Wikipedia

***Wikipedia*** is a Web-based, multi-language, free-content encyclopedia written collaboratively by volunteers and sponsored by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. It has editions in about 200 different languages (about 100 of which are active) and contains entries both on traditional encyclopedic topics and on almanac, gazetteer, and current events topics. Its purpose is to create and distribute a free international encyclopedia in as many languages as possible. *Wikipedia* is one of the most popular reference sites on the web,Template:Ref receiving around 60 million hits per day.

*Wikipedia* contains approximately 1.6 million articles. More than 700,000 of these are in English, more than 250,000 in German, more than 150,000 in French and more than 100,000 in Japanese. It began as a complement to the expert-written *Nupedia* on January 15, 2001. Having steadily risen in popularity,Template:Ref it has spawned several sister projects, such as Wiktionary, Wikibooks, and Wikinews. It is edited by volunteers in wiki fashion, meaning articles are subject to change by nearly anyone. *Wikipedia*'s volunteers uphold a policy of "neutral point of view" whereby views presented by notable persons or literature are summarized without an attempt to determine an objective truth. Because of its open nature, vandalism and inaccuracy are problems in *Wikipedia*.

The status of *Wikipedia* as a reference work has been controversial, and it has been both praised for its free distribution, free editing and wide range of topics and criticized for alleged systemic biases, preference of consensus to credentials, deficiencies in some topics, and lack of accountability and authority when compared with traditional encyclopedias. Its articles have been cited by the mass media and academia and are available under the GNU Free Documentation License. Its German language edition has been distributed on compact discs, and many of its other editions are mirrored or have been forked by websites.

## Characteristics

 File:Www.wikipedia.org screenshot.png
*Wikipedia's* goal is to create a free, reliable encyclopedia—indeed, the largest encyclopedia in history, in terms of both breadth and depth. *Wikipedia* is described by its founder Jimmy Wales as "an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language."Template:Ref It is created on the wikipedia.org website using a type of software called a "wiki," from the Hawaiian *wiki wiki* ("quick"). Wales intends that *Wikipedia* should achieve a "*Britannica* or better" quality and be published in print.

Several other encyclopedia projects exist or have existed on the Internet. Traditional editorial policies and article ownership are used in some, such as the expert-written *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy* and the now-defunct *Nupedia*. More casual websites such as h2g2 or Everything2 serve as general guides whose articles are written and controlled by individuals. Projects such as *Wikipedia*, Susning.nu, and the *Enciclopedia Libre*, are wikis in which articles are developed by numerous authors, and there is no formal process of review. *Wikipedia* has become the largest such encyclopedic wiki by article and word-count. Unlike many encyclopedias, it has licensed its content under the GNU Free Documentation License.

*Wikipedia* has a set of policies identifying types of information appropriate for inclusion. These policies are often cited in disputes over whether particular content should be added, revised, transferred to a sister project, or removed.

### Free-content

The GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), the license under which *Wikipedia'*s articles are made available, is one of many "copyleft" copyright licenses that permit the redistribution, creation of derivative works, and commercial use of content provided its authors are attributed and this content remains available under the GFDL. When an author contributes original material to the project, the copyright over it is retained with them, but they agree to make the work available under the GFDL. Material on *Wikipedia* may thus be distributed to, or incorporated from, resources which also use this license. *Wikipedia*'s content has been mirrored or forked by hundreds of resources from database dumps. Although all text is available under the GFDL, a significant percentage of *Wikipedia*'s images and sounds are non-free. Items such as corporate logos, song samples, or copyrighted news photos are used with a claim of fair use. Material has also been given to *Wikipedia* under no-derivative or for-*Wikipedia*-only conditions.Template:Ref However, some editions only accept free media.

*Wikipedia* has been used by the media, academics, and others as a reference or supplement. News organizations have referred to *Wikipedia* articles as sources or in sidebars containing related information on the Web, some regularly.Template:Ref According to lists maintained by *Wikipedia*'s editors, its articles have been cited most frequently in the news media.Template:Ref Less frequently, it has been used in academic studies, books, conferences, and court cases. For instance, the Parliament of Canada website refers to *Wikipedia*'s article on same-sex marriage in the "further reading" list of Bill C-38.Template:Ref Noncomprehensive lists are maintained by Wikipedians of *Wikipedia* as a source.Template:Ref

### Language editions

*Wikipedia* encompasses 92 "active" language editions as of March 2005.Template:Ref Its five largest editions are, in descending order, English, German, French, Japanese, and Swedish. In total, *Wikipedia* contains 205 language editions of varying states with a combined 1.5 million articles.Template:Ref

Language editions operate independently of one another. Editions are not bound to the content of other language editions, and are only held to global policies such as "neutral point of view". Articles and images are nonetheless shared between *Wikipedia* editions, the former through pages to request translations organized on many of the larger language editions, and the latter through the Wikimedia Commons repository. Translated articles represent only a small portion of articles in any edition.Template:Ref

 File:He-Wikipedia.png
The following is a list of the largest editions, sorted by number of articles as of August 2005.Template:Ref

1. English (670,415)
2. German (269,027)
3. French (144,563)
4. Japanese (132,856)
5. Swedish (93,796)
6. Dutch (83,394)
7. Polish (79,290)
8. Portuguese (60,773)
9. Spanish (58,829)
10. Italian (54,463)
11. Chinese (36,130)
12. Norwegian Bokmål (31,792)
13. Finnish (28,905)
14. Russian (28,133)
15. Danish (27,067)

## Editing

 File:History comparison example.png
Almost all visitors may edit *Wikipedia*'s articles and have their changes instantly displayed. *Wikipedia* is built on the belief that collaboration among users will improve articles over time, in much the same way that open-source software develops. Its authors need not have any expertise or formal qualifications in the subjects which they edit, and users are warned that their contributions may be "edited mercilessly and redistributed at will" by anyone who so wishes. Its articles are not controlled by any particular user or editorial group, and decision-making on the content and editorial policies of *Wikipedia* is instead done by consensus and occasionally vote, though Jimmy Wales retains final judgment.Template:Ref

By the nature of its openness, "edit wars" and prolonged disputes often occur when editors do not agree.Template:Ref A few members of its community have explained its editing process as a collaborative work, a "socially Darwinian evolutionary process"Template:Ref, but this is not generally considered by the community to be an accurate self-description. Articles are always subject to editing, such that *Wikipedia* does not declare any article finished. Vandalism has been a constant problem for *Wikipedia*.

### Policies

*Wikipedia* requires that contributors observe a "neutral point of view" when writing, and not include original research. Neutral point of view, itself a "non-negotiable" policy,Template:Ref articulates the encyclopedia's goal as "*representing* disputes, *characterizing* them, rather than engaging in them."Template:Ref If achieved, *Wikipedia* would not be written from a single "objective" point-of-view, but would fairly present all views on an issue, attributed to their adherents in a neutral way. The policy states that views should be given weight equal to their popularity. This policy has been criticized as having an unattainable goal, being unnecessary with widely discredited material, and allowing the representation of "morally offensive" views.Template:Ref Opinions or theories that have not been previously published are considered "original research", which is not allowed. The "no original research" policy states that such material cannot be properly attributed under neutral point of view, and that editors' own novel ideas or perspectives are not to be introduced.Template:Ref

*Wikipedia*'s contributors additionally maintain a variety of lesser policies and guidelines. In contrast to other wikis of its time, such as Ward Cunningham's Portland Pattern Repository, Wikipedians use "talk" pages to discuss changes to articles, rather than discussing changes within the article itself. *Wikipedia* contributors often modify, move, or delete articles that are felt to be inappropriate to an encyclopedia, such as dictionary definitions ("dicdefs") or original source texts.Template:Ref Often, *Wikipedia* editions establish style conventions.

### Authors

There are no formal distinctions between different editors on *Wikipedia*, and decisions are ideally made by reaching consensus among those involved. During January 2005, *Wikipedia* had approximately 13,000 users who made at least five edits that month; 9,000 of these active users worked on its three largest language editions.Template:Ref A more active group of approximately 3,000 users made more than 100 edits per month, over half of these users having worked in the three largest editions. According to Wikimedia, one-quarter of *Wikipedia*'s traffic comes from users without accounts, who are less likely to be editors.Template:Ref

Maintenance tasks are performed by a group of volunteer developers, stewards, bureaucrats, and administrators, which number in the hundreds. 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. Many 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 Wales or, on its English edition, an elected Arbitration Committee.

Former *Wikipedia* 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."Template:Ref 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.Template:Ref *Wikipedia* has been viewed as a social experiment in anarchy or democracy. Its founder has replied that it is not intended as one, though it is a consequence.Template:Ref In a page on researching with *Wikipedia*, its authors argue 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.Template:Ref *Wikipedia* editions also often contain reference desks in which the community answers questions.

## Evaluations

*Wikipedia*'s claim to be or status as an encyclopedia has been controversial, more so as it has gained prominence. *Wikipedia* has been criticized for a perceived lack of reliability, comprehensiveness, and authority. It is considered to have no or limited utility as a reference work among many librarians, academics, and the editors of more formally written encyclopedias. *Wikipedia* is considered to be of sufficient quality in at least some areas by others, notably winning a comparative test by *c't*. Much of its praise is for being both free-content and open to editing by anyone. Wikipedia editors themselves have been quite active in evaluating, both positively and negatively, the encyclopedia.

### Quality

Critics argue that allowing anyone to edit makes *Wikipedia* an unreliable work. In response to this criticism, proposals have been made to provide various forms of provenance for material in the articles, e.g., see Wikipedia:Provenance. However, these proposals are quite controversial. (See discussion below.)

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. In a 2004 interview with *The Guardian*, librarian Philip Bradley said that he would not use *Wikipedia* and is "not aware of a single librarian who would. The main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, the publishers have to ensure that their data is reliable, as their livelihood depends on it. But with something like this, all that goes out the window."(Waldman, 2004) Similarly, *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."Template:Ref Discussing *Wikipedia* as an academic source, Danah Boyd said in 2005 that "[i]t will never be an encyclopedia, but it will contain extensive knowledge that is quite valuable for different purposes."Template:Ref Wikipedia articles have been referenced by academics in peer-reviewed articles, including those appearing in the journal *Science*.Template:Ref

 File:Be bold.png
Academic circles have not been exclusively dismissive of Wikipedia as a reference. Wikipedia articles have been referenced in "enhanced perspectives" provided on-line in the journal Science. The first of these perspectives to provide a hyperlink to Wikipedia was "A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light" (Linden, 2002), 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.

In a 2004 piece called "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia," former *Britannica* editor Robert McHenry criticized the wiki approach, writing,

"[h]owever closely a *Wikipedia* article may at some point in its life attain to reliability, it is forever open to the uninformed or semiliterate meddler... The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him."Template:Ref
In response to this criticism, proposals have been made to provide various forms of provenance for material in Wikipedia articles, *e.g.*, see Wikipedia:Provenance. 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." However, these proposals for provenance are quite controversial (see Wikipedia talk:Provenance). Aaron Krowne wrote a rebuttal article in which he criticized McHenry's methods, and labeled them "FUD," the marketing technique of "fear, uncertainty, and doubt."Template:Ref

Former editor-in-chief Larry Sanger criticized *Wikipedia* in late 2004 for having, according to Sanger, an "anti-elitist" philosophy of active contempt for expertise.Template:Ref

*Wikipedia*'s editing process assumes that exposing an article to many users will result in accuracy. Referencing Linus's law of open-source development, Sanger stated earlier: "Given enough eyeballs, all errors are shallow."Template:Ref Technology figure Joi Ito wrote on *Wikipedia*'s authority, "[a]lthough it depends a bit on the field, 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."Template:Ref Conversely, in an informal test of *Wikipedia*'s ability to detect misinformation, its author remarked that its process "isn't really a fact-checking mechanism so much as a voting mechanism", and that material which did not appear "blatantly false" may be accepted as true.Template:Ref

*Wikipedia* has been accused of deficiencies in comprehensiveness because of its voluntary nature, and of reflecting the systemic biases of its contributors. *Encyclopædia Britannica* editor-in-chief Dale Hoiberg has argued that "people write of things they're interested in, and so many subjects don't get covered; and news events get covered in great detail. The entry on Hurricane Frances is five times the length of that on Chinese art, and the entry on *Coronation Street* is twice as long as the article on Tony Blair."Template:Ref Former *Nupedia* editor-in-chief Larry Sanger stated in 2004, "when it comes to relatively specialized topics (outside of the interests of most of the contributors), the project's credibility is very uneven."Template:Ref

It has been praised for, as a wiki, allowing 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. Its editors have also argued as a website, *Wikipedia* is able to include articles on a greater number of subjects than print encyclopedias may.Template:Ref

The German computing magazine *c't* performed a comparison of *Brockhaus Premium*, *Microsoft Encarta*, and *Wikipedia* in October 2004: . Experts evaluated 66 articles in various fields. In overall score, *Wikipedia* was rated 3.6 out of 5 points ("B-"), *Brockhaus Premium* 3.3, and *Microsoft Encarta* 3.1.Template:Ref In an analysis of online encyclopedias, Indiana University professors Emigh and Herring wrote that "*Wikipedia* improves on traditional information sources, especially for the content areas in which it is strong, such as technology and current events."Template:Ref

### Community

*Wikipedia* has a community of users who are proportionally few, but highly active. Emigh and Herring argue 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." 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.Template:Ref Its community has also been criticised for responding to complaints regarding an article's quality by advising the complainer to fix the article.Template:Ref

In a page on researching with *Wikipedia*, its authors argue 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.Template:Ref *Wikipedia* editions also often contain reference desks in which the community answers questions.

### Awards

*Wikipedia* won two major awards in May 2004Template:Ref: The first was a Golden Nica for Digital Communities, awarded by Prix Ars Electronica; this came with a 10,000 Euro 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 received plaudits from sources including BBC News, *USA Today*, *The Economist*, *Newsweek*, *BusinessWeek*, the *Chicago Sun-Times*, *Time Magazine* and *Wired Magazine*. Awards to the *Wikipedia* project and press clippings are listed by Wikimedia contributors on its website.

## History

Main article: History of Wikipedia
 File:NupediaLogo.jpg
*Wikipedia* began as a complementary project of *Nupedia*, a free online encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts through a formal process. *Nupedia* was founded on 9 March 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; not having size limitations, as it was on the Internet; and being free of bias, due to its public nature and potentially broad base of contributors.Template:Ref *Nupedia* had a seven-step review process by appointed subject-area experts, but was later widely 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.Template:Ref It was licensed under its own Nupedia Open Content License initially, switching to the GNU Free Documentation License prior to *Wikipedia*'s founding at the urging of Richard Stallman.

 File:WikipediaHomePage30March200.png
*Wikipedia* was formally launched on 15 January 2001, as a single English-language edition at wikipedia.com. It had been, from 10 January, a feature of Nupedia.com in which the public could write articles which 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.Template:Ref *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 is similar to *Nupedia*'s earlier "nonbias" 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 among 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.Template:Ref *Nupedia* and *Wikipedia* coexisted until the former's servers went down, permanently, in 2003, and its text was incorporated into *Wikipedia*.

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,Template:Ref but it was after Sanger heard of its existence from Ben Kovitz, a regular at this wiki, in January 2001,Template:Ref and proposed a creation of a wiki for *Nupedia* to Wales that *Wikipedia*'s history started. Under a similar concept of free content, though not wiki 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*.Template:Ref

Citing fear 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 moved its website to wikipedia.org. Projects have since forked from *Wikipedia*'s content 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."

From *Wikipedia* and *Nupedia*, the Wikimedia Foundation was created on June 20, 2003.Template:Ref *Wikipedia* and its sister projects thereafter operated under this non-profit organization. *Wikipedia*'s first sister project, "In Memoriam: September 11 Wiki" had been created in October 2002 to detail the September 11, 2001 attacks; Wiktionary, a dictionary project, was launched in December 2002; Wikiquotes, a collection of quotes, 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 less new articles per day. The English *Wikipedia* reached a 100,000 article milestone on January 22, 2003. In 2004, its article growth rate was approximately 1,000 to 3,000 per day. In all editions, it reached 500,000 articles on February 25, 2004.Template:Ref *Wikipedia* reached its one millionth article among 105 language editions on September 20, 2004.Template:Ref

### Software and hardware

File:MediaWiki logo.png
*Wikipedia* is run by MediaWiki open source software on a cluster of dedicated servers located in Florida. MediaWiki is Phase III of the program's software. Originally, *Wikipedia* ran on UseModWiki by Clifford Adams (Phase I). At first it required CamelCase 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.

*Wikipedia* was served from a single server until 2003, when the server setup was expanded into an n-tier distributed 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 July 2005, its server cluster had grown to more than 80 servers.

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 *Wikipedia*s. 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. Wikimedia has begun building a global network of caching servers with the addition of three such servers in France. A new Dutch cluster is also online now.

The ongoing status of *Wikipedia*'s website is posted by users at a status page on OpenFacts.

## Sister projects

File:Wikimedia.png
*Wikipedia* has free-content sister projects which fulfill non-encyclopedic roles. Its largest are: Wiktionary, a free dictionary project; Wikibooks, a free textbook project; Wikiquote, a free encyclopedia of quotations; Wikisource, a multilingual repository of free source texts; Wikimedia Commons, a shared media repository; and Wikinews, a free news source. *Wikipedia* and its sister projects are administered by the Wikimedia Foundation.

## See also

* Criticism of Wikipedia
* Internet encyclopedia project
* Who writes Wikipedia
* Category:Wikipedia in the media (coverage, press releases, citations, etc.)

## References

1. Template:NoteAccording to Alexa Internet, "Browse:Reference" (28 March 2005).
2. Template:NoteSee plots at "Visits per day", *Wikipedia* Statistics, 1 January 2005.
3. Template:NoteJimmy Wales, "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia", 8 March 2005, <wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org>.
4. Template:NoteFor example, see statistics and licenses on the English edition at "Wikipedia:Image copyright tags", *Wikipedia* (9 March 2005).
5. Template:NoteAndrew Lih, "Wikipedia as Participatory Journalism: Reliable Sources? Metrics for evaluating collaborative media as a news resource" (PDF), *5th International Symposium on Online Journalism*, April 2004.
6. Template:Note"Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source 2005", *Wikipedia* (28 March 2005).
7. Template:Note"C-38", LEGISINFO (28 March 2005).
8. Template:Note Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a source
9. Template:Note"Complete list of language Wikipedias available", Meta-Wiki (22 May 2005).
10. Template:Note"All languages", *Wikipedia* statistics, 21 March 2005.
11. Template:NoteFor example, "Wikipedia: Translation into English," *Wikipedia*. (9 March 2005).
12. Template:Note"Complete list of language Wikipedias available", Meta Wikimedia (28 March 2005).
13. Template:Note"Power structure", Meta-Wiki, 10:55 4 Apr 2005.
14. Template:Note"Wikipedia:Edit war", *Wikipedia* (26 March 2005).
15. Template:Note"Wikipedia sociology", Meta-Wiki, 23:30 24 Mar 2005.
16. Template:NoteFernanda B. Viegas, Martin Wattenberg, and Kushal Dave, "Studying Cooperation and Conflict between Authors with *history flow* Visualizations", CHI 2004 April 24-29 2004. Preliminary report "History Flow" available on IBM website.
17. Template:NoteJimmy Wales, "Articles about ourselves", 5 November 2003, <wikien-l@wikimedia.org>.
18. Template:Note"Wikipedia:Neutral point of view", *Wikipedia*, accessed 4 March 2005. Italics original.
19. Template:Note"Wikipedia:Neutral point of view".
20. Template:Note"Wikipedia:No original research", *Wikipedia*, (4 March 2005).
21. Template:Note"Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not", *Wikipedia* (4 March 2005).
22. Template:NoteParagraph's statistics taken from "Active wikipedians" (Wikipedia Statistics, 21 March 2005).
23. Template:Note"Wikipedia", Meta-Wiki, 08:02 30 Mar 2005.
24. Template:NoteLarry Sanger, "Britannica or Nupedia? The Future of Free Encyclopedias", Kuro5hin, 25 July 2001.
25. Template:NoteAndrea Ciffolilli, "Phantom authority, self-selective recruitment and retention of members in virtual communities: The case of Wikipedia", First Monday December 2003.
26. Template:NoteJimmy Wales, "Re: Illegitimate block", 26 January 2005, <wikien-l@wikimedia.org>.
27. Template:Note"Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia", *Wikipedia* (28 March 2005).
28. Template:NoteSimon Waldman, "Who knows?", *The Guardian*, 26 October 2004.
29. Template:NoteDanah Boyd, "Academia and Wikipedia", Many-to-Many, 4 January 2005.
30. Template:NoteHartmut Linden, "A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light", *Science Magazine*, **297** (5582). (Subscription access only).
31. Template:NoteRobert McHenry, "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia", Tech Central Station, 15 November 2004.
32. Template:NoteAaron Krowne, "The FUD-based Encyclopedia", Free Software Magazine, 1 March 2005.
33. Template:NoteLarry Sanger, "Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism", Kuro5hin, 31 December 2004.
34. Template:NoteLarry Sanger, "Wikipedia is wide open. Why is it growing so fast? Why isn't it full of nonsense?", Kuro5hin, 24 September 2001.
35. Template:NoteJoi Ito, "Wikipedia attacked by ignorant reporter", Joi Ito's Web, 29 August 2004.
36. Template:NoteAnonymous blogger, "How Authoritative is Wikipedia", Dispatches from the Frozen North, 4 September 2004.
37. Template:Note"Who knows?"
38. Template:Note"Wikipedia:Replies to common objections", *Wikipedia*, 22:53 13 Apr 2005.
39. Template:NoteMichael Kurzidim: Wissenswettstreit. Die kostenlose Wikipedia tritt gegen die Marktführer Encarta und Brockhaus an, in: c't 21/2004, 4 October 2004, S. 132-139.
40. Template:NoteWilliam Emigh and Susan C. Herring, "Collaborative Authoring on the Web: A Genre Analysis of Online Encyclopedias", paper presented at the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004.
41. Template:Note"Critical views of Wikipedia", Wikinfo, 07:28 30 Mar 2005.
42. Template:NoteAndrew Orlowski, "Wiki-fiddlers defend Clever Big Book", The Register, 23 July 2004.
43. Template:Note "Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia", *Wikipedia* (28 March 2005).
44. Template:Note"Trophy Box", Meta-Wiki (28 March 2005).
45. Template:NoteLarry Sanger, "Q & A about Nupedia", Nupedia, March 2000.
46. Template:NoteLarry Sanger, "Q & A about Nupedia", Nupedia, March 2000.
47. Template:NoteLarry Sanger, "The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir", Slashdot, 18 April 2005.
48. Template:Note"Wikipedia:Multilingual statistics", *Wikipedia*, 30 March 2005.
49. Template:NoteJimmy Wales, "Re: Sanger's memoirs", 20 April 2005,<wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org>.
50. Template:NoteLarry Sanger, "The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir", Slashdot, 18 April 2005.
51. Template:NoteRichard Stallman, "The Free Encyclopedia Project", Free Software Foundation, 1999.
52. Template:NoteJimmy Wales, "Announcing Wikimedia Foundation", 20 June 2003, <wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org>.
53. Template:Note"500,000 Wikipedia articles", Wikimedia Foundation, 25 February 2004.
54. Template:NoteSee "Wikipedia Reaches One Million Articles", Wikimedia Foundation, 20 September 2004.

## Further reading

Template:Wiktionary
Template:Wikiquote

* Fernanda B. Viegas, Martin Wattenberg, and Kushal Dave, "Studying Cooperation and Conflict between Authors with *history flow* Visualizations", CHI 2004 April 24-29 2004. Preliminary report "History Flow" available on IBM website.

Template:Commons

* Wikipedia: Introduction
* Wikipedia: Frequently Asked Questions
* Wikipedia: Press releases
* Wikipedia: Press coverage
* Wikipedia: Statistics
* Wikipedia: Why Wikipedia is not so great
* Wikipedia: Replies to common objections
* Open Directory Project: Wikipedia
* OpenFacts: Copies of Wikipedia content
* SourceWatch: Wikipedia

## External links

Template:Spoken Wikipedia

* 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
* Guardian UK article