Wikipedia[SUP]
[note 3][/SUP] is a
multilingual free
online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of
volunteers, known as
Wikipedians, through
open collaboration and using a
wiki-based editing system called
MediaWiki. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read
reference work in history.[SUP]
[3][/SUP] It is consistently one of the 10
most popular websitesranked by
Similarweb and formerly
Alexa; as of 2023, Wikipedia was ranked the 5th most popular site in the world.[SUP]
[4][/SUP] It is hosted by the
Wikimedia Foundation, an
American non-profit organizationfunded mainly through donations.
Wikipedia was launched by
Jimmy Wales and
Larry Sanger on January 15, 2001. Sanger coined its name as a
blend of
wiki and
encyclopedia. Wales was influenced by the "
spontaneous order" ideas associated with
Friedrich Hayek and the
Austrian School of economics after being exposed to these ideas by the
libertarian economist
Mark Thornton.[SUP]
[5][/SUP]Initially available only in
English, versions in other languages were quickly developed. Its combined editions comprise more than 60 million articles, attracting around 2 billion unique device visits per month and more than 15 million edits per month (about 5.7 edits per second on average) as of January 2023.[SUP]
[6][/SUP][SUP]
[7][/SUP] In 2006,
Time magazine stated that the policy of allowing anyone to edit had made Wikipedia the "biggest (and perhaps best) encyclopedia in the world".[SUP]
[8][/SUP]
Wikipedia has been praised for its enablement of the
democratization of knowledge, extent of coverage, unique structure, culture, and reduced degree of commercial bias.
It has been criticized for exhibiting
systemic bias, particularly
gender bias against women and alleged
ideological bias.[SUP]
[9][/SUP][SUP]
[10][/SUP] The
reliability of Wikipedia was frequently criticized in the 2000s, but has improved over time, as Wikipedia has been generally praised in the late 2010s and early 2020s.[SUP]
[3][/SUP][SUP]
[9][/SUP][SUP]
[11][/SUP] The website's coverage of controversial topics such as
American politics and major events like the
COVID-19 pandemic and the
Russian invasion of Ukraine has received substantial media attention.[SUP]
[12][/SUP][SUP]
[13][/SUP][SUP]
[14][/SUP] It has been
censored by world governments, ranging from specific pages to the entire site.[SUP]
[15][/SUP][SUP]
[16][/SUP] On 3 April 2018,
Facebook and
YouTube announced that they would help users detect
fake news by suggesting
fact-checking linksto related Wikipedia articles.[SUP]
[17][/SUP][SUP]
[18][/SUP] Articles on
breaking news are often accessed as a source of frequently updated information about those events.[SUP]
[19][/SUP][SUP]
[20][/SUP]