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Wikipedia: A Comprehensive Overview

Wikipedia is the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, owned by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation. It was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, initially existing as only an English language version but growing to include versions in over 250 languages. Wikipedia consists of over 40 million articles and receives nearly 500 million unique visitors per month, making it one of the ten most popular websites globally.

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62 views2 pages

Wikipedia: A Comprehensive Overview

Wikipedia is the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet, owned by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation. It was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, initially existing as only an English language version but growing to include versions in over 250 languages. Wikipedia consists of over 40 million articles and receives nearly 500 million unique visitors per month, making it one of the ten most popular websites globally.

Uploaded by

Sandeep Ch
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Wikipedia is the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet[4][5][6] and is ranked

among the ten most popular websites.[7]Wikipedia is owned by the nonprofit Wikimedia
Foundation.[8][9][10]

Wikipedia was launched on January 15, 2001, by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger.[11] Sanger
coined its name,[12][13] a portmanteau of wiki[notes 4]and encyclopedia. There was only the English
language version initially, but it quickly developed similar versions in other languages, which differ in
content and in editing practices. With 5,421,315 articles,[notes 5] the English Wikipedia is the largest of
the more than 290 Wikipedia encyclopedias. Overall, Wikipedia consists of more than 40 million
articles in more than 250 different languages[15] and, as of February 2014, it had 18 billion page views
and nearly 500 million unique visitors each month.[16]

As of March 2017, Wikipedia has about forty thousand high-quality articles known as Featured
Articles and Good Articles that cover vital topics.[17][18] In 2005, Nature published a peer review
comparing 42 science articles from Encyclopdia Britannica and Wikipedia, and found that
Wikipedia's level of accuracy approached Encyclopdia Britannica's.[19] Criticism of
Wikipedia includes claims that it exhibits systemic bias, presents a mixture of "truths, half truths, and
some falsehoods",[20] and that, in controversial topics, it is subject to manipulation and spin.[21]

Contents

[hide]

1History
o 1.1Nupedia
o 1.2Launch and early growth
o 1.3Milestones
2Openness
o 2.1Restrictions
o 2.2Review of changes
o 2.3Vandalism
3Policies and laws
o 3.1Content policies and guidelines
4Governance
o 4.1Administrators
o 4.2Dispute resolution
5Community
o 5.1Diversity
6Language editions
7Critical reception
o 7.1Accuracy of content
o 7.2Quality of writing
o 7.3Coverage of topics and systemic bias
o 7.4Explicit content
o 7.5Privacy
o 7.6Sexism
8Operation
o 8.1Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia movement affiliates
o 8.2Software operations and support
o 8.3Automated editing
o 8.4Wikiprojects, and assessments of articles' importance and quality
o 8.5Hardware operations and support
o 8.6Internal research and operational development
o 8.7Internal news publications
9Access to content
o 9.1Content licensing
o 9.2Methods of access
10Cultural impact
o 10.1Readership
o 10.2Cultural significance
o 10.3Sister projects Wikimedia
o 10.4Publishing
o 10.5Scientific use
11Related projects
12See also
13References
o 13.1Notes
14Further reading
o 14.1Academic studies
o 14.2Books
o 14.3Book reviews and other articles
15External links

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