User talk:Gain0017

Wikipedia Introoduction Wikipedia is an amazing phenomenon of today's world. It is the information tool of the future. No more flipping through hundreds of pages to potentially find information, you just type in any word or even most acronym’s, and your answer pops up right in front of you, and it is free. The fact that Wikipedia is offered in multiple languages just makes it that much more versatile to everyone. Some people think that because it can be edited and added to by anyone, it is not a viable information tool but, as we will explain later, that could be deceptive. We will also present statistics about its use compared to similar information sources. Wikipedia has a very promising future and an amazing growth rate. If it continues to be properly maintained, it is hard to say how much incredible information could be at our fingertips. Concept of Wikipedia

Wiki is a Hawaiian word which means "quick". "Wikipedia’s goal is to make the sum of human knowledge available to everyone on the planet at no cost," and as quickly as possible. That means a traditional encyclopedia will not have information about the present but Wikipedia can report on history happening right now.

Wikipedia offers 198 free encyclopedias, each one in a different language. The largest encyclopedia is the English-language version at 400,000 entries, but twenty encyclopedias have more than 10,000 entries.

Wikipedia is the encyclopedia for the people and written collaboratively by people. There are over ten thousand regular editors- everyone from expert scholars to casual readers. The articles can be edited by anyone with access to the internet, simply by clicking the “edit this page” link as long as they do so within Wikipedia’s editing policies. And the beauty of it is that whatever change any one makes it can always be tracked. Editors are always around to advice or correct obvious errors. Wikipedia’s software, known as MediaWiki, is designed to allow easy reversal of editorial mistakes. There are also a variety of software assisted systems and automated programs help several hundred editors to watch for difficult edits and editors. There are also mechanisms that help community members watch for bad edits, over one thousand administrators with special power to enforce correct behavior, and a judicial committee which considers the few situations remaining unresolved, and decides on withdrawal or restrictions of editing privileges or other corrective responses when needed, after all other agreements remedies have been tried. Articles are constantly edited and improved overtime and users need to be aware of that.

Reliability of the Wikipedia Wikipeida is easy to take shots at especially by those who are not aware of how it really works and are misguided by the [1]"myths that any entry, no matter how frivolous, can find a place on Wikipedia — or, rather, the myth is that anything that goes on there stays on there". [2]"The British journal Nature examined a range of scientific entries on Wikipedia and found few differences in accuracy" and found it as reliable as Encyclopedia Britannica. Although, it found that entries in Wikipedia were poorly written and structured. But educational institutions wouldn't allow it as a primary source of reference not only because of the accuracy issue but also because of its objectivity. So as far as Wiki as a source of information goes it is vastly reliable. "The ideal Wikipedia article is balanced, neutral and encyclopedic, containing notable, verifiable knowledge; however, it reaches that stage overtime."(Exploring Wikipedia) Articles are well equipped with links to sources. [3]The reason Wikipedia reliability has come into focus is because of few nasty vandalizing posts. For example, a while back there was post on golfer Fuzzy Zoeller. Wikipedia labeled him a drug user, alcoholic, and abuser of his family. "This isn't the first case of questionable material posted on Wikipedia. Some examples include false accusations of participation in the Kennedy assassinations and various fan boy slinging episodes between console owners. In fact, Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wikipedia domains were shut down for a period as the fan boy storm calmed." Most of the vandalism is dealt with without any repercussions but some like these have a lasting negative affect. Conclusion Eric Goldman, who’s a law professor at Marquette, says that Wikipedia can either be open to any one or it can be spam free. It cannot be both. He thinks that in future Wikipedia will be taken over by over zealous marketers, when the community of 'admins' who protect it will get tired. So it will not be as reliable, or it will restrict access which will be the demise of its open nature. Well the co- owner Jimmy Wales doesn't think so, infact he sees more quality control over core articles instead of increasing statistics. He also sees it as intricate part of the 'One laptop per child' program. Wikipedia is a social innovation and the 'wiki' bug will extend to other areas beyond just the encyclopedia. There will be more standardization of wikis and interlinking between them. Software like 'wiki' which aid collaboration is the future of the net.

Statistics on its Use With Wikipedia being as large as it is, there are a lot of statistics that go wtih it. To start off simply, if someone could read 400 words per minute for 24 hours a day they would have read over 20 million words in a month. Since Wikipedia changes so much, by the time that that person would be done reading they would have to start over to get the new material. For example, for the month of July 2006, the website grew by over 30 million words. In the English language alone, there are 1,907,948 articles. With 152,358,823 edits, this averages out to 15.74 edits per page. Since July 2002, there have been 754,001 media files posted. As for user statistics, there are 4,937,630 registered user accounts. Of those accounts, 1,285 have administrative tools. The top 10 Languages are: Language      Articles 1) English - 1,907,948 2) German - 592,031 3) French - 501,658 4) Polish - 384,757 5) Japanese - 374,721 6) Italian - 304.080 7) Dutch - 300,579 8) Portugese- 261,568 9) Spanish - 238,157 10) Sewdish - 231,631 There are 253 Languages on Wikipedia, totaling 7,455,355 articles. Annual growth rate For the English Wikipedia. Date	Article Count	Increase during Preceding Year	% Increase during Preceding Year	Day during Preceding Year 2002-01-01	19,700	19,700	?	54 2003-01-01	96,500	76,800	390%	210 2004-01-01	188,800	92,300	96%	253 2005-01-01	438,500	249,700	132%	682 2006-01-01	895,000	456,500	104%	1251 2007-01-01	1,560,000	665,000	74%	1822 2008-01-01	2,170,000	610,000	39%	1670

Bibliography Bosworth,A. (December 20, 2004). What is Wikipedia. History News Network. Retrieved June 20, 2007 from http://hnn.us/articles/8837.html

Wikipedia: About. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved June 12, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org

[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/magazine/01WIKIPEDIA-t.html?pagewanted=4&t&_r=1 All the News That’s Fit to Print Out by Jonathan Dee Published: July 1, 2007

[2]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm Wikipedia survives research test

[3]http://www.infopackets.com/channels/en/windows/gazette/2007/20070302_wikipedia_post_leads_to_defamation_suit.htm Wikipedia post leads to defamation by John Emerson Published: March 2, 2007

The Wiki Phenomenon by Johannes Schwall found at http://www.schwall.de/dl/20030828_the_wiki_way.pdf