Starting point: Potential of internet to source information
Organizing strategy: Open source approach to collecting reference material
Tools: A huge cohort of the curious and opinionated
Outcomes: A democratic and comprehensive, if occasionally controversial and misguided source of reference material
Wikipedia (Listeni/ˌwɪkɨˈpiːdi.ə/ or Listeni/ˌwɪkiˈpiːdi.ə/ wik-i-pee-dee-ə) is a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation and based on an openly editable model. The name “Wikipedia” is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning “quick”) and encyclopedia. Wikipedia’s articles provide links designed to guide the user to related pages with additional information.
Wikipedia is written collaboratively by largely anonymous Internet volunteers who write without pay. Anyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles, except in limited cases where editing is restricted to prevent disruption or vandalism. Users can contribute anonymously, under a pseudonym, or, if they choose to, with their real identity.
The fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates are the five pillars. The Wikipedia community has developed many policies and guidelines to improve the encyclopedia; however, it is not a formal requirement to be familiar with them before contributing.
Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference websites, attracting 470 million unique visitors monthly as of February 2012. There are more than 76,000 active contributors working on more than 31,000,000 articles in 285 languages. As of today, there are 4,576,312 articles in English. Every day, hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world collectively make tens of thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles to augment the knowledge held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia. (See the statistics page for more information.)
People of all ages, cultures and backgrounds can add or edit article prose, references, images and other media here. What is contributed is more important than the expertise or qualifications of the contributor. What will remain depends upon whether the content is free of copyright restrictions and contentious material about living people, and whether it fits within Wikipedia’s policies, including being verifiable against a published reliable source, thereby excluding editors’ opinions and beliefs and unreviewed research. Contributions cannot damage Wikipedia because the software allows easy reversal of mistakes and many experienced editors are watching to help ensure that edits are cumulative improvements. Begin by simply clicking the Edit link at the top of any editable page!
Wikipedia is a live collaboration differing from paper-based reference sources in important ways. Unlike printed encyclopedias, Wikipedia is continually created and updated, with articles on historic events appearing within minutes, rather than months or years. Older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced; newer articles may contain misinformation and/or unencyclopedic content. Any article may contain undetected vandalism. Awareness of this helps the reader to obtain valid information and avoid recently added misinformation (see Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia).
What Wikipedia is not explains Wikipedia’s scope. More information on key topics appears hereafter. Further advice is at Wikipedia:FAQ, Wikipedia:Advice for parents, and Wikipedia:Questions. Wikipedia:General disclaimer warns you about Wikipedia’s limitations. For help getting started with editing or other issues, see Help:Contents.
Wikki literally has written the book on open source to information, and is one of the most amazing and useful collaborative projects of humankind since the Tower of Babel; distributive systems; open and closed societies