on January 15, 2001, as a complement to the expert-written and  now defunct Nupedia, and  is now operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. it  was created by Larry Sanger and  Jimmy Wales; Sanger resigned from both Nupedia and  Wikipedia on March 1, 2002. Wales has described Wikipedia as "an effort to create and  distribute a multi-lingual free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language".^[1]

Currently Wikipedia has more  than five million articles in many languages, including more  than 1.5 million in the English-language version and  more than half a million in the German-language version. There are  250 language editions of Wikipedia, and  18 of them have  more than 50,000 articles each. The German-language edition has been distributed on DVD-ROM, and  there have  been proposals for an  English DVD or  print edition. Since its inception, Wikipedia has steadily risen in popularity,^[2] and  has spawned several sister projects. According to Alexa, Wikipedia ranks among the top fifteen most visited sites, and  many of its pages have  been mirrored or  forked by other sites, such as Answers.com.

There has been controversy over Wikipedia's reliability and  accuracy, with the site receiving criticism for its susceptibility to vandalism, uneven quality and  inconsistency, systemic bias, and  preference for consensus or  popularity over credentials. Information is  sometimes unconfirmed and  questionable, lacking the proper sources that, in the eyes of most "Wikipedians" (as Wikipedia's contributors call themselves), are  necessary for an  article to be considered "high quality". However, a 2005 comparison performed by the science journal Nature of sections of Wikipedia and  the Encyclopædia Britannica found that the two were close in terms of the accuracy of their articles on the natural sciences. This study was challenged by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., who described it  as "fatally flawed".^[3]

Characteristics

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Image depicting the linking characteristics of a wiki; pages are  linked together extensively, which allows the user to traverse a pathway of related articles

Wikipedia uses a type of software called a "wiki", which allows for content to be authored by multiple people easily. Visitors are  allowed to add, remove, or  otherwise edit and  change its content to help build the encyclopedia. Such contributions can be made without the need to register a user account. it  is therefore possible for large numbers of people to create articles and  update them quickly as new information becomes available; it  also means online vandalism of and  disagreement about content are  common.

Many other Internet encyclopedia projects use traditional multi-lingual editorial policies and  article ownership such as the expert-written Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Nupedia, h2g2 and  Everything2. Projects such as Susning.nu, Enciclopedia Libre, and  WikiZnanie are  other wikis in which articles are  developed by numerous authors, and  there is  no formal process of review. Unlike many encyclopedias, Wikipedia has licensed its content under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).

Wikipedia has a set of policies identifying types of information appropriate for inclusion. These policies often are  cited in disputes over whether particular content should be added, revised, transferred to a sister project, or  removed. One of Wikipedia's core policies is  that articles must be written from a "neutral point of view", presenting all note-worthy perspectives on an  issue along with the evidence supporting them. The project also forbids the use of original research. Wikipedia articles do not attempt to determine an  objective truth on their subjects, but rather to describe them impartially from all significant viewpoints. Following the introduction of a more  user friendly citation functionality, since early 2006, articles increasingly include an  extensive reference section to support the information presented in the article and  to allow verification of the article.

Free content

As a large and  collaborative project that requires users to create and  edit content en masse, it  is imperative that all contributions be freely modifiable legally. Normally the creator of a work retains copyright over it, disallowing others from copying it  or creating derivative works. it  is for this reason that Wikipedia's articles are  released under a license that permits anyone to build upon them. The "GNU Free Documentation License", or  "GFDL", one of the many "copyleft" licenses that permit the redistribution, creation of derivative works, and  commercial use of content, was chosen for this purpose. The license also states that, as a condition for the use of the information, its authors be attributed and  any redistributed content remain available under the same license. Despite this free nature, the contributions of original material to the project by authors are  still rightfully theirs, and  the copyright over their work is  retained by them; they simply agree to make that work available so that others may benefit from it. Contributors may choose to multi-license their content as well, which allows it  to be used by third parties under any of the licenses, or  simply release them into the public domain, although few contributors opt to do so.^{[citation needed]}

A significant proportion of images, sound and  video files on Wikipedia, however, do not fall under the GFDL license. Items such as corporate logos, song samples, or  copyrighted news photos are  used with a claim of fair use under the United States copyright law.^[4] There is  also content released under different copyleft terms or  licenses that are  compatible with the GFDL, such as images under Creative Commons licenses.

Language editions

An example of Wikipedia's range in language editions: Wikipedia in Hebrew.^[5]

Currently Wikipedia encompasses 171 "active" language editions (ones with 100+ articles).^[6] In total, Wikipedia contains 250 language editions of varying states, with a combined 5 million articles.^[7]

Language editions operate independently from one another. Editions are  not bound to the content of other language editions, nor are  articles on the same subject required to be translations of each other. Automated translation of articles is  explicitly disallowed, though multilingual editors of sufficient fluency are  encouraged to manually translate articles. The various language editions are  held to global policies such as "neutral point of view", though they may diverge on subtler points of policy and  practice. Articles and  images are  shared between Wikipedia editions, the former through "InterWiki" links and  pages to request translations, and  the latter through the Wikimedia Commons repository. Translated articles represent only a small portion of articles in most editions.^[8]

Wikipedia's article count has shown rapid growth in some of the major language editions.

According to Alexa Internet's audience measurement service, the English sub-domain (en.wikipedia.org) receives approximately 60% of Wikipedia's cumulative traffic, with the remaining 40% being splintered between the numerous other languages in which Wikipedia is  offered.

The following is  a list of the largest editions — those containing over 100,000 articles — sorted by number of articles as of December 12, 2006.^[9][7]

1. English (1,530,346)
2. German (510,364)
3. French (407,513)
4. Polish (323,809)
5. Japanese (298,744)
6. Dutch (245,883)
7. Italian (222,563)
8. Portuguese (204,759)
9. Swedish (198,441ww)
10. Spanish (177,493)
11. Russian (121,247)
12. Chinese (104,830)

Editing

Editors keep track of changes to articles by checking the difference between two revisions of a page, displayed here in red.

Almost all visitors may edit Wikipedia's content; registered users can also create new articles. Changes made to pages are  instantly displayed. Wikipedia is  built on the expectation that collaboration among users will improve articles over time, in much the same way that open-source software develops. Some of Wikipedia's editors have  explained its editing process as a "socially Darwinian evolutionary process".^[10] This real-time, collaborative model allows editors to rapidly update existing topics as they develop and  to introduce new ones as they arise.

Some take advantage of Wikipedia's openness to add nonsense to the encyclopedia, which is  called "vandalism". Additionally, collaboration sometimes leads to "edit wars" — multiple people repetitively replacing or  removing each other's contributions because they disagree with each other — and  prolonged disputes when editors are  unable to agree on an  article's content.^[11]

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The "recent changes" page shows the newest edits to the English Wikipedia. This page is  often watched by users who revert vandalism.

Articles are  always subject to editing, unless the article is  protected for a short time owing to the aforementioned vandalism or  revert wars. Wikipedia does not declare any of its articles to be "complete" or  "finished". The authors of articles need not have  any expertise or  qualifications in the subjects that they edit, and  users are  warned that their contributions may be "edited mercilessly and  redistributed at will" by anyone who wishes to do so. Articles are  not controlled or  copyrighted by any particular user or  editorial group; decisions on the content and  editorial policies of Wikipedia are  instead made largely through consensus decision-making and, occasionally, by vote. Jimmy Wales retains final judgment on Wikipedia policies and  user guidelines.^[12]

Regular users often maintain a "watchlist" of articles of interest to them, so that they can easily keep tabs on all recent changes to those articles, including new updates, discussions, and  vandalism. Most past edits to Wikipedia articles also remain viewable after the fact and  are stored on "edit history" pages sorted chronologically, making it  possible to see former versions of any page at any time. The only exceptions are  the entire histories of articles that have  been deleted, and  many individual edits that contain  and  libel">libelous statements, copyright violations, and  other content that could incur legal liability or  be otherwise detrimental to Wikipedia. These edits may only be viewed by Wikipedia administrators.

Wikipedia in other formats

For some articles, there is  a spoken version available in ogg format (using the Vorbis audio codec). The ogg format is  favored over the more  ubiquitous and  better-known MP3 format due to the decision to favor content accessible with "Free software"^{[citation needed]} — MP3 fails this criteria as it  is covered by multiple enforced software patents.^{[citation needed]}

As Wikipedia is  available online and  released under an  unrestrictive license, it  is very easy to download its content for use on containers other than the Web, which is  its primary distribution method. Accordingly, some projects have  sprung up that use the Wikipedia content differently. For example, SOS Children distributes the encyclopedia on a CD. Additionally, an  editorial team is  working on creating "Wikipedia 1.0", a collection of Wikipedia articles that have  been verified for accuracy and  are ready for printing or  burning to CD. Published copies of selected Wikipedia articles are  also available from PediaPress, a Print on Demand service.

History

Main article: History of Wikipedia

Wikipedia originally developed out of another encyclopedia project, Nupedia.

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Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia co-founder and  current head of the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikipedia concept was not novel — Everything2 (in 1998-1999) had used similar ideas before Wikipedia was founded — and  Wikipedia began as a complementary project for Nupedia, a free online encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts through a formal process. Nupedia was founded on March 9, 2000, under the ownership of Bomis, Inc, a Web portal company. Its principal figures were Jimmy Wales, Bomis CEO, and  Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief for Nupedia and  later Wikipedia. Nupedia was described by Sanger as differing from existing encyclopedias in being open content, in not having size limitations, due to being on the Internet, and  in being free of bias, due to its public nature and  potentially broad base of contributors.^[13] Nupedia had a seven-step review process by appointed subject-area experts, but later came to be viewed as too slow for producing a limited number of articles. Funded by Bomis, there were initial plans to recoup its investment by the use of advertisements.^[13] it  was initially licensed under its own Nupedia Open Content License, switching to the GFDL before Wikipedia's founding at the urging of Richard Stallman.^{[citation needed]}

On January 10, 2001, Larry Sanger proposed on the Nupedia mailing list to create a wiki alongside Nupedia. Under the subject "Let's make a wiki", he wrote:^[14]

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.

Wikipedia was formally launched on January 15, 2001, as a single English-language edition at http://www.wikipedia.com/, and  announced by Sanger on the Nupedia mailing list.^[15] it  had been, from January 10, a feature of Nupedia.com in which the public could write articles that could be incorporated into Nupedia after review. it  was relaunched off-site after Nupedia's Advisory Board of subject experts disapproved of its production model.^[16] Wikipedia thereafter operated as a standalone project without control from Nupedia. Its policy of "neutral point-of-view" was codified in its initial months, though it  is similar to Nupedia's earlier "nonbiased" policy. There were otherwise few rules initially. 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 its first year. it  had 26 language editions by the end of 2002, 46 by the end of 2003, and  161 by the end of 2004.^[17] Nupedia and  Wikipedia coexisted until the former's servers went down, permanently, in 2003, and  its text was incorporated into Wikipedia.

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Wikipedia's English edition on March 30, 2001, two and  a half months after its founding.

Wales and  Sanger attribute the concept of using a wiki to Ward Cunningham's WikiWikiWeb or  Portland Pattern Repository. Wales mentioned that he heard the concept first from Jeremy Rosenfeld, an  employee of Bomis who showed him the same wiki, in December 2000,^[18] but it  was after Sanger heard of its existence in January 2001 from Ben Kovitz, a regular at the wiki,^[16] that he proposed the creation of a wiki for Nupedia to Wales and  Wikipedia's history started. Under a similar concept of free content, though not wiki-based production, the GNUpedia project existed alongside Nupedia early in its history. it  subsequently became inactive, and  its creator, free-software figure Richard Stallman, lent his support to Wikipedia.^[19]

Citing fears of commercial advertising and  lack of control in a perceived English-centric Wikipedia, users of the Spanish Wikipedia forked from Wikipedia to create the Enciclopedia Libre in February 2002. Later that year, Wales announced that Wikipedia would not display advertisements, and  its website was moved to wikipedia.org. Various other projects have  since forked from Wikipedia for editorial reasons, such as Wikinfo, which abandoned "neutral point-of-view" in favor of multiple complementary articles written from a "sympathetic point-of-view".^[20]

Wikipedia's first sister project, "In Memoriam: September 11 Wiki", was created in October 2002 to detail the September 11, 2001 attacks;^[21] The Wikimedia Foundation was created from Wikipedia and  Nupedia on June 20, 2003.^[22] Wikipedia and  its sister projects thereafter operated under this non-profit organization. Wiktionary, a dictionary project, was launched in December 2002; Wikiquote, a collection of quotations, a week after Wikimedia launched; and  Wikibooks, a collection of collaboratively-written free books, the next month. Wikimedia has since started a number of other projects, detailed below.

Wikipedia has traditionally measured its status by article count. In its first two years, it  grew at a few hundred or  fewer new articles per day; by 2004, this had accelerated to a total of 1,000 to 3,000 per day (counting all editions). The English Wikipedia reached its 100,000-article milestone on January 22, 2003.^[23] Wikipedia reached its one millionth article, among the 105 language editions that existed at the time, on September 20, 2004,^[24] while the English edition alone reached its 500,000th on March 18, 2005.^[25] This figure had doubled less  than a year later, with the millionth article in the English edition, Jordanhill railway station, being created on March 1, 2006^[26]; meanwhile, the millionth user registration had been made just two days before. The 1.5 millionth article was created on November 25, 2006 about the Kanab Ambersnail. ^[27]

The Wikimedia Foundation applied to the  and  Trademark Office">United States Patent and  Trademark Office to trademark Wikipedia® on September 17, 2004. The mark was granted registration status on January 10, 2006. Trademark protection was accorded by Japan on December 16, 2004 and  in the European Union on January 20, 2005. Technically a service mark, the scope of the mark is  for: "Provision of information in the field of general encyclopedic knowledge via the Internet".

There are  currently plans to license the usage of the Wikipedia trademark for some products, such as books or  DVDs.^[28]

Software and  hardware

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Wikipedia receives over 2000 page requests per second. more  than 100 servers have  been set up to handle the traffic.

Wikipedia itself runs on its own in-house created software, known as MediaWiki, a powerful, open source wiki system written in PHP and  built upon MySQL.^[29] As well as allowing articles to be written, it  includes a basic internal macro language, variables and  transcluded templating system for page enhancement, and  features such as redirection.

Wikipedia runs on a cluster of dedicated Linux servers located in Florida and  four other locations around the world.^[30] MediaWiki is  Phase III of the program's software. Originally, Wikipedia ran on UseModWiki by Clifford Adams (Phase I). At first it  required camel case for links; later it  was also possible to use double brackets. Wikipedia began running on a PHP wiki engine with a MySQL database in January 2002. This software, Phase II, was written specifically for the Wikipedia project by Magnus Manske. Several rounds of modifications were made to improve performance in response to increased demand. Ultimately, the software was rewritten again, this time by Lee Daniel Crocker. Instituted in July 2002, this Phase III software was called MediaWiki. it  was licensed under the GNU General Public License and  used by all Wikimedia projects.

Overview of system architecture, May 2006 (see also: Server layout diagrams)

Wikipedia was served from a single server until 2004, when the server setup was expanded into a distributed multitier architecture. In January 2005, the project ran on 39 dedicated servers located in Florida. This configuration included a single master database server running MySQL, multiple slave database servers, 21 web servers running the Apache software, and  seven Squid cache servers. By September 2005, its server cluster had grown to around 100 servers in four locations around the world.

Page requests are  processed by first passing to a front-end layer of Squid caching servers. Requests that cannot be served from the Squid cache are  sent to two load-balancing servers running the Perlbal software, which then pass the request to one of the Apache web servers for page-rendering from the database. The web servers serve pages as requested, performing page rendering for all the Wikipedias. To increase speed further, rendered pages for anonymous users are  cached in a filesystem until invalidated, allowing page rendering to be skipped entirely for most common page accesses, which can lead to a lag. To further increase response times, Wikimedia began building a global network of caching servers with the addition of three caching servers in France. Two larger clusters in the Netherlands and  Korea now take much of Wikipedia's traffic load. In spite of all this, Wikipedia page load times remain quite variable. The ongoing status of Wikipedia's website is  posted by users at a status page on OpenFacts.

Authorship and  management process

During December 2005, Wikipedia had about 27,000 users who made at least five edits that month; 17,000 of these active users worked on the English edition.^[31] A more  active group of about 4,000 users made more  than 100 edits per month, over half of these users having worked in the English edition. According to Wikimedia, one-quarter of Wikipedia's traffic comes from users without accounts, who are  less likely to be editors.^[32]

Maintenance tasks are  performed by a group of volunteer developers, stewards, bureaucrats, and  administrators, which number just over a thousand. Administrators are  the largest such group, privileged with the ability to prevent articles from being edited, delete articles, or  block users from editing in accordance with community policy. Any editor with a significant history of positive contributions and  a firm understanding of Wikipedia's policies and  guidelines can be nominated to become an  administrator.

Some users have  been temporarily or  permanently blocked from editing Wikipedia. Vandalism or  the minor infraction of policies may result in a warning or  temporary block, while long-term or  permanent blocks for prolonged and  serious infractions are  given by Jimmy Wales or, on its English edition, an  elected Arbitration Committee.

Former Nupedia editor-in-chief Larry Sanger has said that having the GFDL license as a "guarantee of freedom is  a strong motivation to work on a free encyclopedia".^[33] In a study of Wikipedia as a community, economics professor Andrea Ciffolilli argued that the low transaction costs of participating in wiki software create a catalyst for collaborative development, and  that a "creative construction" approach encourages participation.^[34] Wikipedia has been viewed as an  experiment in a variety of social, political, and  economic systems, including anarchy, democracy, and  communism. Its founder has replied that it  is not intended as one, though that is  a consequence.^[35] Daniel Brandt of Wikipedia Watch has referred to Jimbo Wales as the "dictator" of Wikipedia; however, most Wikipedia users either do not consider Wales to be a dictator, or  consider him to be one who rarely gives non-negotiable orders.^[36]

Future directions for authoring content

An experimental feature planned for the German version of Wikipedia has been reported which could eventually improve the quality of editing for Wikipedia and  protect it  from vandalism. The concept being tested is  to still allow anyone to edit articles, but to only allow editors judged as "trustworthy" to make edits live on the public site. The process by which trustworthiness would be established is  yet to be determined. Jimbo Wales stated "We want to let anybody edit but we don't want to show vandalized versions. it  would be fun for me to announce to the press that the front page of Wikipedia is  open for public editing for the first time in five years".^[37]

Funding

Wikipedia is  funded through the Wikimedia Foundation. Its 4th Quarter 2005 costs were $321,000 USD, with hardware making up almost 60% of the budget.^[38]

Bomis, an  online advertising company that caters to a generally male audience and  has hosted soft-core pornography, played a significant part in the early development of Wikipedia and  the network itself. ^[39]

Criticism and  controversy

Further information: Criticism of Wikipedia

Wikipedia has become increasingly controversial as it  has gained prominence and  popularity, with critics alleging that Wikipedia's open nature makes it  unauthoritative and  unreliable, with unconfirmed information that often lacks any proper sources, and  that it  exhibits severe systemic bias and  inconsistency. Wikipedia has also been criticized for using dubious sources, having a biased but neutrally written perspective towards certain points of view, for disregarding credentials, for lacking understanding and  international nature, and  for being vulnerable to vandalism and  special interest groups.^[40] Critics of Wikipedia include Wikipedia's own editors (and ex-editors), representatives of other encyclopedias, and  even subjects of articles, especially those that find information presenting them in a bad light.^{[citation needed]}

At the end of 2005, controversy arose after journalist John Seigenthaler, Sr. found that his biography had been written largely as a hoax, which had gone undetected for almost four months.^{[citation needed]} This discovery led to several policy decisions within Wikimedia regarding creation of articles and  the overview process, intended to address some of the flaws which had allowed the hoax to go undetected for that time.

The Wikipedia model

Wikipedia has been both praised and  criticized for being open to editing by anyone. Critics allege that non-expert editing undermines quality. Because contributors usually submit edits, rewriting small portions of an  entry rather than making full-length revisions, high- and  low-quality content may be intermingled within an  entry.

Wikipedia has been criticized for a perceived lack of reliability, comprehensiveness and  authority. it  is criticized as having no or  limited utility as a reference work among many librarians, academics, and  the editors of more  formally written encyclopedias. Many university lecturers discourage their students from using any encyclopedia as a reference in academic work, preferring primary sources instead.^[41] A critical website, Wikipedia Watch, was created by Daniel Brandt, accusing Wikipedia of having "…a massive, unearned influence on what passes for reliable information."^[42]

Supporters argue that Wikipedia does meet all the criteria for the basic definition of the word 'encyclopedia'. One difference from book encyclopedias is  online web editing with Wikipedia's history function. A deleted text will remain in the history tab and  other users can look up an  individual's work history to gauge the author's merit.

Emigh and  Herring (2005)^[43] in a study of Wikipedia, note that there are  not yet many formal studies of Wikipedia or  its model. Their main conclusions regarding style and  encyclopedic quality were:

1. Statistically speaking, "the language of Wikipedia entries is  as formal as that in the traditional print encyclopedia".
2. Wikipedia entries are  "stylistically homogenous, typically describe only a single, core sense of an  item, and  are often presented in a standard format" (attributed partly to policies and  partly to the norms of conventional print encyclopedias "which Wikipedia effectively emulates").
3. Wikipedia achieves its results by social means, including self-norming, a core of active and  vigilant users watching for problems, and  editors' expectations of encyclopedic text drawn from the wider culture.

Reliability

Main article: Reliability of Wikipedia

Wikipedia can be assessed for reliability in several areas, including:

• Accuracy of information provided within articles;
• Comprehensiveness, scope and  coverage within articles and  in the range of articles;
• Susceptibility to, and  exclusion and  removal of, false information (a criterion specific to the Wikipedia process);
• Susceptibility to editorial and  systemic bias;
• Identification of reputable third party source references (citations).

Accuracy and  comprehensiveness

A variety of studies to date have  tended to suggest that some Wikipedia articles (scientific articles most notably) are  of a similar degree of accuracy to Encyclopædia Britannica, that Wikipedia provides a good starting point for research, and  that articles are, in general, reasonably sound. However, these studies also suggest that due to its novel editorial model, it  suffers omissions and  inaccuracies which can sometimes be serious. A separate study suggests that in many cases, vandalism is  reverted fairly quickly, but that this does not always happen.

One of the studies, by Nature, identified that among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was relatively low: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, around three. In the pairs of articles reviewed, eight serious errors such as misinterpretations of important concepts were detected, four from each encyclopædia. Reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or  misleading statements: 162 in Wikipedia and  123 in Britannica. However, the study did find that the errors on Wikipedia were generally more  severe, with a greater proportion of factual errors, while the errors in Britannica were more  commonly errors of omission. However, it  was also found that Wikipedia articles were generally of greater length (2.6 times as long as the Britannica equivalents, on average), and  that thus its error per word ratio is  lower.^[44]

Critics of Wikipedia often charge that allowing anyone to edit makes Wikipedia an  unreliable work, and  that some editors may employ clever use of semantics to make possibly biased statements sound more  credible. Wikipedia contains no formal peer review process for fact-checking, and  the editors themselves may not be well-versed in the topics they write about, leading to criticism that its contents lack authority,^[45] and  according to Danah Boyd, that "[i]t will never be an  encyclopedia, but it  will contain extensive knowledge that is  quite valuable for different purposes."^[46]

Although Wikipedia has a policy of citing reputable sources, this is  only sometimes adhered to. Encyclopædia Britannica's executive editor, Ted Pappas, was quoted in The Guardian as saying: "The premise of Wikipedia is  that continuous improvement will lead to perfection. That premise is  completely unproven."^[45] and  former Britannica editor Robert McHenry criticized the wiki approach on the grounds that "What [a user] certainly does not know is  who has used the facilities before him". ^[47]

Academic circles have  not been exclusively dismissive of Wikipedia as a reference. Wikipedia articles have  been referenced in "enhanced perspectives" provided on-line in Science. The first of these perspectives to provide a hyperlink to Wikipedia was "A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light",^[48] and  dozens of enhanced perspectives have  provided such links since then. However, these links are  offered as background sources for the reader, not as sources used by the writer, and  the "enhanced perspectives" are  not intended to serve as reference material themselves.

Former Nupedia editor-in-chief Larry Sanger criticized Wikipedia in late 2004 for having, according to Sanger, an  "anti-elitist" philosophy of active contempt for expertise.^[49] it  is possible that articles subject to strong opinions (such as George W. Bush) are  more prone to be edited poorly, but this is  uncertain — often such articles receive extra attention and  strong consensus exactly because they are  the subject of heated debate. Other articles that do not produce such emotive responses may tend to be more  stable.

Other commentators have  drawn a middle ground, that it  contains much valuable knowledge and  has some reliability, even if the degree is  not yet assessed with certainty. People taking such a view include Danah Boyd, Larry Sanger (re-applying Eric Raymond's "Given enough eyeballs, all errors are  shallow"^[50]) and  technology figure Joi Ito, who wrote, "the question is  whether something is  more likely to be true coming from a source whose resume sounds authoritative or  a source that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people (with the ability to comment) and  has survived."^[51]

Bill Thompson, a well known technology writer, commented that the debate is  probably symptomatic of much learning about information which is  happening in society today, arguing that:

	It is  the same with search engine results. Just because something comes up in the top 10 on MSN Search or  Google does not automatically give it  credibility or  vouch for its accuracy or  importance... One benefit that might come from the wider publicity that Wikipedia is  currently receiving is  a better sense of how to evaluate information sources... The days when everything you saw on a screen had been carefully filtered, vetted, edited and  checked are  long gone. Product placement, advertorials and  sponsorship are  all becoming more  common. an  educated audience is  the only realistic way to ensure that we are  not duped, tricked, fleeced or  offended by the media we consume, and  learning that online information sources may not be as accurate as they pretend to be is  an important part of that education. I use the Wikipedia a lot. it  is a good starting point for serious research, but I would never accept something that I read there without checking.
—Bill Thompson, What is  it with Wikipedia?

Coverage

A common criticism is  that editors, being volunteers, write on what interests them, and  what they are  aware of. Therefore coverage both within topics, and  across the encyclopedia, is  uneven and  may at times be seriously unbalanced, with obvious and  notable omissions.

Wikipedia has been accused of deficiencies in comprehensiveness because of its voluntary nature, and  of reflecting the systemic biases of its contributors. For example, like any Internet group, the site can become dominated by cliques of habitual users who express both condescension and  hostility to users not involved in the "in-group" — habitual users also feel a sense of "ownership" over "their" pages, leading to edit wars.

Encyclopædia Britannica's editor-in-chief Dale Hoiberg has argued this case,^[45] as has former Nupedia editor-in-chief Larry Sanger who stated in 2004 that "when it  comes to relatively specialized topics (outside of the interests of most of the contributors), the project's credibility is  very uneven."^[49]

The same fluidity that allows articles to be patchy has also led to Wikipedia being praised for making it  possible for articles to be updated or  created in response to current events. For example, the then-new article on the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake on its English edition was cited often by the press shortly after the incident.^[52] Its editors have  also argued that, as a website, Wikipedia is  able to include articles on a greater number of subjects than print encyclopedias may.^[53]

Bias

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Wikipedia has been criticized as having a systematic bias. There are  several forms of this criticism.

First, there could be an  unintentional bias due to the overall makeup of the community of Wikipedian editors. For instance, because Wikipedia's basic model is  popular and  nonmonetary, this could lead to a shortage of editors with elitist or  strongly pro-capitalist views. There is  no doubt that Wikipedia includes a wide diversity of editors, and  important articles which are  the focus of a controversy generally receive input from editors on both sides of this controversy; but this weak bias would tend to show up in more  secondary articles.

Second, there could be an  intentional bias within a given article due to the focused efforts of a single editor or  a small group of editors. This would also tend to be confined to secondary articles which receive less  editorial attention. In general, this bias would be more-or-less strong, and  thus possibly detectable by a critical reader.

Third, there could be a bias introduced by some other aspect of Wikipedia. The tendency to use web-based sources (or even the "background knowledge" of editors), the policies against original research, and  the injunction to maintain a "neutral point of view" could all be sources of bias, especially if overapplied.

Community

The Wikipedia community consists of users who are  proportionally few, but highly active. Emigh and  Herring argue^[43] that "a few active users, when acting in concert with established norms within an  open editing system, can achieve ultimate control over the content produced within the system, literally erasing diversity, controversy, and  inconsistency, and  homogenizing contributors' voices."^[43] Editors on Wikinfo, a fork of Wikipedia, similarly argue that new or  controversial editors to Wikipedia are  often unjustly labeled "trolls" or  "problem users" and  blocked from editing.^[54] Its community has also been criticized for responding to complaints regarding an  article's quality by advising the complainer to fix the article (a common complaint about open-source software development as well).^[55] it  has also been described as "cult-like",^{[56][57][58][59]} although, as these instances demonstrate, not always with entirely negative connotations.

In a page on researching with Wikipedia, the community view is  argued that Wikipedia is  valuable for being a social community. That is, authors can be asked to defend or  clarify their work, and  disputes are  readily seen.^[60] Wikipedia editions also often contain reference desks in which the community answers questions.

Professor James H. Fetzer criticized Wikipedia in that he could not change the article about himself; Wikipedia has a policy that prohibits the editing of biographies by the subjects themselves.^[61]

Responses to criticisms

In an  interview with BusinessWeek on December 13, 2005, Wales discussed the reasons that the Seigenthaler hoax had gone undetected, and  steps being taken to address them. He stated that one problem was that Wikipedia's use had grown faster than its self-monitoring system could comfortably handle, and  that therefore new page creation would be deliberately restricted to account-holders only, addressing one of Seigenthaler's main criticisms. He also gave his opinion that encyclopedias as a whole (whether print or  online) were not usually appropriate for primary sources and  should not be relied upon as authoritative (as some were doing), but that nonetheless on balance Wikipedia was more  reliable as "background reading" on subjects than most online sources. He stated that Wikipedia was a "work in progress".^[62]

In response to this criticism, proposals have  been made to provide various forms of provenance for material in Wikipedia articles.^[63] The idea is  to provide source provenance on each interval of text in an  article and  temporal provenance as to its vintage. In this way a reader can know "who has used the facilities before him" and  how long the community has had to process the information in an  article to provide calibration on the "sense of security". For example, Cross^[64] proposes a temporal provenance scheme which colors text based how many edit sessions a piece of text has survived (red for new text, yellow for text that has survived 50 edits, green if 100, black if more  than 150 edits). However, these proposals for provenance are  quite controversial. Aaron Krowne wrote a rebuttal article in which he criticized McHenry's methods, and  labeled them " and  doubt">FUD", the marketing technique of "fear, uncertainty, and  doubt".^[65]

Awards

Wikipedia won two major awards in May 2004.^[66] The first was a Golden Nica for Digital Communities, awarded by Prix Ars Electronica; this came with a €10,000 ($12,700) grant and  an invitation to present at the PAE Cyberarts Festival in Austria later that year. The second was a Judges' Webby award for the "community" category. Wikipedia was also nominated for a "Best Practices" Webby. In September 2004, the Japanese Wikipedia was awarded a Web Creation Award from the Japan Advertisers Association. This award, normally given to individuals for great contributions to the Web in Japanese, was accepted by a long-standing contributor on behalf of the project.

Wikipedia has also received plaudits from sources including BBC News, The Washington Post, The Economist, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, Science, The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times, The Times (London), Toronto Star,  and  Mail">Globe and  Mail, The Financial Times, Time Magazine, Irish Times, Reader's Digest, and  The Daily Telegraph. Founder Jimmy Wales was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine in 2006.

In 2006, in a Multiscope research, the Dutch Wikipedia was rated the third best Dutch language site (after Google and  Gmail), with a score of 8.3.

In 2006, the Russian Wikipedia was awarded the Runeta Prize (Russian: Премия Рунета, Premija Runeta), for the contribution and  development of the Russian language on the Internet. ru:Премия Рунета

In popular culture

Main article: Wikipedia in popular culture

Wikipedia's content has been mirrored and  forked by hundreds of sites including database dumps. Wikipedia content has also been used in academic studies, books and  conferences, albeit more  rarely, and  very recently, in movies.^{[citation needed]} As of 2006, Wikipedia has been used once in a United States court case,^[67] and  the Parliament of Canada website refers to Wikipedia's article on same-sex marriage in the "further reading" list of Civil Marriage Act.^[68] Some Wikipedia users, or  Wikipedians, maintain (non-comprehensive) lists of such uses.^[69]

With increased usage and  awareness, there have  been an  increasing number of references to Wikipedia in popular culture. Many parody Wikipedia's openness, with characters vandalizing or  modifying the online encyclopedia project's articles. Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report has oft times instigated his viewers to vandalize articles in humorous ways, once doing so on the wikipedia article on bears. "Weird Al" Yankovic's character in his video 'White & Nerdy' is  seen vandalising the entry for the Atlantic record label with the exclamation "You suck!", after they rescinded permission for a parody. Still others feature characters using the references as a source, or  positively comparing a character's intelligence to Wikipedia.

See also

• Congressional staffer edits to Wikipedia
• Encyclopedia
• Internet encyclopedia project
• List of encyclopedias
• List of wikis
• Open Site
• Self-reference
• User-generated content
• Wikipedia in popular culture

References

Further reading

• Wikipedia:Introduction
• Wikipedia:FAQ
• Wikipedia:Wikipedia in academic studies
• Wikipedia:Press releases
• Wikipedia:Press coverage
•  is  not so great">Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is  not so great
• Wikipedia:Replies to common objections
• Wikipedia:Improving Wikipedia
• Wikipedia:Statistics

External links

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Links to content created under a Wikimedia Foundation project

• wikipedia.org, multi-lingual portal
  • en.wikipedia.org, English language edition
• Meta-Wiki, policy-related and  technical discussions regarding Wikimedia
• Wikimedia Foundation, parent organization of Wikipedia
• Wikipedia Signpost, English Wikipedia community newsletter published weekly
• Sanger, Larry, Origins of Wikipedia, essay within Sanger's English Wikipedia user page, wiki revision of 16 February 2006
• The Main Page of English-language Wikipedia at various times:
  • Main Page on 20 December 2001, from nostalgia.wikipedia.org
  • Main Page on 10 December 2002, from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine
  • Main Page on 2 December 2003, from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine

Overviews

• Wikipedia at the Open Directory Project
• Wikipedia at SourceWatch

Reports and  news articles (chronological)

For an  expanded list maintained by Wikipedia contributors, see Wikipedia:Press coverage

• Meyers, Peter, Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You, New York Times 20 September 2001
• Viegas, Fernanda B., Martin Wattenberg, and  Kushal Dave, "Studying Cooperation and  Conflict between Authors with history flow Visualizations", CHI 2004 April 24 – April 29, 2004. Preliminary report "History Flow" available on the IBM website.
• Udell, Jon, Heavy metal umlaut: the movie, screencast illustrating the editing process on a selected Wikipedia article, 22 January 2005
• Sanger, Larry, The Early History of Nupedia and  Wikipedia: A Memoir, from Slashdot and  Open Sources 2.0, 18 April 2005
• Worldwide Wikimania, The Guardian, 11 August 2005
• Interview with Jimmy Wales, CEO of WikiPedia," nPost, November 1, 2005
• Seigenthaler, John, Sr., "A false Wikipedia 'biography'", USA Today, 29 November 2005
• Giles, Jim, Internet encyclopaedias go head to head, Nature comparison between Wikipedia and  Britannica, 14 December 2005
  • Fatally Flawed: Refuting the recent study on encyclopedic accuracy by the journal Nature, Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., March 2006
  • Nature's responses to Encyclopaedia Britannica, Nature, 23 March 2006
• Berinstein, Paula, "Wikipedia and  Britannica: The Kid’s All Right (And So’s the Old Man)", Searcher Vol. 14 No. 3, March 2006
• Vaknin, Sam, The Six Sins of the Wikipedia, YoursDaily.com, 7 April 2006
• Sjöberg, Lore, The Wikipedia FAQK, Wired News, 19 April 2006
• Rosenzweig, Roy, Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and  the Future of the Past, Journal of American History, Volume 93, Number 1 (June, 2006): 117-46
• Growing Wikipedia Refines Its 'Anyone Can Edit' Policy The New York Times (June 17, 2006)
• Schiff, Stacy, Know it  All: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?, The New Yorker, July 31, 2006
• Levine, Robert, "The Many Voices of Wikipedia, Heard in One Place", New York Times, 7 August 2006
• Poe, Marshall, The Hive, The Atlantic Monthly, September 2006
• Pearson, Helen, Textbook free for all, Nature, 15 September 2006
• Hubbard, John, Why Wiki?, a library video course on Wikipedia, October 10, 2006
• Kirschner, Ann, Adventures in the Land of Wikipedia, from the November 17 2006 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Other

• Uncyclopedia: Uncyclopedia, a satirical parody of Wikipedia
• WiKP: WiKP, a Google-based Wikipedia search engine

Projects of the Wikimedia Foundation
Wikibooks (Wikijunior) • Wikiversity • Wikimedia Commons • Wiktionary • Wikinews • Wikipedia • Wikiquote • Wikisource • Wikispecies • Meta-Wiki • Wikimedia Incubator