Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia Reaches 100,000th Article
An anonymous reader writes "'Wikipedia, a community-built multilingual encyclopedia, is announcing that the English edition of the project has reached a milestone of 100,000 articles in development. In addition, the project itself has celebrated its two-year anniversary on January 15. But not just the English version has grown impressively: More than 37,000 articles are now being worked on in the non-English editions of Wikipedia.' Read the press release for more information or visit the website to enlighten yourself! It's great to see that this interactive project works; at least I don't have to boot into Windows to use Encarta anymore!"
I've spent hours browsing topics on that site, and remain constantly amazed at the depth and breadth of knowledge on it.
For amusement, look up "slashdot" on it. You will find more history and amusement than you remembered ever living through yourself.
It even covers the troll era, with entries on Natalie Portman, grits, whatnot (I dare not type too many examples lest I be lameness filtered).
fifth sigma, inc.
One would think that educational institutions would snatch something like this up in a heartbeat (same goes for the GPL version of education documents and reference material). Or is it that the maturity of the project isnt near what standard university requirements yet is the hold up?
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
Does anyone know how they make sure all the submissions are accurate?
...
from their FAQs
Since anyone can edit any page, why would I give any credence to anything I read here?
We operate on the idea that many eyeballs make all errors shallow. Wikipedia is, self-consciously, an experiment in public collaboration quite unlike any print or online encyclopedia, and therefore it will be difficult to project the results, in terms of their credibility, until the project is farther along. But even then, you'll have to judge the results based on the articles themselves, rather than the credentials of their writers (which is itself often an unreliable way to determine credibility).
Some people think Wikipedia will give Britannica a run for its money. m:Making fun of Britannica.
Some people have plans for peer review or article certification systems to work on top of Wikipedia. We'll be sure to point them out if and when any get up and running.
It states things like "Infarct refers to the artery being plugged or clogged up", where it actually is the death of tissue cause by a lack of oxygen. Things like that restrict it's use severly. I think I'll stick with peer reviewed articles for the moment. Universities tend to have libraries full of them.
Hmmm. I spent quite a few years working on Encarta. Try looking up some typical 8th grade subjects like Walt Whitman.
R efArticle. aspx?refid=761570898
Here's Encarta's article:
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/
vs. the Wikipedia article: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitman%2C_Walt
You decide what you want your 8th grader to use as a reference.
Try The 'Earth Edition' of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, it has a vast array of well-written articles.
The approach they take regarding peer review is interesting. There are two types of guide entry - edited and unedited. The edited guide is a collection of peer reviewed and edited articles, and likely to be more accurate and readable. The unedited guide entries are just anything, really. Could be total nonsense.
Anyway you should check it out, it is a good site and has a much better community aspect than Wikipedia or Everything2. In a sense it is more like Fark or Slashdot, only more friendly.
You're a peer, you reviewed it, you found a problem. Why didn't you correct it?
Chu vi parolas Vikipedion?
But the sheer simplicity of this solution, especially if you are starting from available documentation, should, as I have long advocated, make it useful for a lot more than a GPL Encyclopedia.
Espen
Wikipedia has been "slashdotted", July 26, 2001.
Oops, looks like that one will have to get updated.
The thing that makes Wikipedia a little different is that, once you've consulted other sources and come to your own balanced conclusions, you can edit the article to bring it more in line with accuracy and the project's Neutral Point of View goal/policy.
A malicious or unthinking person could skew it away, but so can you put it back on track.
In addition, as the 'pedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, you're welcome to republish a culled version that includes only 'known good' revisions of articles. There has been some talk of a semi-official project along these lines run by Wikipedia's former editor, Larry Sanger, but it hasn't been put into place yet.
Remember, Wikipedia is still very much under construction; it's only two years old and just getting the hang of walking around. There's no need to rush into driving yet. ;)
Chu vi parolas Vikipedion?
Their page on slashdotting already includes the following:
Wikipedia has been "slashdotted" on July 26, 2001 and January 22, 2003.
Talk about timely information!
If you're interested in publishing a dead-tree edition, we'd love to hear from you. ;)
Chu vi parolas Vikipedion?
Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License, making it proof against the current network provider going out of business or losing interest, and opening its content up to reuse and repurposing. This in itself is, I think, worthwhile; what GNU and Linux provide to the world of operating systems, Wikipedia hopes to provide for the encyclopedia: something that's good enough and not subject to draconian use prevention.
Wikipedia is also a multilingual project, with another 37,000 or so entries in the younger sister projects. I believe this is fairly unique among the field of competitors.
(If you want to talk about duplication of effort, though, see the Enciclopedia Libre, a fork of the Spanish section of Wikipedia which split last year in protest over a since-repudiated proposal to include optional banner ads on the English section of Wikipedia to help offset the costs of operation.)
Chu vi parolas Vikipedion?