Its Name: Reference Work Wikimedia Foundation Jimmy Wales Larry Sanger Portmanteau
Its Name: Reference Work Wikimedia Foundation Jimmy Wales Larry Sanger Portmanteau
among the ten most popular websites.[7]Wikipedia is owned by the nonprofit Wikimedia
Foundation.[8][9][10]
Wikipedia was launched on January 15, 2001, by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger.[11] Sanger
coined its name,[12][13] a portmanteau of wiki[notes 4]and encyclopedia. There was only the English
language version initially, but it quickly developed similar versions in other languages, which differ in
content and in editing practices. With 5,421,315 articles,[notes 5] the English Wikipedia is the largest of
the more than 290 Wikipedia encyclopedias. Overall, Wikipedia consists of more than 40 million
articles in more than 250 different languages[15] and, as of February 2014, it had 18 billion page views
and nearly 500 million unique visitors each month.[16]
As of March 2017, Wikipedia has about forty thousand high-quality articles known as Featured
Articles and Good Articles that cover vital topics.[17][18] In 2005, Nature published a peer review
comparing 42 science articles from Encyclopdia Britannica and Wikipedia, and found that
Wikipedia's level of accuracy approached Encyclopdia Britannica's.[19] Criticism of
Wikipedia includes claims that it exhibits systemic bias, presents a mixture of "truths, half truths, and
some falsehoods",[20] and that, in controversial topics, it is subject to manipulation and spin.[21]
Contents
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1History
o 1.1Nupedia
o 1.2Launch and early growth
o 1.3Milestones
2Openness
o 2.1Restrictions
o 2.2Review of changes
o 2.3Vandalism
3Policies and laws
o 3.1Content policies and guidelines
4Governance
o 4.1Administrators
o 4.2Dispute resolution
5Community
o 5.1Diversity
6Language editions
7Critical reception
o 7.1Accuracy of content
o 7.2Quality of writing
o 7.3Coverage of topics and systemic bias
o 7.4Explicit content
o 7.5Privacy
o 7.6Sexism
8Operation
o 8.1Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia movement affiliates
o 8.2Software operations and support
o 8.3Automated editing
o 8.4Wikiprojects, and assessments of articles' importance and quality
o 8.5Hardware operations and support
o 8.6Internal research and operational development
o 8.7Internal news publications
9Access to content
o 9.1Content licensing
o 9.2Methods of access
10Cultural impact
o 10.1Readership
o 10.2Cultural significance
o 10.3Sister projects Wikimedia
o 10.4Publishing
o 10.5Scientific use
11Related projects
12See also
13References
o 13.1Notes
14Further reading
o 14.1Academic studies
o 14.2Books
o 14.3Book reviews and other articles
15External links