Wikipedia From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the Internet encyclopedia. For other uses, see Wikipedia ( disambiguation). For Wikipedia's non-encyclopedic visitor introduction, see Wikipedia:About. Page semi-protected Wikipedia A white sphere made of large jigsaw pieces, with letters from several alphabets shown on the pieces Wikipedia wordmark The logo of Wikipedia, a globe featuring glyphs from several writing systems, mo st of them meaning the letter W or sound "wi" Screenshot Main page of the English Wikipedia Main page of the English Wikipedia Web address wikipedia.org Slogan The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit Commercial? No Type of site Internet encyclopedia Registration Optional[notes 1] Available in 287 editions[1] Users 73,251 active editors (May 2014),[2] 23,074,027 total accounts. Content license CC Attribution / Share-Alike 3.0 Most text also dual-licensed under GFDL, media licensing varies. Owner Wikimedia Foundation Created by Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger[3] Launched January 15, 2001; 13 years ago Alexa rank Steady 6 (September 2014)[4] Current status Active Wikipedia (Listeni/?w?k?'pi?di?/ or Listeni/?w?ki'pi?di?/ wik-i-pee-dee-?) is a free-access, free content Internet encyclopedia, supported and hosted by the non -profit Wikimedia Foundation. Anyone who can access the site[5] can edit almost any of its articles. Wikipedia is the sixth-most popular website[4] and constitu tes the Internet's largest and most popular general reference work.[6][7][8] As of February 2014, it had 18 billion page views and nearly 500 million unique vis itors each month.[9] Wikipedia has more than 22 million accounts, out of which t here were over 73,000 active editors globally as of May 2014.[2] Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger launched Wikipedia on January 15, 2001. Sanger[10] coined its name,[11] a portmanteau of wiki (from the Hawaiian word for "quick")[ 12] and encyclopedia. Although Wikipedia's content was initially only in English , it quickly became multilingual, through the launch of versions in different la nguages. All versions of Wikipedia are similar, but important differences exist in content and in editing practices. The English Wikipedia is now one of more th an 200 Wikipedias, but remains the largest one, with over 4.6 million articles. A 2005 survey of Wikipedia published in Nature based on a comparison of 42 scien ce articles with Encyclopædia Britannica found that Wikipedia's level of accuracy approached Encyclopædia Britannica?'?s, and both had similar low rates of "serious errors".[13] Critics have stated that Wikipedia exhibits systemic bias, and tha t its group dynamics hinder its goals. Most academics, historians, teachers and journalists reject Wikipedia as a reliable source of information for being a mix ture of truths, half truths, and some falsehoods,[14] and that as a resource abo ut controversial topics, Wikipedia is notoriously subject to manipulation and sp in.[15] Wikipedia's Consensus and Undue Weight policies have been repeatedly cri ticised by prominent scholarly sources for undermining freedom of thought and le ading to false beliefs based on incomplete information.[16][17][18][19] The casu al reader is not aware of these controversial policies because he/she assumes Wi kipedia has no restrictions on freedom of information.[20] The Academic Integrit y at MIT handbook for students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology states: "Wikipedia is Not a Reliable Academic Source: The bibliography published at the end of the Wikipedia entry may point you to potential sources. However, do not a ssume that these sources are reliable use the same criteria to judge them as you would any other source. Do not consider the Wikipedia bibliography as a replace ment for your own research."[21] Contents 1 Openness 1.1 Restrictions 1.2 Review of changes 1.3 Vandalism 2 Policies and laws 2.1 Content policies 3 Governance 3.1 Administrators 3.2 Dispute resolution 4 Community 4.1 Diversity 5 Language editions 6 History 7 Critical reception 7.1 Accuracy of content 7.2 Quality of writing 7.3 Coverage of topics and systemic bias 7.4 Explicit content 7.5 Privacy 7.6 Wikipedia conflicts in the media 8 Operation 8.1 Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia chapters 8.2 Software operations and support 8.3 Automated editing 8.4 Wikiprojects and assessment of importance 8.5 Hardware operations and support 8.6 Internal research and operational development 8.7 Internal news publications 9 Access to content 9.1 Content licensing 9.2 Methods of access 10 Impact 10.1 Readership 10.2 Cultural significance 10.3 Sister projects Wikimedia 10.4 Publishing 10.5 Scientific use 11 Related projects 12 See also 13 References 13.1 Notes 13.2 Further reading 14 External links Openness Differences between versions of an article are highlighted as shown Unlike traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia follows the procrastination principl e[clarify] regarding the security of its content;[22] it started almost entirely openanyone could create articles, and any Wikipedia article could be edited by a ny reader, even those who did not have a Wikipedia account. Modifications to all articles would immediately become available. As a result, all articles could co ntain inaccuracies, ideological biases, and nonsensical or irrelevant text until an editor would correct these issues. Restrictions Over time, the English Wikipedia and some other Wikipedias gradually restricted modifications. For example, in the English Wikipedia and some other language edi tions, only registered users may create a new article.[23] On the English Wikipe dia and some others, some particularly sensitive and/or vandalism-prone pages ar e now "protected" to some degree.[24] A frequently vandalized article can be sem i-protected, meaning that only certain editors are able to modify it.[25] A part icularly contentious article may be locked so that only administrators are able to make changes.[26] In certain cases, all editors are allowed to submit modifications, but review is required for some editors. For example, the German Wikipedia maintains "stable versions" of articles,[27] which have passed certain reviews. Following protract ed trials and community discussion, the English Wikipedia introduced the "pendin g changes" system in December 2012.[28] Under this system, new users' edits to c ertain controversial or vandalism-prone articles are "subject to review from an established Wikipedia editor before publication".[29] The editing interface of Wikipedia Review of changes Although changes are not systematically reviewed, the software that powers Wikip edia provides certain tools allowing anyone to review changes made by others. Th e "History" page of each article links to each revision.[notes 2][30] On most ar ticles, anyone can undo others' changes by clicking a link on the article's hist ory page. Anyone can view the latest changes to articles, and anyone may maintai n a "watchlist" of articles that interest them so they can be notified of any ch anges. "New pages patrol" is a process whereby newly created articles are checke d for obvious problems.[31] In 2003, economics PhD student Andrea Ciffolilli argued that the low transaction costs of participating in a wiki create a catalyst for collaborative developmen t, and that features such as easy access to past versions of a page favor "creat ive construction" over "creative destruction".[32] Vandalism Main article: Vandalism on Wikipedia Any edit that changes content in a way that deliberately compromises the integri ty of Wikipedia is considered vandalism. The most common and obvious types of va ndalism include insertion of obscenities and crude humor. Vandalism can also inc lude advertising language and other types of spam.[33] Sometimes editors commit vandalism by removing information or entirely blanking a given page. Less common types of vandalism, such as the deliberate addition of plausible but false info rmation to an article, can be more difficult to detect. Vandals can introduce ir relevant formatting, modify page semantics such as the page's title or categoriz ation, manipulate the underlying code of an article, or use images disruptively. [34] White-haired elderly gentleman in suit and tie speaks at a podium. American journalist John Seigenthaler (19272014), subject of the Seigenthaler inc ident Obvious vandalism is generally easy to remove from wiki articles; the median tim e to detect and fix vandalism is a few minutes.[35][36] However, some vandalism takes much longer to repair.[37] In the Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident, an anonymous editor introduced false information into the biography of American political figure John Seigenth aler in May 2005. Seigenthaler was falsely presented as a suspect in the assassi nation of John F. Kennedy.[37] The article remained uncorrected for four months. [37] Seigenthaler, the founding editorial director of USA Today and founder of t he Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, called Wikiped ia co-founder Jimmy Wales and asked whether he had any way of knowing who contri buted the misinformation. Wales replied that he did not, although the perpetrato r was eventually traced.[38][39] After the incident, Seigenthaler described Wiki pedia as "a flawed and irresponsible research tool".[37] This incident led to po licy changes at Wikipedia, specifically targeted at tightening up the verifiabil ity of biographical articles of living people.[40] Policies and laws See also: Wikipedia:Five Pillars Content in Wikipedia is subject to the laws (in particular, the copyright laws) of the United States and of the U.S. state of Virginia, where the majority of Wi kipedia's servers are located. Beyond legal matters, the editorial principles of Wikipedia are embodied in the "five pillars" and in numerous policies and guide lines intended to appropriately shape content.