From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the Internet encyclopedia. For other uses, see Wikipedia (disambiguation).

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

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Wikipedia

A white sphere made of large jigsaw pieces. Letters from several alphabets are shown on the pieces

Wikipedia wordmark

The logo of Wikipedia, a globe featuring glyphs from several writing systems, most of them meaning the letter W or sound "wi"

Screenshot [show]

Web address wikipedia.org

Slogan The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit

Commercial? No

Type of site Internet encyclopedia

Registration Optional[notes 1]

Available in 287 editions[1]

Users 73,251 active editors (May 2014),[2] 22,457,669 total accounts.

Content license CC Attribution / Share-Alike 3.0

Most text also dual-licensed under GFDL, media licensing varies.

Owner Wikimedia Foundation

Created by Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger[3]

Launched January 15, 2001; 13 years ago

Alexa rank Steady 6 (September 2014)[4]

Current status Active

Wikipedia (Listeni/ˌwɪkɨˈpiːdiə/ or Listeni/ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/ wik-i-pee-dee-ə) is a free-access, free content Internet encyclopedia, supported and hosted by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Almost anyone who can access the site[5] can edit almost any of its articles. Wikipedia is the sixth-most popular website[4] and constitutes the Internet's largest and most popular general reference work.[6][7][8] As of 2014, it has 18 billion page views and nearly 500 million unique visitors each month.[9]

Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launched Wikipedia on January 15, 2001. Sanger[10] coined its name,[11] a portmanteau of wiki (from the Hawaiian word for "quick")[12] and encyclopedia. Although Wikipedia's content was initially only in English, it quickly became multilingual, through the launch of versions in different languages. All versions of Wikipedia are similar, but important differences exist in content and in editing practices. The English Wikipedia is now one of more than 200 Wikipedias, but remains the largest one, with over 4.6 million articles.

Wikipedia has earned a reputation as a news source because of its rapid updating of articles related to breaking news.[13][14][15] In addition, Wikipedia's high openness compared to previous encyclopedias and its inclusion of much unacademic content have received extensive media attention.

Wikipedia's high openness has also led to some concerns, such as the quality of its writing,[16] vandalism and the accuracy of its information.[17][18] However, while some articles contain unverified or inconsistent information,[19] a 2005 survey of Wikipedia published in Nature based on a comparison of 42 science articles with Encyclopædia Britannica found that Wikipedia's level of accuracy approached Encyclopædia Britannica's and both had similar low rates of "serious errors".[20] As of 2012, the English Wikipedia contained nearly four million articles, over thirty times more than Britannica (about 120,000).[21]

Contents [hide]

1 Openness

1.1 Restrictions

1.2 Review of changes

1.3 Vandalism

2 Rules and laws governing content and editor behavior

2.1 Content policies

3 Governance

3.1 Administrators

3.2 Dispute resolution

4 Community

4.1 Diversity

5 Language editions

6 History

7 Analysis of content

7.1 Accuracy of content

7.2 Quality of writing

7.3 Coverage of topics and systemic bias

7.4 Explicit content

7.5 Privacy

8 Criticism

9 Operation

9.1 Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia chapters

9.2 Software operations and support

9.3 Automated editing

9.4 Quality-wise distribution of articles

9.5 Hardware operations and support

9.6 Internal research and operational development

9.7 Internal news publications

10 Access to content

10.1 Content licensing

10.2 Methods of access

11 Impact

11.1 Readership

11.2 Cultural significance

11.3 Sister projects – Wikimedia

11.4 Publishing

11.5 Scientific use

12 Related projects

13 See also

14 References

14.1 Notes

14.2 Further reading

15 External links

Openness

Differences between versions of an article are highlighted as shown.

Unlike traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia follows the procrastination principle regarding the security of its content;[22] it started almost entirely open – anyone could create articles, and any Wikipedia article could be edited by any reader, even those who did not have a Wikipedia account. Modifications to all articles would immediately become available. As a result, all articles could contain inaccuracies, ideological biases, and nonsensical or irrelevant text until an editor would correct these issues.

Restrictions

Over time, the English Wikipedia and some other Wikipedias gradually restricted modifications. For example, in the English Wikipedia and some other language editions, only registered users may create a new article.[23] On the English Wikipedia and some others, some particularly sensitive and/or vandalism-prone pages are now "protected" to some degree.[24] A frequently vandalized article can be semi-protected, meaning that only certain editors are able to modify it.[25] A particularly contentious article may be locked so that only administrators are able to make changes.[26]

In certain cases, all editors are allowed to submit modifications, but review is required for some editors. For example, the German Wikipedia maintains "stable versions" of articles,[27] which have passed certain reviews. Following protracted trials and community discussion, the English Wikipedia introduced the "pending changes" system in December 2012.[28] Under this system, new users' edits to certain controversial or vandalism-prone articles are "subject to review from an established Wikipedia editor before publication".[29]

The editing interface of Wikipedia

Review of changes

Although changes are not systematically reviewed, the software that powers Wikipedia provides certain tools allowing anyone to review changes made by others. The "History" page of each article links to each revision.[notes 2][30] On most articles, anyone can undo others' changes by clicking a link on the article's history page. Anyone can view the latest changes to articles, and anyone may maintain a "watchlist" of articles that interest them so they can be notified of any changes. "New pages patrol" is a process whereby newly created articles are checked for obvious problems.[31]

In 2003, economics PhD student Andrea Ciffolilli argued that the low transaction costs of participating in a wiki create a catalyst for collaborative development, and that features such as easy access to past versions of a page favor "creative construction" over "creative destruction".[32]

Vandalism

Main article: Vandalism on Wikipedia

Any edit that changes content in a way that deliberately compromises the integrity of Wikipedia is considered vandalism. The most common and obvious types of vandalism include insertion of obscenities and crude humor. Vandalism can also include advertising language, and other types of spam.[33] Sometimes editors commit vandalism by removing information or entirely blanking a given page. Less common types of vandalism, such as the deliberate addition of plausible but false information to an article, can be more difficult to detect. Vandals can introduce irrelevant formatting, modify page semantics such as the page's title or categorization, manipulate the underlying code of an article, or use images disruptively.[34]

White-haired elderly gentleman in suit and tie speaks at a podium.

American journalist John Seigenthaler (1927—2014), object of the Seigenthaler incident

Obvious vandalism is generally easy to remove from wiki articles; the median time to detect and fix vandalism is a few minutes.[17][18] However, some vandalism takes much longer to repair.[35]

In the Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident, an anonymous editor introduced false information into the biography of American political figure John Seigenthaler in 2005. Seigenthaler was falsely presented as a suspect in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.[35] The article remained uncorrected for four months.[35] Seigenthaler, the founding editorial director of USA Today and founder of the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, called Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales and asked whether he had any way of knowing who contributed the misinformation. Wales replied that he did not, although the perpetrator was eventually traced.[36][37] After the incident, Seigenthaler described Wikipedia as "a flawed and irresponsible research tool".[35] This incident led to policy changes at Wikipedia, specifically targeted at tightening up the verifiability of biographical articles of living people.[38]

Rules and laws governing content and editor behavior

Content in Wikipedia is subject to the laws (in particular, the copyright laws) of the United States and

...