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The Simple English Wikipedia is a variation in which most of the articles use only basic English
vocabulary. There is also the Old English (Ænglisc/Anglo-Saxon) Wikipedia (angwiki). Community-
produced news publications include The Signpost.[8]
Contents
1 Pioneering edition
3 Controversies
5 Graphics
7 See also
8 Footnotes
9 References
10 External links
Pioneering edition
The English Wikipedia has adopted features from Wikipedias in other languages. These features include
verified revisions from the German Wikipedia (dewiki) and town population-lookup templates from the
Dutch Wikipedia (nlwiki).
Although the English Wikipedia stores images and audio files, as well as text files, many of the images
have been moved to Wikimedia Commons with the same name, as passed-through files. However, the
English Wikipedia also has fair-use images and audio/video files (with copyright restrictions), most of
which are not allowed on Commons.
Many of the most active participants in the Wikimedia Foundation, and the developers of the MediaWiki
software that powers Wikipedia, are English users.
English Wikipedia statistics Number of user accounts Number of articles Number of files
Number of administrators
The English Wikipedia reached 4,000,000 registered user accounts on 1 April 2007,[15] just a little over a
year since it had crossed a threshold of 1,000,000 registered user accounts in late February 2006.[16]
Over 800,000 editors have edited Wikipedia more than 10 times.[17] 300,000 editors edit Wikipedia
every month;[citation needed] of these, over 30,000 perform more than 5 edits per month, and a little
over 3,000 perform more than 100 edits per month.[18] By 24 November 2011, a total of 500 million
edits had been performed on the English Wikipedia.[citation needed]
As the largest Wikipedia edition, and because English is such a widely used language, the English
Wikipedia draws many users and editors whose native language is not English. Such users may seek
information from the English Wikipedia rather than the Wikipedia of their native language because the
English Wikipedia tends to contain more information about general subjects. Successful collaborations
have been developed between non-native English speakers who successfully add content to the English
Wikipedia and native English speakers who act as copyeditors for them.[citation needed]
Arbitration committee
The English Wikipedia has an arbitration committee (also known as ArbCom) that consists of a panel of
editors that imposes binding rulings with regard to disputes between other editors of the online
encyclopedia.[19] The committee was created by Jimmy Wales on 4 December 2003 as an extension of
the decision-making power he had formerly held as owner of the site.[20][21]
When initially founded, the committee consisted of 12 arbitrators divided into three groups of four
members each.[20][22] Since then, the committee has gradually expanded its membership to 18
arbitrators.[23][not in citation given]
As with other aspects of the English Wikipedia, some of Wikipedia's sister projects have emulated the
arbitration committee with their own similar versions.[24] For instance, in 2007, an arbitration
committee was founded on the German Wikipedia called the Schiedsgericht (de).[25]
Controversies
Several incidents of threats of violence against high schools on Wikipedia have been reported in the
mainstream press.[26][27][28] The Glen A. Wilson High School was the subject of such a threat in
2008,[26][27][28] and a 14-year-old teenager was arrested for making a threat against Niles West High
School on Wikipedia in 2006.[29]
Disputed articles
A 2013 study from Oxford University concluded that the most disputed articles on the English Wikipedia
tended to be broader issues, while on other language Wikipedias the most disputed articles tended to
be regional issues; this is due to the English language's status as a global lingua franca, which means that
many who edit the English Wikipedia do not speak English as a native language.[clarification needed]
The study stated that the most disputed entries on the English Wikipedia were: George W. Bush,
anarchism, Muhammad, list of WWE personnel, global warming, circumcision, United States, Jesus, race
and intelligence, and Christianity.[30]
Varieties of English
One controversy in the English Wikipedia concerns which national variety of the English language is to
be preferred, with the most commonly advocated candidates being American English and British
English.[31] Perennial suggestions range from standardizing upon a single form of English to forking the
English Wikipedia project. A style guideline states, "the English Wikipedia has no general preference for
a major national variety of the language" and "an article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular
English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation".[32] An article should use
spelling and grammar variants consistently; for example, color and colour are not to be used in the same
article, since they represent American and British English, respectively. The guide also states that an
article must remain in its original national variant.
There has been a similar issue in the Chinese-language Wikipedia concerning regional differences in
writing. Efforts toward a language fork for Portuguese Wikipedia have failed, but those regarding
Norwegian Wikipedia succeeded.
Andrew Lih wrote that the English Wikipedia "didn't have the chance to go through a debate over
whether there should be a British English Wikipedia or an American English Wikipedia" because the
English Wikipedia was the original edition.[33][clarification needed] Editors agreed to use U.S. spellings
for primarily American topics and British spellings for primarily British topics. In 2009 Lih wrote, "No
doubt, American spellings tend to dominate by default just because of sheer numbers."[34]
A "WikiProject" is a group of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia.
These groups often focus on a specific topic area (for example, women's history), a specific location or a
specific kind of task (for example, checking newly created pages). The English Wikipedia currently has
over 2,000 WikiProjects and activity varies.[35]
In 2007, in preparation for producing a print version, the English Wikipedia introduced an assessment
scale of the quality of articles.[36] Articles are rated by WikiProjects. The range of quality classes begins
with "Stub" (very short pages), followed by "Start", "C" and "B" (in increasing order of quality).
Community peer review is needed for the article to enter one of the highest quality classes: either "good
article", "A" or the highest, "featured article". Of the about 4.4 million articles and lists assessed as of
March 2015, a little more than 5,000 (0.12%) are featured articles, and fewer than 2,000 (0.04%) are
featured lists. One featured article per day, as selected by editors, appears on the main page of
Wikipedia.[37][38]
The articles can also be rated as per "importance" as judged by a WikiProject. Currently, there are 5
importance categories: "low", "mid", "high", "top", and "???" for unclassified/uncertain level. For a
particular article, different WikiProjects may assign different importance levels.
The Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team has developed a table (shown below) that displays data of all
rated articles by quality and importance, on the English Wikipedia. If an article or list receives different
ratings by two or more WikiProjects, then the highest rating is used in the table, pie-charts, and bar-
chart. The software regularly auto-updates the data.
Researcher Giacomo Poderi found that articles tend to reach featured status via the intensive work of a
few editors.[39] A 2010 study found unevenness in quality among featured articles and concluded that
the community process is ineffective in assessing the quality of articles.[40]
Quality-wise distribution of over 5.5 million articles and lists on the English Wikipedia, as of 29 January
2017[41]
A class (0.03%)
B class (2.00%)
C class (4.32%)
Lists (3.65%)
Unassessed (9.94%)
Importance-wise distribution of over 5.5 million articles and lists on the English Wikipedia, as of 29
January 2017[41]
Top (0.91%)
High (3.20%)
Medium (12.21%)
Low (51.68%)
??? (32.00%)
Quality Importance
500,000
1,000,000
1,500,000
2,000,000
2,500,000
3,000,000
Top
High
Medium
Low
???
Featured articles
Featured lists
A-class articles
Good articles
B-class articles
C-class articles
Start-class articles
Stub articles
Lists
[Note: The table above (prepared by the Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team) is automatically updated
daily by User:WP 1.0 bot, but the bar-chart and the two pie-charts are not auto-updated. In them, new
data has to be entered by a Wikipedia editor (i.e. user).]
Automatic quality assessment of Wikipedia articles is a known and wide scientific problem.[42] For
example, as measures for assessing quality, it can be taken into the account number of the references,
text length, number of images, sections, articles popularity and others.[43]
Graphics
Percentages of articles written in various language families. In March 2013, 16.76% of articles were in
English.
The countries in which the English Wikipedia is the most popular language version of Wikipedia are
shown in red.[44]
Top 25 contributor countries to the English Wikipedia. Dark green: Native English speaking countries;
light green: countries with English as a foreign language.[45]
Video marking English Wikipedia's milestone of five million articles on 1 November 2015
WikipediaSignpostIcon.svg
Community-produced news publications include The Signpost.[8] The Signpost (previously known as The
Wikipedia Signpost[48]) is the English Wikipedia's newspaper.[8][49][50] It is managed by the Wikipedia
community and is published online weekly.[8][51] Each edition contains stories and articles related to
the Wikipedia community.[52][53] A wide range of editors contribute articles and other pieces.[8]
The publication was founded in January 2005 by Wikipedia administrator and later Chair of the
Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, Michael Snow.[8][48][54] Originally titled The Wikipedia
Signpost, it was later shortened to simply The Signpost.[48][55] The newspaper reports on Wikipedia
events including Arbitration Committee rulings,[56] Wikimedia Foundation issues,[57] and other
Wikipedia-related projects.[58] Snow continued to contribute as a writer to The Signpost until his
appointment to the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation in February 2008.[59]
The Signpost has been the subject of academic analysis in publications including Sociological Forum,[66]
the social movements journal Interface,[67] and New Review of Academic Librarianship;[68] and was
consulted for data on Wikipedia by researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Dartmouth
College.[69] It has garnered generally positive reception from media publications including The New
York Times,[70] The Register,[71] Nonprofit Quarterly,[72] and Heise Online.[73] The book Wikipedia:
The Missing Manual called The Signpost essential reading for ambitious new Wikipedia editors.[74]
Other past and present community news publications include the "WikiWorld" web comic, the
Wikipedia Weekly podcast, and newsletters of specific WikiProjects like The Bugle from WikiProject
Military History and the monthly newsletter from The Guild of Copy Editors. There are also a number of
publications from the Wikimedia Foundation and multilingual publications such as the Wikimedia Blog
and This Month in Education.
See also
History of Wikipedia
Reliability of Wikipedia
Wikipedia community
Wikipedia:Milestones
Wikipedia:Milestone statistics
Footnotes
There is controversy over who founded Wikipedia. Wales considers himself to be the sole founder of
Wikipedia and has told the Boston Globe that "it's preposterous" to call Sanger the co-founder.[citation
needed] However, Sanger strongly contests that description. He was identified as a co-founder of
Wikipedia as early as September 2001 and referred to himself as being founder as early as January
2002.[citation needed]
Sidener, Jonathan (6 December 2004). "Everyone's Encyclopedia". San Diego Union Tribune. Archived
from the original on 14 January 2016. Retrieved 15 October 2006.
Meyers, Peter (20 September 2001). "Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You". New York Times.
Retrieved 15 October 2006.
Sanger, Larry. "What Wikipedia is and why it matters". Retrieved 12 April 2006.
about 50 percent more than the next in rank, the Swedish Wikipedia. See m:List of Wikipedias.
Wikimedia Meta-Wiki (21 September 2008). "List of Wikipedias". Retrieved 21 September 2008.
The number of articles on the English Wikipedia is shown by the MediaWiki variable
{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}, with all Wikipedias as total {{NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|total}} = 48,630,569.
See size of downloads at Wikipedia:Database download and a list of historical sizes here
Phoebe Ayers; Charles Matthews; Ben Yates (2008). How Wikipedia Works: And how You Can be a Part
of it. No Starch Press. pp. 345–. ISBN 978-1-59327-176-3.
English Wikipedia (30 January 2007). "Featured articles". Retrieved 30 January 2007.
English Wikipedia (25 January 2007). "Neutral point of view". Retrieved 30 January 2007.
English Wikipedia (19 January 2007). "WikiProject Stub sorting". Retrieved 30 January 2007.
English Wikipedia (27 January 2007). "Resolving disputes". Retrieved 30 January 2007.
English Wikipedia (30 January 2007). "Article Creation and Improvement Drive". Retrieved 30 January
2007.
Schiff, Stacy (2 December 2006). "Know-alls". The Age. Australia: Fairfax Digital Network. Retrieved 15
June 2009.
Hoffman, David A.; Salil Mehra (2010). "Wikitruth Through Wikiorder". Emory Law Journal. 59 (2010).
SSRN 1354424 Freely accessible.
Hyatt, Josh (1 June 2006). "Secrets of Greatness: Great Teams". Fortune. Time Warner. Retrieved 15
June 2009.
Wales, Jimmy (20 December 2008). "ArbCom Appointments". Wikipedia. Retrieved 14 June 2009.
Wikidata (1 April 2015). "Wikipedia sitelinks for Arbitration Committee". Retrieved 1 April 2015.
Kleinz, Torsten (30 April 2007). "Wikipedia sucht Schiedsrichter" (in German). heise online. Retrieved 9
June 2009.
Hennessy-Fiske, Molly (29 April 2008). "Wikipedia threats went unchecked – Los Angeles Times". Los
Angeles Times.
"Hacienda Heights school receives possible threat". abc7.com. Abclocal.go.com. 18 April 2008. Retrieved
8 August 2013.
"Student arrested for violent threats on Wikipedia". Los Angeles Times. 29 April 2008. Retrieved 19
January 2012.
"Teen charged after threat to school on Wikipedia". Bloomington, IL: Pantagraph.com. Associated Press.
31 October 2006. Retrieved 26 January 2011.
Gross, Doug. "Wiki wars: The 10 most controversial Wikipedia pages." CNN. 24 July 2013. Retrieved on
26 July 2013. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 12 April 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
Lih, p. 135.
Lih, p. 136.
"Comparing featured article groups and revision patterns correlations in Wikipedia". First Monday.
Retrieved 13 July 2010.
Fernanda B. Viégas; Martin Wattenberg; Matthew M. McKeon (22 July 2007). "The Hidden Order of
Wikipedia" (PDF). Visual Communication Lab, IBM Research. Retrieved 30 October 2007.
Poderi, Giacomo, Wikipedia and the Featured Articles: How a Technological System Can Produce Best
Quality Articles, Master thesis, University of Maastricht, October 2008.
Lindsey, David (5 April 2010). "Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's featured articles". First Monday.
15 (4). Retrieved 29 January 2017.
Wikipedia Quality
Lewoniewski, Włodzimierz; Węcel, Krzysztof; Abramowicz, Witold (2017-12-08). "Relative Quality and
Popularity Evaluation of Multilingual Wikipedia Articles". Informatics. 4 (4).
doi:10.3390/informatics4040043. Retrieved 2018-07-02.
Zachte, Erik (14 November 2011). "Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report – Wikipedia Page Views Per
Country – Trends". Wikimedia Statistics. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
Zachte, Erik (14 November 2011). "Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report – Page Edits Per Wikipedia
Language – Breakdown". Wikimedia Statistics. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
"Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report – Page Edits Per Wikipedia Language – Breakdown".
Stats.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
Cohen, Noam (5 March 2007). "A Contributor to Wikipedia Has His Fictional Side". The New York Times.
p. C5. Retrieved 29 February 2016.
Koebler, Jason (16 February 2016). "The Secret Search Engine Tearing Wikipedia Apart". Vice.
Geoffroy, Romain (16 January 2014). "Une employée de Wikipédia débarquée pour avoir monnayé ses
articles". Les Inrockuptibles.
Dobusch, Leonhard (12 January 2014). "Interview mit Dirk Franke über "Grenzen der Bezahlung" in der
Wikipedia". Netzpolitik.org.
Rosen, Rebecca (6 February 2013). "If You Want Your Wikipedia Page to Get a TON of Traffic, Die While
Performing at the Super Bowl Half-Time Show". The Atlantic. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
McCarthy, Caroline (18 July 2008). "Wikimedia Foundation edits its board of trustees". CNET.
Okoli, Chitu; Mehdi, Mohamad; Mesgari, Mostafa; Nielsen, Finn Årup; Lanamäki, Arto (24 October
2012). "The people's encyclopedia under the gaze of the sages: A systematic review of scholarly research
on Wikipedia". doi:10.2139/ssrn.2021326. SSRN 2021326 Freely accessible.
Oz, Ayelet (1 September 2014). "The Legal Consciousness of Wikipedia". Harvard Law School.
doi:10.2139/ssrn.2572381. SSRN 2572381 Freely accessible.
Sotirios Paroutis; Loizos Heracleous; Duncan Angwin (1 February 2013). Practicing Strategy: Text and
Cases. SAGE Publications. pp. 237–. ISBN 978-1-4462-9047-7.
Waters, John K. (2010). The Everything Guide to Social Media. Adams Media. pp. 180, 270. ISBN 978-
1440506314.
Ral315 (18 February 2008). "From the editor: This week, I'd like to congratulate and thank Michael
Snow". The Wikipedia Signpost. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
Diener, Andrea (27 June 2015). "Geben Sie Panoramafreiheit, Sire!". FAZ – Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung (in German). Archived from the original on 29 June 2015. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
"Libertà di Panorama: a rischio in Europa con una riforma del copyright". Blogo: Informazione libera e
indipendente (in Italian). 22 June 2015. Archived from the original on 23 June 2015. Retrieved 5 March
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"Chcesz robić zdjęcia znanych budowli Europy? Spiesz się. To mogą być ostatnie tygodnie". Gazeta
Wyborcza (in Polish). 24 June 2015. ISSN 0860-908X. Archived from the original on 27 June 2015.
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"ТРЕВОГА! Свободная съемка на улицах Европы – под угрозой" (in Russian). 23 June 2015. Archived
from the original on 27 June 2015. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
The ed17 (21 January 2015). "From the editor: Introducing your new editors-in-chief". The Signpost.
Retrieved 1 March 2016.
Go Phightins! and Gamaliel (28 January 2015). "From the editor: An editorial board that includes you".
The Signpost. Retrieved 1 March 2016.
Konieczny, Piotr (March 2009). "Governance, Organization, and Democracy on the Internet: The Iron
Law and the Evolution of Wikipedia". Sociological Forum. Wiley. 24 (1): 167. JSTOR 40210340.
(Subscription required (help)).
Konieczny, Piotr. "Wikipedia: community or social movement?" (PDF). Interface: A Journal for and about
Social Movements. 1 (2): 212–232. ISSN 2009-2431. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 June 2012.
Retrieved 1 March 2016.
Bayliss, Gemma (January 2013). "Exploring the Cautionary Attitude Toward Wikipedia in Higher
Education: Implications for Higher Education Institutions". New Review of Academic Librarianship. 19
(1): 39. doi:10.1080/13614533.2012.740439. ISSN 1361-4533. Retrieved 1 March 2016 – via EBSCO Host.
Dee, Jonathan (1 July 2007). "All the News That's Fit to Print Out". The New York Times. Retrieved 29
February 2016.
Orlowski, Andrew (12 January 2016). "Wikimedia Foundation bins community-elected trustee". The
Register.
McCambridge, Ruth (16 February 2016). "Knight Foundation Grant Request Tears at Wikipedia's
Community". Nonprofit Quarterly.
Kleinz, Torsten (27 February 2016). "Kommentar: Wie geht es weiter mit der Wikimedia Foundation?".
Heise Online.
John Broughton (25 January 2008). Wikipedia: The Missing Manual: The Missing Manual. "O'Reilly
Media, Inc.". pp. 454–. ISBN 978-0-596-55377-7.
References
Lih, Andrew. The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest
Encyclopedia. Hyperion, New York City. 2009. First Edition. ISBN 978-1-4013-0371-6 (alkaline paper).
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