Wikipedia Hits 300,000 Articles 507
Raul654 writes "Today Wikipedia reached the 300,000 article mark. Wikipedia is a 3-year-old non-profit project to build an encyclopedia using WikiWiki software. All text is licensed under the GFDL. It has everything that a traditional encyclopedia would, but also many things that would never get written about, such as Crushing by elephant and the GNU/Linux naming controversy. For size comparisons, the English Wikipedia has 90.1 million words across 300,000 articles, compared to Britannica's 55 million words across 85,000 articles. (All the languages combined together reach 790,000 articles.) For much of the first half of 2004, Wikipedia's growth has outstripped server capacity - however, the shortage of PHP/MySQL developers is probably the biggest long term problem facing the project. Slashdot had previously reported when Wikipedia reached the 200,000 mark."
Size doesn't matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but Britannica's 85,000 articles are credible and verified for accuracy, while some of Wikipedia's content should be questionned.
Wikipedia is still my favorite surfing destination to kill time.
Difference between Wikipedia and journalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikipedia, from that standpoint, is at the opposite end of the spectrum from traditional, commercial journalism. Its authors have all the time in the world to get things right, check facts, correct bad wording, improve clarity. The quality of the entries is generally astounding. And if anything is wrong with an entry, we readers can become writers and correct it ourselves! Very nice. Thanks, fellow Wikipedia contributors!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:5, Insightful)
I do also question Britannica's content as it was written by people years ago... here are some examples I can not check myself: Letters to Eb [zerbaijan.com]
On a happy note: Wikipedia allows you to correct "wrong" artikles... has anyone tried this with Britannica? (use pencil, that atleast can be rubbed out by the librarian)
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Britannica Errors [wikipedia.org]
Re:Celebration! (Score:3, Insightful)
The topic is somewhat misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no doubt about that the English edition of wikipedia (which is the largest one by a huge margin) has reached 300K articles yesterday as the result of a great collaborative effort.
However, Wikipedia reached 300K articles a while ago and the text itself is correct to take not that all languages put together are now around 800K more or less.
Most communication is done in English, sure but I consider the fact that wikipedia is an international, multilingual project much higher than this single number.
We might see a point in the future where other languages might catch up regarding the size (or quality) of the English one. I would not be surprised to see a language like Hindi or Mandarin gaining speed sooner or later.
Re:Big Deal! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that the Wikipedia is the single most remarkable book ever to emerge from the Internet. Though, given the way it's written, it can only be expected to contain much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate...
Neutral Viewpoint (Score:2, Insightful)
But... for anything else, it is of limited value. Just look at the discussions for the entries. They are loaded with talk of "neutral viewpoint". WTF, does this mean?
So if one contributer feels 2+2=4
and another feels 2+2=6
So then according to the "neutral viewpoint" on the issue, the entry should be 2+2=5. "Neutral viewpoint" is just meaningless jargon, what matters is being accurate, knowledgeable and correct, not establishing some phantom neutrality.
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:4, Insightful)
>>Wikipedia's articles can be (and some are) checked over by hundreds and theoretically an infinite number of people.
Can be, yes. But are they? And do the people checking them over actually have the knowledge to do so properly? At least with Britannica I can be fairly confident that the article was written by an expert in the field. With Wikipedia it may well have been written by some guy with spare time on his hands, enthusiasm, but not much knowledge. Or worse, it may have been written by an expert and then "corrected" by Jo Schmo.
The problem with Wikipedia as a knowledge resource is that by definition it will always gravitate towards reflecting the majority view of what is correct. Popular myths will always win out over unpopular truths.
Compare Wikipedia with open-source software, for example. For a well-run OSS project, anyone can submit changes but they will be properly vetted and reviewd and only put on public release if approved. But with Wikipedia, anyone can make a change and have it reflected immediately. Without a proper system of review, it can never be anything more than a collection of popularly-held views on well-known topics and the opinions of a few nonrepresentative individuals on esoteric ones.
Re:Goverment Funding (Score:5, Insightful)
Keeping this kind of site up isn't so expensive. Many of us web people are having quite a good salaries in IT or other science/tech jobs. Lets keep on donating!
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Neutral Viewpoint (Score:4, Insightful)
NPOV is about preserving access to the truth in the face of forces that would distort it in favour of their own opinions. I don't think any would disagree that 2+2=4. However, you might see people disagree over, say, [[2001 presidential election]]. Or [[abortion]]. Or whatever. NPOV is about making sure the facts get set out and one side's opinions are not skewing the picture. More difficult than it sounds.
Re:Congrats! (Score:5, Insightful)
Every piece of communication is biased, but I would worry much less in the Wikipedia than in a traditional closed encyclopedia for a couple of reasons:
In other words, many authors make for more balanced articles, the same way that many eyes make for more robust software.
There is also a large core of volunteer editors who copyedit new submissions and remove vandalism -- yesterday, some of my new articles were edited (up to professional standards) within minutes of my posting them, and then improved with additional links and information.
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:3, Insightful)
but the logic doesn't work, scrutiny by people who don't know jack doesn't really do good(in that kind of environment mis-information and urban legends thrive). just check slashdot, totally inaccurate crap gets modded up routinely because it 'seems' right. an article would need checking by just one or two guys who know their stuff, not a million monkeys.
One thing I've missed with Wikipedia... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Because it's always annoying to link to some article there, only to bring a hoard of trolls down on them. Yes, the page is reverted fast as well but there's nothing like trying to make a serious link only to have it replaced by goatse ASCII art.
I don't mean that should be used for long-term links. But it'd be very nice to be able to link to a "good" version of a page in say, a slashdot comment valid for a couple hours. For one, you can put it in a static page cache, reducing load in case of slashdotting-like crowds following it.
It is also a better experience for those following the link to read, and you're one step away from the current version (which is unlikely to have changed in that short timespan) should you wish to edit/add to it, without making the current page attractive to trolls.
Hell, you could even make these links "expire" if you want, redirecting to the current version instead. That way, you don't have links pointing to age-old versions. Just give it a reasonable timeframe and it'll be a much more attractive link target for articles in "serious" publications as well. Just my 0.02 NOK.
Kjella
funny thing is ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Many of my searches on google would end up there but I never payed much attention to the site itself, since i was focusing on the subject i was looking for...
good to know that Wikipedia has helped me before even though i never actually asked for its help in particular, this shows how efficient it really is since many of its resources are available through other search engines.
John Edwards and wikipedia (Score:2, Insightful)
Their FAQ [wikipedia.org] is very thorough as well, and has some great resources for editing/creating pages and stubs.
Re:Goverment Funding (Score:2, Insightful)
But, you can't stop paying taxes if you don't like where your money goes. That is a major difference and the result is politics. Yes, that dirty thing where different groups try to bend the whole collective where they want.
Once the option for political pressure is set free, it rarely can be hold back anymore. Then you'd see the content of wikipedia affected by the likes of political corrects, anti-abortionists, rifle-assiciationists etc.
BTW: I'm not an American (as you probably guess of my horrible English) and I don't like to see things I use and like taken to the control of a government which I can't affect even by voting.
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:3, Insightful)
That is true. It is true even more so with content found on the Internet.
Re:Congrats! (Score:4, Insightful)
I happen to disagree with that assumption. I think that there are a many subjects regarding which the vast majority of people are not just ignorant, but hold false beliefs as true.
Re:Random page (Score:2, Insightful)
IMO, that's a bit irresponsible. I'm pretty sure you don't read 100% of those articles and knowing that they're having problems with their servers, one should attempt to stress them as little as possible.
Rather than doing that, you should have an easily accesible bookmark. What I do is to have my browser to launch a static html page with my most visited and favorite sites. Some middle-button clicks on them and I have them all opened in different tabs.
Also, instead of going directly to the wikipedia homepage to do a search, I use google (from my googlebar [mozdev.org], of course):
whatever_i_want site:wikipedia.org
and that does a good job.
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wikipedia as a new mode of knowledge (Score:5, Insightful)
Thus an evolving, ever changing encyclopedia may better reflect reality than one which presents you with a static view of what some editor happened to think was the prevailing view at a specific instance in time possibly years ago.
You might be better off trusting a source that is constantly edited and where you have complete access to the discussions and every single revision so you can see how and why it has changed over time, and get a better picture of what should be questioned.
Re:You are the answer... (Score:3, Insightful)
People use encyclopedias so they can look up accurate information. They don't want to be forced into the role of reviewer and editor.
Re:Random page (Score:2, Insightful)
Bah. If they didn't want people to randomly look at through articles, they wouldn't PROVIDE you with a CGI that points you to a random article.
Of course they want to provide that functionality in their website. Another thing is abusing the system by polling their server every time I open a new browser window. In my case, I do that around 100 times a day, so it would be unnecesarily uncourteous.
Here's what the Wikipedia culture is like (Score:0, Insightful)
This is one of the discussion pages. Here's some of the highlights:
This guy is suffering from angst about unfair the Wikipedia has an article about one kidnapped 'media darling' but not on the other thousands across the land. Why a Wiki article about Elizabeth Smart and not about the 10,000s of others of recovered abductions each year?
Here's a guy is so sensitive, he makes me nauseaus: I think the photo of Elizabeth should be removed. She did not ask to be a celebrity. Let her go back into privacy and live her life away from media blitzes
This is quite funny. The article was named "Elizabeth Smart (Kidnap Victim) in order to disambiguate it. He renamed it "Elizabeth Smart (Media Sensation). They argued about it for weeks, and ended up having to vote on the title. Here's is rational: I've gone ahead and parted these articles out as above, although I'm still not sure about the title; any suggestions appreciated. (I thought of "Elizabeth Ann Smart" but that's not really what she's known by; I thought of "Elizabeth Smart (kidnap victim)" but was hesitant to label her as a "victim."
This guy has a problem with 'victim' re "kidnap victim" - it could be argued that we don't know for sure whether she was a victim or not - she may have made an informed decision to hang out with a couple of homeless guys - the two are still only "alleged" abductors, after all. Perhaps "(missing person)" would be more neutral?
Mr. Sensitive here: Elizabeth is but 16 years old. As a matter of respect, I feel we should remove her picture from this article. I realize her family has placed Elizabeth's face into the media spotlight, but I feel we should still respect that she is a minor
Then, they had a poll on the name of the page. Here is what one of the SYSOPS (?!) had to say about the results: Also I'm going to repoll the title issue, since the current one is silly, and I happened to be out when the above poll apparently took place.
So there you have it. Wikipedia is a good work, but knucklheads like these are SWARMING at that place. You thought