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WIKIPEDIA is a Web-based free content encyclopedia that is openly edited and freely readable. It has 187 independent language editions sponsored by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Entries on traditional encyclopedic topics exist alongside those on almanac, gazetteer and current events topics. Its goal is to create "a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge."[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#fn_WalesKnowledge) "Wikipedia is one of the most popular reference sites on the Web, receiving around 80 million hits per day.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#fn_Openfact)
Wikipedia contains approximately 1.3 million articles, over 490,000 of which are in its English language edition. It began as a complement to the expert-written Nupedia on 15 January 2001. Its name is a combination of Wiki, a Hawaiian word meaning "quick" adopted to describe a kind of collaborative software, and encyclopedia. Having steadily gained in popularity,[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#fn_Popularity) it has spawned numerous conceptually related sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikibooks and Wikinews.
Wikipedia has been praised for being free, being openly accessible, covering a wide range of topics, and being detailed. It has been criticized for lack of authority versus a traditional encyclopedia, systemic bias, and for deficiencies in traditional encyclopedic topics. Vandalism is a persistent problem. Its articles have been cited by the mass media and academia, and mirrored or forked by websites. Wikipedia's content has not been distributed officially or on a large scale in any physical form.
The idea of a free, open community, united by technology, where increasingly vast amounts of content are actively written, reviewed, and debated for public consumption, makes the Wikipedia distinctive not only amongst encyclopedias but amongst informational resources in general. The credibility of Wikipedia has often come into question, because the fact that the content can be freely edited by anyone who so chooses opens the door for a certain degree of inaccuracy and poorly researched content.
Although Wikipedia is a community, project founder Jimmy Wales insists that this is secondary: "Wikipedia is first and foremost 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."
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wikipedia" |
