Introduction to Wikipedia by Graham, Howard, Kwan, Purewal Attribution All the content in this report, except for the Top Web Links section is from Wikipedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Share-Alike 3.0 Unported License (see below for an overview of both Wikipedia and the Creative Commons). The following picture shows the full license below (it is also set up as a hyperlink to the original web source for this license). Figure 1 - Wikipedia Creative Commons License (Wikipedia, 2009) Our Contribution We have attempted to add extra value to the content by structuring it in an easy to read, business report format and to add an informative “Top Web Links” section. We have also added an index to help you find what you are looking for. We hope you find it useful and worth the $1 purchase price. We have prepared this report as part of a MS Word 2007 assignment for BSYS 1000 – Computer Applications I that we are taking at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). All proceeds will go to student clubs within the School of Business at BCIT. Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based, free-content encyclopaedia project based mostly on anonymous contributions. The name “Wikipedia” is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative Web site) and encyclopaedia. Wikipedia’s articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by an international (and mostly anonymous) group of volunteers. Anyone with internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles. There are no requirements to provide one’s real name when contributing; rather, each writer’s privacy is protected unless they choose to reveal their identity themselves. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference web sites, attracting around 65 million visitors monthly as of 2009. There are more than 75,000 active contributors working on more than 14,000,000 articles in more than 260 languages. As of today, there are 3,062,069 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 encyclopaedia. (See also: Wikipedia: Statistics.) Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. Page 1 of 40 Introduction to Wikipedia by Graham, Howard, Kwan, Purewal Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 3 History ....................................................................................................................................... 4 History of Wikipedia.............................................................................................................. 4 Nature of Wikipedia .................................................................................................................. 6 Editing model ........................................................................................................................ 6 Attacks on the encyclopedia ................................................................................................. 7 Vandalisation ........................................................................................................................ 7 Spam, agenda pushing, and trolls ......................................................................................... 7 Defences ............................................................................................................................... 8 Coverage of topics ................................................................................................................ 8 Quality ................................................................................................................................... 9 Reliability............................................................................................................................... 9 Wikipedia community ......................................................................................................... 10 Operation ................................................................................................................................ 12 Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia chapters ......................................................... 12 Software and hardware ...................................................................................................... 12 Delivery media .................................................................................................................... 13 License and language editions ................................................................................................ 14 Cultural significance ................................................................................................................ 16 Related projects ...................................................................................................................... 19 Page 2 of 40 Introduction to Wikipedia by Graham, Howard, Kwan, Purewal Introduction Wikipedia (pronounced WEE-kee-PEE-dee-ə, or WI-ki-PEE-dee-ə) is a free,[5] web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopaedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites, from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick") and encyclopaedia. Wikipedia's 13 million articles (three million in the English Wikipedia) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site.[6] Launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger,[7] it is currently the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet.[3][8][9][10] Critics of Wikipedia accuse it of systemic bias and inconsistencies (including undue weight given to popular culture),[11] and allege that it favors consensus over credentials in its editorial process.[12] Its reliability and accuracy are also claimed to be an issue.[13] Other criticisms center on its susceptibility to vandalism and the addition of spurious or unverified information,[14] though scholarly work suggests that vandalism is generally short- lived,[15][16] and an investigation found that the material they compared came close to the level of accuracy of Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of "serious errors".[17] These claims have been disputed by Encyclopædia Britannica.[18] Wikipedia's departure from the expert-driven style of the encyclopaedia building mode and the large presence of unacademic contents have been noted several times. When Time magazine recognized You as its Person of the Year for 2006, acknowledging the accelerating success of online collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, it cited Wikipedia as one of several examples of Web 2.0 services, along with YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook.[19] Some noted the importance of Wikipedia not only as an encyclopaedic reference but also as a frequently updated news resource because of how quickly articles about recent events appear.[20][21] Page 3 of 40 Introduction to Wikipedia by Graham, Howard, Kwan, Purewal History History of Wikipedia Wikipedia began as a complementary project for Nupedia, a free online English-language encyclopaedia project whose articles were written by experts and reviewed under a formal process. Nupedia was founded on March 9, 2000, under the ownership of Bomis, Inc, a web portal company. Its main figures were Jimmy Wales, Bomis CEO, and Larry Sanger, editor-in- chief for Nupedia and later Wikipedia. Nupedia was licensed initially under its own Nupedia Open Content License, switching to the GNU Free Documentation License before Wikipedia's founding at the urging of Richard Stallman.[22] Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia.[23][24] While Wales is credited with defining the goal of making a publicly editable encyclopaedia,[25][26] Sanger is usually credited with the strategy of using a wiki to reach that goal.[27] On January 10, 2001, Larry Sanger proposed on the Nupedia mailing list to create a wiki as a "feeder" project for Nupedia.[28] Wikipedia was formally launched on January 15, 2001, as a single English- language edition at www.wikipedia.com,[29] and announced by Sanger on the Nupedia mailing list.[25] Wikipedia's policy of "neutral point-of-view"[30] was codified in its initial months, and was similar to Nupedia's earlier "nonbiased" policy. Otherwise, there were relatively few rules initially and Wikipedia operated independently of Nupedia.[25] Graph of the article count for the English Wikipedia, from January 10, 2001, to September 9, 2007 (the date of the two-millionth article)Wikipedia gained early contributors from Nupedia, Slashdot postings, and web search engine indexing. It grew to approximately 20,000 articles and 18 language editions by the end of 2001. By late 2002, it had reached 26 language editions, 46 by the end of 2003, and 161 by the final days of 2004.[31] Nupedia