On 11.01.17, In What has Wikipedia done to the Internet and the world in the ten years since its birth.
According to Wikipedia, Wikipedia is a “free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project”. It is now the fifth most visited website on the Internet. Launched in January 15, 2001, the website this month will be celebrating its tenth birthday. Wikipedians, who are Wikipedia’s contributors and users, will be celebrating the online encyclopedia’s birthday by holding over 400 events all around the globe.
In the ten years since its birth, “the encyclopedia anyone can edit” has become what is probably the largest encyclopedia mankind has ever created. The website has around 17 million articles in over 250+ languages, and consists of 3.5 million articles in English. Encyclopedia Britannica has only 120,000, and only in English. The credit for this vast amount of information goes to Wikipedia’s philosophy that virtually anyone can make a contribution to it.
Many believe that the collaborative model Wikipedia uses is the key to Wikipedia’s current success. In just a decade it has made an astonishing impact on the Internet and the way we look for information on it. Around 410 million users use Wikipedia each month for purposes ranging from completing high school papers to understanding the Harversine formula. We have all found Wikipedia useful at some time and for many, Wikipedia has become an indispensable research tool.
Because Wikipedia articles are referred to frequently on many websites, pages from Wikipedia are ranked highly on search engines such as Google. This has also added to Wikipedia’s popularity. Another factor for Wikipedia’s popularity is user-friendliness. The information is organized in a very convenient manner. Contributing to Wikipedia is also just one-click away.
Wikipedia has surely surpassed the humble expectations of its founders Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Along the way, however, it has been the subject of much criticism and controversy. The collaborative model which has led to Wikipedia’s popularity has been criticised to be lacking accuracy for academic purposes. Accusations that Wikipedia’s information is being manipulated have also been made.
In response to these adverse feedback, Wikipedia is already restructuring its model to provide a higher degree of accuracy. It has also adopted procedures such as providing references to more reliable sources such as books, so that information from Wikipedia is more reliable. Providing an unbiased viewpoint has always been on Wikipedia’s agenda and volunteers are always working to remove any trace of biased opinions.
Wikipedia has clearly become a powerful force in the information industry. What began as an outlandish social experiment is now what Jimmy Wales calls a “temple of the mind.” Happy birthday Wikipedia!
Nice share. Beautifully written
I must say that Wikipedia has been around for quite a long time and each day it is becoming a better source of information. It is one of the highest ranked websites in search engines these days.