Check-Out some

History

---

Nupedia

Other collaborative online encyclopedias were attempted before Wikipedia, but none were as successful.[14] Wikipedia began as a complementary project for Nupedia, a free online English-language encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts and reviewed under a formal process.[15] It was founded on March 9, 2000, under the ownership of Bomis, a web portal company. Its main figures were Bomis CEO Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief for Nupedia and later Wikipedia.[1][16] Nupedia was initially licensed under its own Nupedia Open Content License, but even before Wikipedia was founded, Nupedia switched to the GNU Free Documentation License at the urging of Richard Stallman.[17] Wales is credited with defining the goal of making a publicly editable encyclopedia,[18][19] while Sanger is credited with the strategy of using a wiki to reach that goal.[20] On January 10, 2001, Sanger proposed on the Nupedia mailing list to create a wiki as a "feeder" project for Nupedia.[21]

Launch and early growth

The domains wikipedia.com (redirecting to wikipedia.org) and wikipedia.org were registered on January 12, 2001,[22] and January 13, 2001,[23] respectively, and Wikipedia was launched on January 15, 2001,[15] as a single English-language edition at www.wikipedia.com,[24] and announced by Sanger on the Nupedia mailing list.[18] Wikipedia's policy of "neutral point-of-view"[25] was codified in its first few months. Otherwise, there were relatively few rules initially and Wikipedia operated independently of Nupedia.[18] Originally, Bomis intended to make Wikipedia a business for profit.[26]

Wikipedia gained early contributors from Nupedia, Slashdot postings, and web search engine indexing. Language editions were also created, with a total of 161 by the end of 2004.[27] Nupedia and Wikipedia coexisted until the former's servers were taken down permanently in 2003, and its text was incorporated into Wikipedia. The English Wikipedia passed the mark of two million articles on September 9, 2007, making it the largest encyclopedia ever assembled, surpassing the Yongle Encyclopedia made during the Ming Dynasty in 1408, which had held the record for almost 600 years.[28]

In November 2009, a researcher at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid found that the English Wikipedia had lost 49,000 editors during the first three months of 2009; in comparison, the project lost only 4,900 editors during the same period in 2008.[38][39] The Wall Street Journal cited the array of rules applied to editing and disputes related to such content among the reasons for this trend.[40] Wales disputed these claims in 2009, denying the decline and questioning the methodology of the study.[41] Two years later, in 2011, Wales acknowledged the presence of a slight decline, noting a decrease from "a little more than 36,000 writers" in June 2010 to 35,800 in June 2011. In the same interview, Wales also claimed the number of editors was "stable and sustainable".[42] A 2013 article titled "The Decline of Wikipedia" in MIT Technology Review questioned this claim. The article revealed that since 2007, Wikipedia had lost a third of its volunteer editors, and those still there have focused increasingly on minutiae.[43] In July 2012, The Atlantic reported that the number of administrators is also in decline.[44] In the November 25, 2013, issue of New York magazine, Katherine Ward stated "Wikipedia, the sixth-most-used website, is facing an internal crisis".[45]

Openness

Unlike traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia follows the procrastination principle[note 4] regarding the security of its content.[60] 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 be published immediately. As a result, any article could contain inaccuracies such as errors, ideological biases, and nonsensical or irrelevant text.

Restrictions

Due to the increasing popularity of Wikipedia, some editions, including the English version, have introduced editing restrictions for certain cases. For instance, on the English Wikipedia and some other language editions, only registered users may create a new article.[61] On the English Wikipedia, among others, particularly controversial, sensitive or vandalism-prone pages have been protected to varying degrees.[62][63] A frequently vandalized article can be "semi-protected" or "extended confirmed protected", meaning that only "autoconfirmed" or "extended confirmed" editors are able to modify it.[64] A particularly contentious article may be locked so that only administrators are able to make changes.[65] A 2021 article in the Columbia Journalism Review identified Wikipedia's page protection policies as "[p]erhaps the most important" means at Wikipedia's disposal to "regulate its market of ideas".[66]

In certain cases, all editors are allowed to submit modifications, but review is required for some editors, depending on certain conditions. For example, the German Wikipedia maintains "stable versions" of articles,[67] which have passed certain reviews. Following protracted trials and community discussion, the English Wikipedia introduced the "pending changes" system in December 2012.[68] Under this system, new and unregistered users' edits to certain controversial or vandalism-prone articles are reviewed by established users before they are published.[69]

Policies and laws

Content in Wikipedia is subject to the laws (in particular, copyright laws) of the United States and of the US state of Virginia, where the majority of Wikipedia's servers are located. Beyond legal matters, the editorial principles of Wikipedia are embodied in the "five pillars" and in numerous policies and guidelines intended to appropriately shape content. Even these rules are stored in wiki form, and Wikipedia editors write and revise the website's policies and guidelines.[89] Editors can enforce these rules by deleting or modifying non-compliant material. Originally, rules on the non-English editions of Wikipedia were based on a translation of the rules for the English Wikipedia. They have since diverged to some extent.[67]

Content policies and guidelines

According to the rules on the English Wikipedia, each entry in Wikipedia must be about a topic that is encyclopedic and is not a dictionary entry or dictionary-style.[90] A topic should also meet Wikipedia's standards of "notability",[91] which generally means that the topic must have been covered in mainstream media or major academic journal sources that are independent of the article's subject. Further, Wikipedia intends to convey only knowledge that is already established and recognized.[92] It must not present original research. A claim that is likely to be challenged requires a reference to a reliable source. Among Wikipedia editors, this is often phrased as "verifiability, not truth" to express the idea that the readers, not the encyclopedia, are ultimately responsible for checking the truthfulness of the articles and making their own interpretations.[93] This can at times lead to the removal of information that, though valid, is not properly sourced.[94] Finally, Wikipedia must not take sides.[95] All opinions and viewpoints, if attributable to external sources, must enjoy an appropriate share of coverage within an article. This is known as a "neutral point of view" (NPOV).