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."
Congrats! (Score:3, Informative)
Random page (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Randompage [wikipedia.org]
This shows a random Wikipedia page each time I open a new browser window. Often you can read about very interesting things.
Re:Random page (Score:3)
I bookmarked that random page you posted and I learned a new drinking game [wikipedia.org]!!!
Re:Random page (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks
Re:Congrats! (Score:5, Funny)
Aparantly, the moderators disagree with you and mods you informative. Or rather, they agree with you and mod you... Or, they... agree, I mean disagree... with... or... AAAARGH! I sprained my brain!
Re:Congrats! (Score:5, Informative)
Here are some very informative links (no surprises, I promise
Slashdot [wikipedia.org]
First posts and other trolls [wikipedia.org]
Hall of fame [wikipedia.org]
The coming of Evil [wikipedia.org]
A History lesson [wikipedia.org]
Slash and Burn [wikipedia.org]
On the AC [wikipedia.org]
More than just a discussion board [wikipedia.org]
Our fearless leader [wikipedia.org]
Re:Congrats! (Score:3, Funny)
And...? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And...? (Score:3, Funny)
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: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:Congrats! (Score:3, Interesting)
I only took Jihad as an example because it is a fairly charged word which may easily provoke emotional response. My concern with Wikipedia is that the definitions of words about which entrants have strong feelings will not be entirely balanced.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Congrats! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Congrats! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Congrats! (Score:3, Interesting)
Ironically, this genius probably thinks that he's making a statement for tolerance, open-mindedness and understanding.
Anyway.
A few years ago, one of the Wikipedia heads posted a rather pompous writeup to Kuro5hin, asking in the faux-question style we frequently see in Ask Slashdots, "How can the Wikipedia system work? Why isn't it full of crap?" In fact, at the time it was almost entirely full of cra
Celebration! (Score:3, Funny)
Whohoooo! Let's celebrate by slashdotting the site!
Re:Celebration! (Score:5, Informative)
And for good reason. (disclaimer: I am a Wikipedia contributor.) Also recommend Wikitravel [wikitravel.org].
Re:Celebration! (Score:3, Funny)
Wow - I did not know that. So in the future I should cry "Whohooo - let's Wiki slashdot"?
Then again, I'm not sure I trust a gigant spyware manufacturer like Alexa - even if gathering people's surfing habits _IS_ their business...
Re: Celebration! (Score:3, Funny)
> > actually Wikipedia is busier than slashdot, according to Alexa.
> Wow - I did not know that. So in the future I should cry "Whohooo - let's Wiki slashdot"?
I think the verb is "wikipee".
Re:Celebration! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Celebration! (Score:3, Informative)
Funding? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Funding? (Score:5, Informative)
Funding - situation, what we spent the money on. (Score:5, Informative)
Longer term we're working on how to scale the databases (which of the many options to use). We're using three at the moment, one primary writes, one for slow queries and one for backup, the latter two both being replicating children. For data see:
For what we did with the previous donations from the start of the year see:
Our growth is pretty simple: when we're fast we grow to use all the capacity until we're slow again. Still no sign of us hitting the limit on demand, so it appears that we'd have no problem at all serving more people if we had another $50,000-100,000 to spend - there are ballpark growth estimates suggesting that we'd end up doing that by the end of the year if we could stay fast until then.
If anyone wants to donate, as one of the hardware people, I'd rather see monthly recurring payments of a smaller amount than a lump sum. It makes it easier for me to try to predict what we can buy based on some moderate predictability of available funds.
One common question: can we use commodity PCs as web servers? We'd like to but fitting them in the colo isn't currently practical. We're going for dual CPU 1U boxes as the next most cost-effective option for subsequent web server purchases. The Jan purchase was in part about getting enough boxes so we'd be able to switch them around to cover for failures, so those were cheaper per box 1U boxes. We've enough of those now, so it's CPU power/density time.
If anyone has any suggestions please feel free to drop comments on the talk page - we've a dozen or so people on the technical team and more input is always welcome, since we're after the most effective options we can find! Jamesday (author of much of the April planning document, one of the technical team members)
mod parent up (Score:5, Informative)
The best ways to help, without donating are:
Every article you contribute also adds to the wealth
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
How to name numbers [wikipedia.org]
Re:Slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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:3, Insightful)
That is true. It is true even more so with content found on the Internet.
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:4, Interesting)
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:Size doesn't matters (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone with a doctorate dealing with genomic evolution in microorganisms, I have to say that at least the scientific articles in Wikipedia seem to be reasonably balanced and competently written -- and reasonably up-to-date as well.
Quite often in commercial encyclopedias the articles are quite biased and out-of-date because they are written by a single, well known old guy in the appropriate field, and as Max Planck said, a new idea in science doesn't generally win by converting its opponents -- rather the old opponents die and the new scientific generation is comfortable with the new idea from the start...
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:3, Funny)
err...
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, as a Canadian I am deeply interested in the War of 1812 and its effects on the formation of my country. The latest Wikipedia article on the subject contains a much more balanced perspective on the war than most other 'summary' accounts, and represents new thinking/interpretation of the war that is coming into vogue over the past decade or so.
At this point I have a much greater degree of respect for the Wikipedia than i do for 'dead tree' accounts. The oraganic, evolving nature of the content is a much more representative to the nature of intellectual discourse, debate, and socratic thinking IMHO.
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:5, Insightful)
Britannica Errors [wikipedia.org]
Wikipedia as a new mode of knowledge (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Size doesn't matters (Score:5, Informative)
Verified by whom? As all generalisations, this one is also not true
When it comes to some controversial topics, Britannica gives usually only one theory, presented as a god-given truth. Sometimes it isn't even the most agreed upon theory among scientists of the relevant field.
I haven't used B. for a long time, since it started to charge for access. Last time I did, it showed ``Arian inviasion'' as the only theory of indo-european language apearing in India.
Wikipedia on the other hand shows other theories, even some very unorthodox ones from Indian nationalists. But it clearly states that ``Arian inviasion'' isn't highly regarded at least since the fifties.
Same goes for ``balto-slavic theory'', breaking of Enigma before WW2 etc
Go, look for yourself.
Robert
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:5, Interesting)
Wikipedia scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two ways: first, it is slightly cheaper, and second, it has the words 'Welcome to Wikipedia' printed in large friendly letters on the cover.
Moreover, where Britannica will give a biochemical description of alcohol, Wikipedia will tell you what the best drink in existence is, where the best ones are mixed, how much you can expect to pay and what voluntary organisations exist to help you rehabilitate afterwards. Oh, and even how to make one yourself.
Seriously, though: take a clamshell PDA, a wireless connection and set Wikipedia to be your homepage, and write 'Don't Panic' on the cover. Another SF fantasy becomes real...
Re:Size doesn't matters (Score:5, Informative)
In the 1950-ties, some got the weird idea that epicycles were added on epicycles throughout the middle ages. This was based on some very bad early research that historians of 1910 may have been aware of, but did not find worthy of elaborate comment.
Britannica was the publication that really took this to its extreme, at some point they wrote that 40-80 epicycles were added per planet! Not only is it horrendously wrong, it is completely absurd: Nobody in the middle ages had neither observational capacity nor the mathematical methods to deal with anything like that.
Britannica is largely to blame that this myth could get into university curriculums world-wide as an example of "ad hoc hypothesis gone wrong".
If you have a good research library available look for articles by Owen Gingerich on Ptolemy for details on this. The facts is that Ptolemy's system was hardly modified at all.
It was moderated in the 1980-ties, and the most horrendous claims were removed. Around 1995, I still found the articles lacking, as the gist of the articles were that the addition of epicycles was a good example of "ad hoc hypothesis gone wrong", and I exchanged a few e-mails with the editors about it.
It has been a few years since I last checked these articles, but last time I checked, they still did not reflect general consensus among contemporary historians.
So, it is very much reason to question articles you read in Britannica as well, not only Wikipedia. The bottom line is that critical reading of any source is a vital survival skill.
Hm, I'm wondering what Wikipedia has to say about this... Unfortunately, I don't have any time to kill. What am I doing on /.? ;-)
There is verification. (Score:4, Informative)
Are you joking?
First of all, people may not be generally smart but usually people are smart, very smart, at least one thing and usually it is because it is a topic they are interested in. Such people navigate to their topic of interest on Wikipedia and can can see easily if there are any factual problems. Second, there is nothing illegal about cross referencing a wikipedia article with other sources or encyclopedias to *verify* the facts - The only no-no is copying material directly. Third, there are many 'professionals', professors and other university graduates, who also contribute. There are probably more voulinteering for wikipedia then the total number working at other encyclopedias.
Plus if you think there are any factual errors you raise the point in the article discussion page, and within hours the issue probably has been reviewed by dozens of people. Believe me, from experience, if someone puts in nonsense or nonfactual information into an article people immediately engage discussion on the point. People, including me
Goverment Funding (Score:5, Interesting)
If I ever get the time I'd love to compile an easy to use CD/DVD containing an entire copy of the current WikiPedia. Then you could make copies and give them away free at Libraries and such.
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!
Re:Goverment Funding (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, they generally don't, although they might try anyway.
You'd be surprised how little say government sometimes has. Cases involving the National Endowment of the Arts are the classic example of this. The controversy usually works like this:
1. They give a grant to an artist, a grant that (contrary to popular belief) does not and can not specify much of anything about the work to be produced
2. The artist produces so
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wikipedia Interview (Score:3, Informative)
here is the announcement [gnu.org] and here's the interview [slashdot.org].
Well, It could be time for an update on what has happened within the last three years.
Goatse (Score:5, Funny)
May his memory live on.
Re:Goatse (Score:3, Informative)
Don't be shy, post the link. [wikipedia.org]
stack of 60's era encylopedia americana (Score:5, Funny)
Even earlier (Score:3, Funny)
And of course, dont forget... (Score:5, Interesting)
The real advantage is to Wikipedia is.... (Score:3, Funny)
The Parent Poster (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Re:Difference between Wikipedia and journalism (Score:3, Funny)
> 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!
And for the most part it works, but unfortunately - just like with the rest of the internet - there are plenty of 45540135 who ca
consider donating... (Score:5, Informative)
http://wikimediafoundation.org/fundraising [wikimediafoundation.org]
(tax deductable too!)
Copyright (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Copyright (Score:5, Informative)
I personally was responsible for pointing out an entry that was copied wholesale from an author's (copyrighted) web page containing electronic versions of his work. I did so after I noticed some of the language was kind of suspect, and Googling some of the phrases found the copyrighted work.
With the massive amounts of traffic Wikipedia gets, and as a result more people like me reading the pages, this problem tends to fix itself rather quickly. The same goes for fears of massive vandalism -- it gets fixed very soon.
Watch the slashdot effect live (Score:3, Interesting)
Wikipedia needs donations [wikimediafoundation.org] to stay alive.
Exactly how big is this thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Exactly how big is this thing? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Exactly how big is this thing? (Score:5, Informative)
So, the full encylopedia would currently fit on a CD, but only the most current versions of each page. Bear in mind that's just the database dump though. If you wanted to pre-render it to HTML you'd probably need a lot more space, so it'd be simpler to just ship MySQL and a decent local web server on the CD.
Click! Click! Click! (Score:5, Funny)
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
donation-based wikipedia (Score:4, Informative)
Please don't forget that Wikipedia is totally advertisement free and free information. In order to make this possible, you're donations are greatly needed. Please donate [wikimediafoundation.org] and help to keep this information free and available for all of us.
Wikibooks (Score:5, Interesting)
This project (COSTP/Wikibooks) invites anyone who is expert in World History to contribute. It's an important project because it will prove that a bona fide K-12 textbook *can* be created in open source - and most importantly, gain approval for use by the State Board of education, we would then be able to crack the costly commercial textbook business at the K-12 level.
COSTP has shown that you can have a *printed* textbook come out of open source at a 50% savings over commercial textbooks. California alone spends almost $400M for K-12 textbook in one year. Imagine how much $200M in savings would help California's money-strapped schools. Further, once other states get into the open content idea, many *billions* in savings could be realized.
It's very important that content contributors be willing to maintain strict adherence to the California State Education department Standards. This is the *only* way that a book like this will pass State Board of Education approval. if COSTP can get a few of these in the system, it will eventually open up for alternative histories, and other curriculum areas. Lastly, COSTP is devoted to bringing *printed* textbooks to the K-12 sector, worldwide, by spreading the meme that open content - created by knowledgeable peers, and based on local curriculum standards - can and should be used for basic education
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.
Link like wiki (Score:4, Funny)
Wikipedia keymark (Score:4, Informative)
Er, What about E2? (Score:4, Informative)
A much more enlightened and pleasant place to be.
Oh yes, and we have the EDB [everything2.com].
Re:Er, What about E2? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, Wikipedia has many more features than Everything2.
A much more enlightened place to be? Well, not really. I was an early user of Everything2; while I could be a troll and list a series of reasons why E2 sucks, i'd rather just invite everyone who is interested in both to take the pepsi challenge. Try both.
Re:Er, What about E2? (Score:4, Interesting)
For instance, compare the Everything2 page on Water (I can't link to it, for some reason the site uses HTTP POST for identifying which article you want) to the the wikepedia one [wikipedia.org].
I find the wikipedia article much more clearly structured, more informative, and I think more authoratitive. Although only the Everything2 article contains an ASCII-art rendering of the Kanji character for water.
Re:Er, What about E2? (Score:3, Informative)
memory leak ? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:memory leak ? (Score:4, Interesting)
When sentience arises on the net... (Score:3, Funny)
Filler census information (Score:3, Interesting)
Makes browsing with Random hard when you keep on getting statistics and nothing else on endless lists of towns.
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
Re:One thing I've missed with Wikipedia... (Score:5, Informative)
Love wikipedia... (Score:5, Interesting)
So then I got to thinking, what if instead of using wikis to have a homepage, or an encyclopedia or a text book - a site recording fact - if you had something recording ideas and thoughts.
You know, you come up with ideas for say coding projects, or even just things that should be made and you know you're not going to do anything with them, and you want to let them form into something more with other people. So you go to sites like ShouldExist.org [shouldexist.org] and bandy them around.
But what if you did it as a wiki? And you didn't restrict it to your software todo lists? And what if you could write fiction there and hold debates? And you know, muck about with other people's idea and perhaps form them into something that could happen?
So a few weeks ago, I got hold of Mediawiki [mediawiki.org], the software used by Wikipedia, and setup VagueWare.com [vagueware.com]. And it's starting to work. It's good fun. Open source think tank. A kind of a "Bazaar" in the ESR sense for thoughts and ideas.
So for me, the best thing about wikipedia is not the 300,000 articles, all of them quite good, but it's the software underneath it. It's allowed me and my friends to build a big playpen that anybody can join in with.
So, well done for 300,000 articles, but most of all, thanks for the best wiki software on the planet. My life would be worse off without it.
Wiki, I spam therefore I am (Score:3, Interesting)
We live in the Post Editorial Age whereby any nugglet of infotainment is accepted as truth and fact and no one need rely on fact checkers, editors or referees that ensure that revisionism doesn't take precident over truth. So if I round up 10,000 of my closest net friends and I convince them to agree to say that say something then it pretty much becomes fact.
Eventually the internet will be a weapon for tyranny.
If you're using Mozilla/Firefox... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
wiki = falsehoods? (Score:3, Interesting)
In the Puerto Rico entry it says that Puerto Ricans dont pay federal taxes, that is simply not true. There is no separate federal taxation category for Puerto Ricans. What is true is that income earned in puerto rico by pays no federal taxes.
The entry also says that only 20% of puerto ricans decend from blacks which is a lie. Immigration from europe and slaves brough from africa accounted for almost 100% of the population and it was about 50-50 white and black. The article instead says that 60% of the population can claim amerindian descent. THat is bullshit. the indians in puerto rico were killed in practically less than a generation. that is why they started bringing black slave in the first place.
How do you help them? (Score:3, Interesting)
BTW, I usually hate shit work, but I'm willing to spend some time lending a hand with WikiPedia. I spend all day thinking hard (chip design), and so for this, simply because I have the skill set, I'm willing to do some things thta don't require as much thought.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:DMCA Anyone (Score:5, Informative)
Re:from the GNU/World departement (Score:3, Informative)
I had a quick read of that article and the two sides can be summarised as: GNU/Linux: "Credit where credit is due please" and "Linux is inaccurately applied". Linux: "It's the term commonly used therefore we shouldn't change it". Have to admit Linus' quote did make him appear a right little shit.
Re:Big Deal! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one of the hidden beauty of Wikipedia.
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...
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:Perhaps they should add... (Score:3, Funny)
:-)