Wikipédia

Wikipédia (delivery or) is a project of Encyclopédie in line Universel it and Multilingue. It is in the course of collaborative drafting on Internet with technology Wiki. Wikipédia has as a principle of offering a Contenu free, neutral and verifiable.

History

Nupédia project

Wikipédia is resulting from Nupédia, project of Encyclopédie free in line founded in March 2000 by Jimmy Wales and supported by the company Bomis (whose Jimmy Wales is the majority Actionnaire), which took part in the financial montage of the project and which engaged full-time Larry Sanger, under editor association. The Nupédia encyclopedia functioning with a scientific committee, its progression appeared slow and, in January 2001, because of the frustration caused by this slowness of progression, Larry Sanger proposed the creation of a Wiki in order to increase the speed of development of the articles. This idea to apply the format wiki to work out an encyclopedia germinated following a conversation that Larry Sanger had with the programmer Ben Kovitz, who explained to him the concept of the Wikiwiki at the time of a meal with San Diego, the morning of January 2nd, 2001. Larry Sanger then proposed in Jimmy Wales to combine the potential of the format wiki to the installation of a more flexible encyclopedia, which gave place to the creation of the Wikipédia encyclopedia.

The participation of Larry Sanger in the creation of the encyclopedia (its statute of cofounder) is called into question by Jimmy Wales, which brings fine 2005 in many articles in the anglophone press, like to humorous images on the subject.

Wikipédia project

Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, Wikipédia saw the day in English the January 15th 2001. The Wikipédia in French is officially founded the March 23rd 2001. It is the first not-English version of Wikipedia, followed by the versions in German and a Catalan, then approximately 250 languages of which approximately 170 are active in 2007.

As from this moment, Larry Sanger worked parallel to the encyclopedia Nupedia and with the Wikipédia encyclopedia for which it took part in the development of the majority of the operating rules. Following the suppression in February 2002 of the budget of Bomis allocated with the remuneration of its work for Nupedia and Wikipédia, Larry Sanger officially resigned on March 1st 2002 of its title of editor as a chief of Nupedia and its functions of organizer as a chief of Wikipédia (see its letter). During the year following its departure, Nupedia ceased its activities because of the slowness of its progression. Nupedia was definitively closed the September 26th 2003 while Wikipédia, it, continued its expansion.

Consequently, the Wikipédia project operated by Consensus, using the rules and recommendations adapted during time by the contributors. The June 20th 2003, the Foundation Wikimedia, http://wikimediafoundation.org, was created to finance the technical support with the various projects of Wikipédia. The general payments of the Foundation Wikimédia were established in January 2004.

Other forms of diffusion of Wikipédia

The realization of a version of Wikipédia in English language on paper, CD-ROM or DVD was proposed in August 2003 by Jimmy Wales.

On the other hand, Wikipédia in German language is sold on CD-ROM since the second six-month period 2004. The symbolic system number of the 10 000e CD-ROM sold was crossed in April 2005. A diffusion in the form of DVD is also ensured since spring 2005. Always for Wikipédia in German language, of the “wikireaders” were diffused. These files on paper medium gather articles of Wikipédia relative to a given topic.

In April 2007 is published by Linterweb, a French company, a compilation of approximately 2000 articles on CD.

The moulinWiki project initiated by IESC-Geekcorps-Mali, offers an initial French version really including all French-speaking Wikipédia: 404.903 articles, joined together on a disc ISO 554 MBs.

Various software also makes it possible to transform the contents of Wikipédia in the form of consultable files on Personal assistants.

The search for average techniques and economic allowing to make available information from Wikipédia by other ways that Internet, is related to the project of the broadest possible diffusion of knowledge. The project of distribution on paper is intended to the people in particular not having the means of being connected to the Web.

Nature of the Wikipédia project

Objectives of the Wikipédia project

As the first line of its banner page indicates it, Wikipédia has as a slogan: “The project of freely distributable encyclopedia that each one can improve”. This project is described by its cofounder Jimmy Wales like “an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of best possible quality to each person on the ground in her native tongue”. Thus, Jimmy Wales proposed as objective that Wikipédia can reach a level of quality at least equivalent to that of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

On the other hand, the purpose of Wikipédia is not to present new information. As for the traditional encyclopedias, its ambition is limited to expose already established and recognized knowledge. Personal or original work does not have their place in Wikipédia.

Characteristics of Wikipédia

“Wikipédia” is a Mot-valise conceived starting from “Wiki”, a Management system of contents of Web site which allows the modification of the contents via a Navigateur Web, and root “pedia” of the word English in encyclopedia , for “Encyclopédie”.

The Wikipédia project aims at being encyclopedic, i.e. to reflect in a way as exhaustive as possible the unit of the human knowledge. Wikipédia is thus not a Dictionnaire, a Discussion forum or a Annuaire Web; it is besides by a series of negative criteria that the encyclopedic character of an article is defined. The project is Universel, by treating all the fields of the Connaissance, including the Popular culture, Multilingue This concept of Contenu free rises from that of Free software, formulated before Wikipédia by the Free Software Foundation . It also means that each one is free to write what he wants in his own copy of the encyclopedia. On the other hand, each site which lodges a copy of Wikipédia has its own leading policy; in wikipedia.org in particular, the edition is subject to many rules. Juridically, the freedom of contents is granted by free licenses, mainly the free License of documentation GNU and the licenses Creative Commons.

The online version is carried out collaborativement on Internet, thanks to the system of the wikis. A wiki allows the creation and the modification of the pages of a Web site by all the authorized visitors. Wikipédia was the first encyclopedia general practitioner to open, thanks to this system, the edition of its articles to all the Net surfers. There are a constant monitoring, but not system of validation by experts; also the encyclopedia is the object of many criticisms as for the exactitude and the verifiability of its contents.

On the level of the contents, the encyclopedia wants to be respectful “neutrality from point of view”, defined by Jimmy Wales like the fact of to describe the debate rather than to take part in it . As far as possible, any contribution to Wikipédia must take care not to take party in a argued discussion. The neutrality from point of view consists in presenting the ideas and the facts in a way independent of the prejudices and opinions ideological, cultural, religious, identity, philosophical, etc in order to satisfy the detractors as well as the partisans from a particular point of view and avoiding polemic very. Of course, it is difficult to manage in all the cases an agreement. On Wikipédia, the writing rules aim at being appropriate to the rational people, even if those are not always of the same opinion. The policy of neutrality of Wikipédia stipulates that one must evoke all the facets of a discussed question, and never in any way of stating nor to insinuate that one or the other from the points of view is a priori the good. The neutrality from point of view however does not imply a levelling representation of all the opinions. Wikipédia will grant obviously more place to the most spread opinions, in particular in the specialists, and best supported, than with those of minority groups.

In addition, of many other projects of Encyclopédie exist (or already existed) on Internet. Some, such as the in Stanford Encyclopedia off Philosophy or late the Nupedia, adopted a traditional leading policy, with for example only one author by article. Others, such as Susning, and l'es [[Free Enciclopedia]] are, following the example Wikipédia, wikis in which the articles are written by many collaborators without formal process of revision.

According to the site Alexa, Wikipédia forms part in 2006 of the 15 most visited sites World Wide Web. The same year, the number of articles exceeded the 6 million, of which more: 1620000 in Wikipédia in English, more: 550000 in Wikipédia in German and more: 450000 in Wikipédia in French.

Cultural filiations

By its objectives and its operation, the Wikipédia project falls under a series of cultural filiations:

the spirit of the Lights, favorable to the dissemination of knowledge, whose model is the Encyclopédie or reasoned Dictionary of sciences, arts and the trades of Denis Diderot and Jean d' Alembert ;
the concept of the Copyleft, invented by Gift Hopkins and popularized by Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation, by which an author authorizes any user to copy, modify and distribute his work, but in the same conditions of use, including in the modified or extended versions;
practice of the Groupware on Internet, developed in particular in the data processing specialists by the followers of the Free software;
the Leave-to make like model of Organization, which implies an equal right of participation for all, without regard to the age, competence or the origin, at the same time as a minimum of rules, which can be been unaware of besides if they harm work;
the contribution of the Social sciences to the recognition and the analysis of the social influences and cognitive skews to work in any work of transcription of knowledge, from where adoption of the principle of Neutrality from point of view .

Criticisms with regard to Wikipédia

Anonymity of the contributors

The Anonymat of the majority of the contributors one of principal criticisms is addressed to the principle of operation of Wikipédia. Thus, Guillaume Lecointre, professor with the national Natural history museum of natural history to Paris, written in connection with Wikipédia: “The identification of the signatory belongs to the scientific information, since it makes it possible to turn over to the sources for any checking and stepping”, and “It is better a bad signed text, rather than an average text not signed. The ultralibéraux ones and the autoproclamés “anarchists” of the free encyclopedias challenge that intellectuals can have as a task to deliver knowledge free. Knowledge for which they have an high degree of expertise. That is called the researchers paid by the State. ”

The apparent lack of responsibility for the authors and bibliographical references compared with other encyclopedias, appears favoured by the anonymity of the majority of the contributors. Following the discovery on Wikipédia of the article relating to it, the journalist Daniel Schneidermann expresses his reaction thus: Initially “, that made funny. Then, that freezes a little. That freezes, because this text is anonymous. I do not know who wrote that. I do not know who chose, in the thousand public acts which compose my career, this handle of facts and words, rather than another” and “But each one of your sentences, Mister (or Madam) it (it) anonymous biographer, seemingly purely informative, is however a masked leading article. Each one of your choices (length, brevity, or absence of such or such episode) is… a choice, precisely. To tell, it is to choose an account, among thousand possible. ”

Absence of filtering of the editors and committee of validation

The absence of Filtering of the editors according to their competences, and more generally of committee of validation.

For example, during nearly 10 months, an article on a mysterious named island Porchesia attracted the curiosity of many readers, until the day when an administrator discovered that the island in question had never existed, and removed this text. The article is however readable on the site Answers.com .

In a more general way, the opening to all of the contents of Wikipédia present of the risks related on the veracity of these contents which are not systematically checked, on the traditional distinction between producers and consuming information, and to the absence of Médiateur between the two. Thus, the journalist Daniel Schneidermann questions in connection with the articles of Wikipédia: Who thus works in the shade with the drafting of the final versions? Which higher authority will arbitrate? Mysteries. Perhaps in the impossible role of body of reference, the successor of the World will be called Wikipédia. But it is not certain that the democracy gains with the exchange.

The absence of filtering a priori and filtering unguaranteed a posteriori also induces the risk to see Secte S or extremists to use Wikipédia to make Propagande, or many geniuses autoproclamés to disseminate eccentric information. Daniel Schneidermann worries with the teachers the use of Wikipédia after the reading of the article devoted to the Maréchal Pétain (in its version of the time). The terms employed are the following: The tools of the Wiki type can allow the groupware and support teaching steps of quality. It is not the same for French Wikipédia (sic) which too often serves as the interests éthiquement irreconcilable with the School of the Republic , and The problem, it is that Wikipédia is not unfortunately any more one advisable tool for the teachers. The project, strong sympathetic nerve at the beginning, serves as the interests which cause interrogations. As long as clearness will not be made on the operation of Wikipédia and the household in his articles, we disadvise to the teachers using it with the pupils .

Neutrality from point of view and research of the consensus

The Neutrality from point of view ( to describe the debate rather than to take part in it , even if it means to tolerate unfounded speeches on subjects concerned with the Science, or the Proselytism for Sect S for example.

An error is to believe that neutrality is a criterion impossible to circumvent or first of Wikipédia, since it is the relevance which is described like such in the pages Wikipédia :

“Another principle founder is that an article must be relevant, and thus that the points of view presented must be relevant. ”

Thus the relevance compared to the neutrality (which can even appear marginal) is first, i.e. the knowledge of the experts, in opposition to the various points of view of the not-experts:

“For example in an article of history, it is the opinion of the historians, with the competence recognized on the subject which must be exposed. Neutrality comes afterwards: when the historians discuss certain points, Wikipédia should not take party for one or the other point. The opinions of associations of victims, the governments, the political parties… will have for example only one completely marginal relevance in this type of article. ”

Vandalism

The Vandalisme is practiced by a great number of people who exploit the open nature of Wikipédia to degrade the contents of it, generally in an anonymous way. The acts of vandalism seem perceived like a play by part of their authors. More rarely of the inopportune modifications are used to test the reactivity of the contributors, thus for example, on October 17th, 2005, during the emission on line the Large Newspaper on Canal+, the Journaliste ARIANE Massenet inserted errors in the article devoted to into Elvis Presley. Or as in July 2007 when Science-Po Paris students put Wikipedia to the test (). This practice is strongly discouraged.

Re-use and mention

Information coming from Wikipédia is also used in university work, books, conferences and legal affairs. The Web site of the Canadian Parlement refers to the article of Wikipédia on the Homosexual marriages (the anglophone version) in the section “bonds related” of its list “complementary reading” of the Loi on the civil wedding. The contents of the encyclopedia are more and more used as source by organizations like the American Federal courts and the Worldwide organization of the intellectual property, although is mainly to support accurate information rather than to make a decisive choice at the time of a business. Wikipédia is also used as source in the medium of the Journalisme

In July 2007, Wikipédia was the subject of documentary one half an hour duration on the radio station Radio operator BBC 4 which explained why with the knowledge and the increasing use of Wikipédia, the number of references in the popular culture is such as the name made party of some names of the 21e century which are so familiar that it is not necessary to explain them. Among these references, some parody nature opening of Wikipédia, with characters who modify the articles of the project of online encyclopedia even degrade them. In particular, the humorist Stephen Colbert parodied or refers to Wikipédia of many times in his emission The Colbert Report and even invented the term " wikiality " (“wikiality”). Web sites as Uncyclopedia (Désencyclopédie in its French-speaking version) were also launched with an aim of parodying Wikipédia. The principal page in English of this site affirms that it is about a “ content-free encyclopedia that anyone edge edict ” (an encyclopedia without-contents that everyone can change) by making a word game on the expression " free content" (which can result in Contenu free).

Extent of the Wikipédia project

There exist approximately 200 editions of Wikipédia located by language, and among them a hundred are active.

The following list indicates the languages more than cash 100.000 articles to October 13rd 2007.

English (2.046.381)
German (651.634)
French (568.984), to see Wikipédia in French
Polish (432.378)
Japanese (423.617)
Dutchwoman (370.616)
Italian (358.833)
Portuguese (309.272)
Spanish (287.621)
Swedish (255.217)
Russian (207.771)
Chinese (142.272)
Norwegian (135.264)
Finnish (135.219)

For the whole of the editions of Wikipédia, the total of the articles rises with more than 8 million.

Consult also : meta: List off language Wikipedias available for a complete listing supplements.

The Wikipédia project cash does not relate to only the languages a very great number of speakers, of great diffusion, official or attached to a country, nor the only living languages. Thus, of the encyclopedias are written in the languages Corsican, occitane, Breton, Slovak, Basque, Catalan, Hungarian, Latin, in Esperanto, or simplified English.

Technical sides

Principle of the wikis

Waiters

The success growing of Wikipédia requires the use of a great number of waiters which function all with a Operating system GNU/Linux:

184 machines are located in Florida,
3 close to Paris (which are not used any more),
26 with Amsterdam,
23 in the Korean site of lodging of Yahoo!.

The waiters are organized in three layers:

of the machines provided with masks Squid, awaits requests for pages and images,
of the machines provided with waiters Apache prepare the pages with the request, according to the data present in the database,
a database Master and databases slaves store the data.

Several sites (as Ganglia) make it possible to consult various information on the operation of the waiters as the load of the processors, the occupied memory.

For more precise details: to see detailed presentation of the architecture and the statute of the French waiters or, for a more up to date talk, English .

Organization of information

All the pages of Wikipédia are initially gathered in different spaces from names (Assistance, Image, Modèle, Spécial, Utilisateur, etc).
the pages are also classified by category, according to an arborescent hierarchisation and set of themes (Country of Europe, Italy, Ville of Italy, etc).
They moreover are connected the ones to the others by internal Hyperlien S .
Certains hyperlinks can also refer in the corresponding pages of the others linguistic versions of Wikipédia and even in the pages of others wikis (like the Wiktionnaire).
Enfin of the external hyperlinks can refer to other Web sites, although it is not the principal goal of the encyclopedia.

Rewards

Wikipédia gained two major rewards in May 2004. The first reward was Nica d' Or for the digital communities, which was decreed in Wikipédia by Prix Ars Electronica. This reward was accompanied by: 10000 € and of an invitation to Festival PAE Cyberarts in Austria later in the year. The second price was Webby Award for the category “community”. Wikipédia was also nominated in the category “Better Practices”. In September 2004, the version Japan ease of Wikipédia received the Web Creation Award on behalf of the Association of the Japanese advertizing executives. This reward, normally given to real people for great contributions on the Japanese Web, was accepted by a contributor of long time of the Japanese project.

Useful bonds

Internal bonds

Wikipédia in French

Articles on online encyclopedias

Citizendium
Inserted
Encyclopædia Britannica
Nationalencyklopedin

External bonds

Assessment of criticisms against Wikipédia - Blog of the independent journalist Francis Pisani, lodged by Internet site of the newspaper Le Monde .
multilingual Banner page of principal Wikipédia
Wikipédia seen by Inserted
Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence: Founding Fathers, Patriots, Mr. T. Honored - Pastiche making fun of the unreliability of information in Wikipédia.
Wikirage.com, list of most published the articles
Files
Press review on French-speaking Wikipédia
Presentation for the press of Wikipédia

The other Wikimedia projects

Commons, multi-media Database
Wiktionnaire, universal Dictionary
Wikibooks, Together of teaching texts
Wikisource, universal Library
Wikiquote, Collection of quotations
Wikispecies, Inventory of alive the
Wikinews, free Current events
Wikiversity, the open teaching Community

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