Wikipedia (
IPA: /ˌwikiˈpiːdi.ə/, /ˌwikiˈpeːdi.ə/ or /ˌwɪkiˈpiːdi.ə/) (
Template:Audio) is a
multilingual,
web-based,
free content encyclopedia project, operated by the
Wikimedia Foundation, a
non-profit organization.
As of September 2007, Wikipedia had approximately 8.2 million articles in 253 languages, comprising a combined total of over 1.41 billion words for all Wikipedias. The
English Wikipedia edition passed the 2,000,000 article mark on
September 9 2007 with a total of over 615 million words, roughly fifteen times as many as the largest edition of
Encyclopædia Britannica.
[1] Wikipedia's articles have been written
collaboratively by
volunteers around the world and the vast majority of them can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet. Steadily rising in popularity since its inception,
[3] it currently ranks among the top ten most-visited websites worldwide.
[4] Wikipedia's name is a
portmanteau of the words
wiki (a type of collaborative website) and
encyclopedia. Its main
servers are in
Tampa, Florida, with additional servers located in
Amsterdam and
Seoul.
Due to Wikipedia's open nature, critics have questioned its reliability and accuracy.
[5] The site has been criticized for its susceptibility to
vandalism and the addition of false or unverified information,
[6] uneven quality,
systemic bias and inconsistencies,
[7] and for favoring
consensus over
credentials in its editorial process.
[8] Wikipedia's content policies
[9] and sub-projects set up by contributors seek to address these concerns.
[10] Two scholarly studies have concluded that vandalism is generally short-lived
[11] and that Wikipedia is generally as accurate as other encyclopedias.
[12]
When creators of on-line content were collectively named
Time Person of the Year 2006, praising the accelerating success of collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, Wikipedia was the first particular "
Web 2.0" service mentioned, followed by
YouTube and
MySpace.
[13]
the best chesse in town is mine so haha