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By: Mike Brady

Wikipedia

The Birth of wikipediaIn 2001, together with Larry Sanger and others, Jimmy Wales helped launch Wikipedia, a free, open content encyclopedia which enjoyed rapid growth and popularity. Wales is historically cited as a co-founder of Wikipedia, though he has disputed the "co-" designation in declaring himself the sole founder.

While moderating an online discussion group devoted to the philosophy of Objectivism in the early 1990s, Wales had encountered Larry Sanger, a sceptic of the philosophy. In March 2000, Nupedia a peer-reviewed, open-content encyclopedia, was launched. The intent behind Nupedia was to have expert-written entries on a variety of topics, and to sell advertising alongside the entries in order to make profit.

Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales born August 7 or August 8, 1966 is an American Internet entrepreneur and a co-founder and promoter of Wikipedia.

Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, United States. He attended The Randolph School and a university-preparatory school, and then earned bachelor's and master's degrees in finance. While in graduate school, he taught at two universities. the peer-reviewed encyclopedia Nupedia (2000–2003) and its successor, Wikipedia.

Larry Sanger

Larry Sanger

Lawrence Mark "Larry" Sanger born July 16, 1968 is an American philosopher, co-founder of Wikipedia, and the founder of Citizendium. He grew up in Anchorage, Alaska

From an early age he has been interested in philosophy. Sanger received a B.A. in philosophy from Reed College in 1991 and a Ph.D. in philosophy from The Ohio State University. Most of his philosophical work has focused on epistemology, the theory of knowledge.

Does Wikipedia make any money?

Wikipedia is run by The Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. It doesn't make a profit, but it does need to raise money, primarily to buy new servers and keep the site running. Wikimedia relies mostly on public donations, made at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund…

Most of the donations come during set fundraising periods, which happen three or four times a year.

Wikimedia has also received a small number of grants and corporate sponsorships, but has no advertising on Wikipedia itself. See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bene

At first wikipedia was seen as a joke. A

website that lets the common person add

information it will never work. Or will it?

What other sites do Wikimedia entail

CommonsFree media repository

WikinewsFree-content news

WiktionaryDictionary and thesaurus

WikiquoteCollection of quotations

WikibooksFree textbooks and manuals

WikisourceFree-content library

WikispeciesDirectory of species

WikiversityFree learning materials and activities

Meta-WikiWikimedia project coordination

Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other projects:

Their goals The Wikimedia Foundation's stated goal is to develop and maintain open content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge

The Wikimedia Foundation falls under section 501 of the US Internal Revenue Code as a public charity. The foundation's by-laws declare a statement of purpose of collecting and developing educational content and to disseminate it effectively and globally

So how many people use Wikipedia?The number I like to talk about is the number of very active editors -- those that do the bulk of the work. As of October, there were about 1,850 for the English version of Wikipedia, and 4,573 worldwide. –Jimmy Wales

We don't know how many unique users visit the site because we're lame and don't keep track of it -- we don't sell advertising, so we don't have to. But we get about 2.5 billion page views per month. –Jimmy Wales

Can you trust the information

The encyclopedia is designed to be self-policing, allowing the public to weigh in and correct inaccuracies. But Wikipedia is awash in controversy. The imbroglio was touched off by an anonymously written biography entry that linked former USA Today Editor John Seigenthaler Sr. with the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. the Seigenthaler entry "slipped through the cracks," says Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder and president of Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia. The site is taking steps to prevent a recurrence, he says. Those include barring unregistered users from creating new pages. For the other majority of information it is accurate. -DECEMBER 14, 2005 Newsmaker Q&ABy Burt Helm

Why did I choose WikipediaAsking a Mass Communications student why he did a project on Wikipedia is like asking a farmerwhy he fertilizes his soil. Mass Communication is basically about information and the mediums that it is purveyed. So the reason why I chose possible the most in-depth encyclopedia known to man (even though it has its faults) is pretty obvious Wikipedia is one of the top ten viewed websites on the internet, which is becoming the most used medium in society. If I wanted to learn almost anything about this universe the first place I would look would be Wikipedia. Of course you can’t believe everything you read its not all true but much of it is and knowledge is power.