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The Wikipedia Project World of Knowledge The free project, Wikipedia, has compiled no fewer than a million entries in less than four years. And the quality of the entries even surprises experts. But what is Wikipedia and how can you use it? We’ll tell you about the excit- ing Wikipedia project, and we’ll show you how you can contribute.

BY TORSTEN KLEINZ NASA

e cannot stop business from to modify text on a page directly, and Wikipedia itself: HOWTOs on writing restricting the information it even to create new pages. He called the entries, quality drives, and current votes Wmakes available; what we can system -Wiki, that is “quick” or – even press releases are a community do is provide an alternative. We need to “quickly” in Hawaiian. At the beginning effort. launch a movement to develop a univer- of 2001, Jimmy relaunched the project This said, the Wiki has a few disad- sal free encyclopedia,” said Richard for free world knowledge, and the vantages as a discussion group. Users Stallman in 1999, in an essay on a free Wikipedia was born [2]. simply add entries to web pages – the encyclopedia [1]. structure is typically hand made. In other and Florida Freedom and Coordination words, it is up to the users themselves to talked about the design and launched The Wikipedia has established the prin- structure their entries neatly or let chaos the project in the year 2000. ciple of freedom at several levels. The reign. The Wikipedia developers have The idea was to allow anyone to submit contents can be used freely – all entries implemented a few functions to facilitate entries that would then go through a are published under the free GFDL docu- discussions. For example, you can sign sophisticated editorial process. But the mentation license – and the project itself your entries simply by clicking; you can project failed with just a handfull of arti- is free for anyone to take part in. You do also indent entries, and you can generate cles finding their way into the not even have to log on to edit an entry a of contents based on the struc- encyclopedia. directly via the web page or to join in ture. The turning point came when Jimmy with a discussion. But pages tend to become cluttered in Wales started to investigate Ward Cun- The Wiki is not only used to organize prolonged discussions. This has led to ningham’s Wiki principle. Ward had entries; it is also used to organize the the project adopting other discussion developed a lean, archaic editorial sys- project itself. The project portal has a media: IRC chat via Freenode and a tem that allowed every user of a big collection of information on the number of mailing lists. It is becoming

84 February 2005 www.-magazine.com reinstating their own versions. As this is quite strenuous after a while. most peo- ple finally agree to compromise – at least in theory, although there are some exceptions. The Wikipedia’s open structure makes it a target for trolls and vandals who malevolently add incorrect information to articles, get other people tied up in endless discussions, and generally do everything to draw attention to them- selves. Wikipedia is also a profitable platform for advertisers. A link on Figure 1:Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales at Wikipedia often pushes a website’s the “Wizards of OS 2004” congress in Berlin, ranking right up – and there are Germany. those who strive towards immortality with encyclopedia entries about them- increasingly common for Wikipedians to selves. Activists are another problem. meet directly, organizing workshops at One of the Wikipedia’s most sacred prin- congresses, such as the Wizards of OS in ciples is its neutral point of view – that Berlin, Germany. There are even some is, the neutrality of its entries. local Wikipedia user groups. As an open platform, Wikipedia relies Fighting Trolls and Vandals on the majority of users supplying con- Administrators help keep Wikipedia on structive entries. Instead of using the the right track. They can freeze contro- editorial process envisaged for Nupedia, versial articles for a certain time and try Wikipedia relies on peer review. That is, to prevent petty disputes. But with over users with equal status check and 400 new articles a day, and 300,000 improve content. The Wikipedians are entries being edited every month, it is convinced that the more people work on not always easy to keep track. This an entry, the better the quality will means that normal users have to make a become. Of course, if people have differ- genuine effort to keep Wikipedia usable. ent opinions on a subject, there is Version history provides a useful way nothing to stop them from indefinitely of keeping track. Just a few mouse clicks

Figure 2:The Wikipedia main page.The Wikipedia project now comprises over 1 million entries. COMMUNITY Wikipedia

It is not easy for newbies to come to by the German site, are yet another terms with the rules and processes that approach to ensuring quality. For one year now,Wikipedia has been run by have accumulated in the course of the the Florida-based Wikimedia Foundation [3], last four years. More senior Wikipedians Looking Ahead which takes care of operations and financ- have adopted a policy of sending wel- Wikipedia has overachieved in all ing for the project.The organization has raised over US$ 100,000 in donations so far. come messages to new users to make respects thus far, but the future is The money was mostly invested in new them feel at home. still uncertain. In the Fall of 2004, the servers,which are working at full capacity to These messages are addressed person- first CD version of the German handle the masses of queries and modifica- ally and refer directly to the first Wikipedia was released; English and tions. New Wiki-based projects keep on modifications the user has made. The French versions are due to follow. Work appearing to accompany the encyclopedia more experienced users give newbies is underway on a printed version in project,such as dictionaries in various lan- tips on how to improve their contribu- the USA. But there is no way of guages (), with free tions and point the way to areas where knowing where Wikipedia will be this online teaching resources,and work is most needed. The most common time next year. Continual expansion of for quotes. tip is to be bold. The long-term success the community means continually adapt- of a project depends on people making ing to new situations. Or as Jimmy Wales allow anyone to find out who changed active contributions rather than just con- puts it: “We need to maintain and what and when. Users can compare two suming. improve our quality standards, while at arbitrary versions directly, allowing them Wikipedia is outstanding with respect the same time remaining open, friendly, to see how an article has developed (see to quantity. In only seven months, the and welcoming as a community. This is Figure 3). And this means that every number of articles grew from about a challenge.” ■ user can become a moderator. 500,000 to over a million. And this is why the focus has shifted to quality Mediawiki Complex Decision Making assurance; for example, the German Although the free encyclopedia originally The decision making process within Wikipedia site has introduced an “Excel- started life on an existing Wiki engine,it Wikipedia is not easy to comprehend. lent Articles” category. moved to its own two years There are votes, although their outcome But progress with implementing the ago:Mediawiki [4],[5]. Mediawiki is a Wiki is not binding. Administrators are elected new “Excellent Articles” concept is slow engine that was custom developed under (and removed from office) by the more – to date only 300 of more than 175,000 the GPL to reflect the needs of the active users. Before an article is deleted, German articles have been through the Wikipedia,but has now become a popular votes for and against are collected on a selection process. Writing contests, platform for other Wiki projects.The soft- ware is written in PHP and uses the MySQL special page, and discussions precede which were introduced by the Dutch . any decisions. Wikipedia and have now been adopted INFO

[1] ’s plea for a free encyclo- pedia:http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/ free-encyclopedia.html [2] Wikipedia site:http://www.wikipedia.org [3] Wikimedia foundation: http://wikimedia.org [4] Mediawiki software: http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net [5] Erik Möller:“Collective Authoring”, Linux Magazine #42,p54

Torsten Kleinz is a journalist based in Cologne,Germany, who specializes in computer and busi- HOR

T ness topics,software and network culture. Torsten has been following the activi- ties of the for THE AU two years now,and has published a number of articles on the public Figure 3:The version history allows users to monitor changes.This facilitates quality assurance and domain encyclopedia. helps identify trolls, vandals, and activists.

86 February 2005 www.linux-magazine.com