User:OhanaUnited/University Presentation

This page is used for a university presentation.

History

 * Launched on January 15, 2001
 * Reached 2 million articles on English Wikipedia on September 9, 2007
 * Attracts 683 million visitors annually reading over 10 million articles in 253 languages

Who can edit?

 * Everyone (minus those who come here just to cause trouble)
 * Every article is written and maintained entirely by volunteers

Why (some) professors hate this site?



 * Not all articles on this site are trustworthy
 * Ideally, articles should have reliable references from credible sources
 * Examples of questionable articles: Alexander I of Russia, Economy of Algeria, 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill
 * Examples of well-written articles: DNA, Mozilla Firefox, List of acquisitions by AOL
 * Sometimes users add misleading or prank information
 * Credentials are discouraged, meaning a PhD professor specialized in black holes may have to argue with a high school student who didn't take physics course
 * If you find a bad article, you are welcome to improve it, either directly or via a comment on the talk page, and encouraged (if not obliged) to register

Talk page

 * The backstage of Wikipedia
 * Just about every article has its own talk page
 * Discussion and, often, more information can be found here

Edit history

 * Some students said they went to a page and read something useful but didn't write or copy it down
 * Few days later, they came back to that page and it's gone!
 * Uh oh, they are doomed (or so it seems)!

Beyond Wikipedia

 * Wiktionary (dictionary)
 * Wikispecies (species directory)
 * Commons (free media repository)
 * ... and others