User:Dbmag9/Essay

''This is a draft copy of my essay for Wikipediology. It is not an article, so don't mistake it for one. Comments are welcomed on the talk page.''

Wikipedia and Anti-Elitism: Is it? Why? and Should it be?
Wikipedia is a new type of encyclopedia. It is based on the wiki principles, which allow anyone to edit, and give (in theory) no user more power than anyone else. I say 'in theory' because Wikipedia does allow some users to have more power than others. There is a hierarchy: anonymous users, logged-in users, sysops, beurocrats and stewards.

Wikipedia started off from Nupedia, which was elitist. It had a lengthy peer-review process, and had experts in a range of fields writing. Wikipedia, on the other hand, was designed for articles-in-waiting, as it were. Wikipedia proved vastly more popular than Nupedia, and Nupedia died a lingering death. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is (despite what people say) as vibrant as ever. Anti-elitism seems to have worked to convice the masses.

Wikipedia works because a myriad of people, each contributing a sentence every so often, will end up contributing a lot more than one concerted effort ever could.