Wikipedia is a Web-based, free-content encyclopedia, which is written collaboratively by volunteers. It consists of 195 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 purpose is to create and distribute, worldwide, a free encyclopedia in as many languages as possible. Wikipedia is one of the most popular reference sites on the Web, receiving around 50 million hits per day.

Wikipedia contains approximately 1.5 million articles, more than 500,000 of which are in its English language edition, more than 200,000 in the German language and more than 100,000 in the Japanese language. It began as a complement to the expert-written Nupedia on 15 January 2001. Having steadily gained in popularity,^{Wikipedia as a source.}

1 History
2 Sister projects
3 See also
4 References
5 Further reading
6 External links

Contents

1 Language editions

^{Language editions}

^{Wikipedia encompassed 92 "active" language editions in March 2005.its website.}

^History

^{Main article: History of Wikipedia}

^{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 final authority, 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.status page on OpenFacts.}

^{Sister projects}

^{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 respository; and Wikinews, a free news source. Wikipedia and its sister projects are administered by the Wikimedia Foundation.}

^{See also}

• ^Encyclopedia
• ^{GNU Free Documentation License}
• ^{Internet encyclopedia project}
• ^Nupedia
• ^Wikimedia

^References

1. ^{According to Alexa Internet, "Browse:Reference" (28 March 2005).}
2. ^{^ See plots at "Visits per day", Wikipedia Statistics, 1 January 2005.}
3. ^{^ Jimmy Wales, "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia", 8 March 2005, <[email protected]>.}
4. ^{^ For example, see statistics and licenses on the English edition at "Wikipedia:Image copyright tags", Wikipedia (9 March 2005).}
5. ^{^ Andrew 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. ^{^ "Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source 2005", Wikipedia (28 March 2005).}
7. ^{^ "C-38", LEGISINFO (28 March 2005).}
8. ^{^ "Complete list of language Wikipedias available", Meta-Wiki (28 March 2005).}
9. ^{^ "All languages", Wikipedia statistics, 21 March 2005.}
10. ^{^ For example, "Wikipedia:Translation into English", Wikipedia (9 March 2005).}
11. ^{^ "Complete list of language Wikipedias available", Meta Wikimedia (28 March 2005).}
12. ^{^ "Power structure", Meta-Wiki, 10:55 4 Apr 2005.}
13. ^{^ "Wikipedia:Edit war", Wikipedia (26 March 2005).}
14. ^{^ "Wikipedia sociology", Meta-Wiki, 23:30 24 Mar 2005.}
15. ^{^ 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.}
16. ^{^ Jimmy Wales, "Articles about ourselves", 5 November 2003, <[email protected]>.}
17. ^{^ "Wikipedia:Neutral point of view", Wikipedia, accessed 4 March 2005. Italics original.}
18. ^{^ "Wikipedia:Neutral point of view".}
19. ^{^ "Wikipedia:No original research", Wikipedia, (4 March 2005).}
20. ^{^ "Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not", Wikipedia (4 March 2005).}
21. ^{^ Paragraph's statistics taken from "Active wikipedians" (Wikipedia Statistics, 21 March 2005).}
22. ^{^ "Wikipedia", Meta-Wiki, 08:02 30 Mar 2005.}
23. ^{^ Larry Sanger, "Britannica or Nupedia? The Future of Free Encyclopedias", Kuro5hin, 25 July 2001.}
24. ^{^ Andrea Ciffolilli, "Phantom authority, self-selective recruitment and retention of members in virtual communities: The case of Wikipedia", First Monday December 2003.}
25. ^{^ Jimmy Wales, "Re: Illegitimate block", 26 January 2005, <[email protected]>.}
26. ^{^ Simon Waldman, "Who knows?", The Guardian, 26 October 2004.}
27. ^{^ Dana Boyd, "Academia and Wikipedia", Many-to-Many , 4 January 2005.}
28. ^{^ Robert McHenry, "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia", Tech Central Station, 15 November 2004.}
29. ^{^ Aaron Krowne, "The FUD-based Encyclopedia", Free Software Magazine, 1 March 2005.}
30. ^{^ Larry Sanger, "Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism", Kuro5hin, 31 December 2004.}
31. ^{^ Larry Sanger, "Wikipedia is wide open. Why is it growing so fast? Why isn't it full of nonsense?", Kuro5hin, 24 September 2001.}
32. ^{^ Joi Ito, "Wikipedia attacked by ignorant reporter", Joi Ito's Web, 29 August 2004.}
33. ^{^ Anonymous blogger, "How Authoritative is Wikipedia", Dispatches from the Frozen North, 4 September 2004.}
34. ^{^ "Who knows?"}
35. ^{^ Larry Sanger, "Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism ", Kuro5hin, 31 December 2004.}
36. ^{^ "Wikipedia:Replies to common objections", Wikipedia, 22:53 13 Apr 2005.}
37. ^{^ Michael Kurzidim: Wissenswettstreit. Die kostenlose Wikipedia tritt gegen die Marktführer Encarta und Brockhaus an, in: c't 21/2004, 4 October 2004, S. 132-139.}
38. ^{^ William 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.}
39. ^{^ "Critical views of Wikipedia", Wikinfo, 07:28 30 Mar 2005.}
40. ^{^ Andrew Orlowski, "Wiki-fiddlers defend Clever Big Book", The Register, 23 July 2004.}
41. ^{^ "Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia", Wikipedia (28 March 2005).}
42. ^{^ "Trophy Box", Meta-Wiki (28 March 2005).}
43. ^{^ Larry Sanger, "Q & A about Nupedia", Nupedia, March 2000.}
44. ^{^ Larry Sanger, "The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir", Slashdot, 18 April 2005.}
45. ^{^ Larry Sanger, "Q & A about Nupedia", Nupedia, March 2000.}
46. ^{^ Jimmy Wales, "Re: Sanger's memoirs", 20 April 2005,<[email protected]>.}
47. ^{^ Larry Sanger, "The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia: A Memoir", Slashdot, 18 April 2005.}
48. ^{^ Richard Stallman, "The Free Encyclopedia Project", Free Software Foundation, 1999.}
49. ^{^ "Wikipedia:Multilingual statistics", Wikipedia, 30 March 2005.}
50. ^{^ Jimmy Wales, "Announcing Wikimedia Foundation", 20 June 2003, <[email protected]>.}
51. ^{^ "500,000 Wikipedia articles", Wikimedia Foundation, 25 February 2004.}
52. ^{^ See "Wikipedia Reaches One Million Articles", Wikimedia Foundation, 20 September 2004.}

^{Further reading}

• ^{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}

• ^{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}