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what is Wikipedia? thanks for asking on January 15th 2021 Wikipedia turned 20 years old believe it or not Wow thanks for making me feel old so everybody already knows what Wikipedia is but let's look closer at it's history, how it works and the limits of this collaborative volunteer produced internet
encyclopedia. Nowadays Wikipedia has over 55 million articles in over 300 different languages.
But everything started with a single post titled Hello World published by American founder Jimmy Wales.
He invited internet users to join his encyclopedia project with the radical aim of changing how knowledge was created and shared online.
The main novelty was allowing anyone to contribute and edit the encyclopedia's articles, regardless of education or social origin.
So, with Wikipedia, knowledge on a subject isn't produced according to some kind of hierarchy whereby a minority of experts have all the control.
Instead, we place trust in collective intelligence.
Editors, also known as Wikipedians, combine their efforts on a voluntary basis to help the collaborative community exist, with no director.
Can the information really be considered reliable if anyone can contribute?
Interestingly, the sheer number of contributors is seen as a guarantee of Wikipedia's reliability, even if they work on a voluntary basis.
The more Wikipedians there are, the greater the number of peer reviews and edits, which can be made, to reach the general consensus on any given subject.
In the past, Wikipedia was the butt of many a joke in school environments.
Indeed I can remember my history teachers disparaging remarks when I cited Wikipedia in a coursework essay.
There is actually an article entitled Wikipedia's Not a Reliable Source which asks editors not reference Wikipedia when creating other articles.
However in the Fake News era many observers have very often commented that Wikipedia's idea of vertical vaporization can almost endure in all its movements checking, while Amazon, Apple, and Google all use it to provide voice search answers.
In October 2020, the Wikimedia Foundation even partnered with the World Health Organisation to combat misinformation about Covid -19.
There have been countless debates on content along the way.
In some cases, there have been restrictions on updating certain entries.
Lessons have been learned, and article quality has undeniably improved.
As a reminder, all Wikipedia articles are are available to view for free, without advertising and without a business model based on selling users personal data.
I thought whenever something was free, that meant I was the product?
Is Wikipedia really some kind of utopian project?
You could say Wikipedia is the original utopian internet project, seeking to emancipate users without turning them into a product.
When you think about it, it is a hark back to the early days of the internet, when the Consource movement relied on talented volunteers to share tools and knowledge on a free basis.
Listen to our past episode on Free Software to find out more.
Founder Jimmy Wales has gone on record explaining how he took inspiration from such collaborative projects.
Wikipedia is a resounding Internet success story and is currently ranked by Alexa as the 13th most popular website in the world, with around 15 billion visits per month.
That's not to say that it is perfect.
There are still many knowledge gaps, particularly regarding developing parts of the world and biographies of women are far less common than those of men.
This is surely a reflection of society and the lack of diversity among Wikipedia editors, even if that imbalance is gradually improving.
Nevertheless, after knowledge creation and history -telling had been monopolised by elites for a long time.
Wikipedia came along and ended up becoming the ultimate crowdsourced knowledge tool, all the while maintaining a not -for -profit status.
And that's definitely a good reason to wish Wikipedia a happy 20th birthday.
There you have it … Now you know what Wikipedia is.
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