Wikipedia Turns Seven

Academics hate it, regular people love it. Whichever side of the fence you sit on, there’s no denying the success of Wikipedia, the online, open source encyclopedia that is celebrating its seventh birthday.

 

It’s consistently among the top 10 online destinations, and now has over nine million pages translated into 250 different languages, according to Vnunet.

"In a relatively short time, Wikipedia has become one of the world's most successful collaboratively written websites," said Florence Devouard, chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees."We have struck a chord with tens of thousands of volunteers worldwide, all of whom share our dream of empowering citizens worldwide to share in the sum of all human knowledge.”

 

However, not everyone loves Wikipedia. Teachers and academics have found it a source of frustration as the major go-to source of information for students, many of whom accept everything they read there as gospel.

 

But the open source nature of Wikipedia means that anyone can add to an entry, leading to facts that are simply wrong, and its general accuracy has been called into question several times, although volunteer editors do try to monitor entries.

 

There have also been recent scandals over politicians or their staffs changing entries to present themselves in more favorable lights.

 

One thing that can’t be denied, however, is the success of Wikipedia, and at seven it’s looking ahead to the next five years.

 

"The next five years are going to bring many never-seen-before web-based initiatives geared towards this goal," predicted Devouard.