If you search web to get some information, which site will you trust most? Which site will appear in the first page in almost all searches? No doubt, the encyclopedia with the name Wikipedia! Through this column let me give a brief summary on this free encyclopedia which is the most popular website among millions of readers who love to search net to get information about something they need. According to recent reports, 400 million people all over the world use Wikipedia every month. Thus the figures indicate that 35% of internet users depend on Wikipedia to gather information.

Story behind Wikipedia

Richard Stallman – the preacher of free software put forward a suggestion to start a free online encyclopedia which gives right to any online user to write on any subject he likes. This idea was put forward in the year 1999. Two Americans, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger got attracted to the idea of free online encyclopedia and they started this project on 2001 January 15. They gave options for free editing of Wikipedia too. Very soon Wikipedia conquered the whole world and hearts of billions within a short period – just a Jupiter year!

The first wiki site using s/w, ‘Wiki wiki web’ was established by Ward Cunningham who gave the name ‘wiki’ to his website with literal meaning ‘fastest’ in Hawaiian language. As the name indicates, it spreads information all over the world within a fraction of second.

Who is the owner of Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is not a private project; hence it doesn’t belong to any organization. But its functions are governed by Wikimedia Foundation – an international organization. But the content of the website is not at all governed by this organization. Corrections and editing solely depend on end users whose functions are done using the s/w ‘media wiki’.

You can write for Wikipedia

You can write on any topic and get published in Wikipedia worldwide. Yet you may doubt how it will become an encyclopedia. Within moments you start writing an article in Wikipedia, users from all over the world start editing those contents. The basic idea of Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia that anyone can read, edit and correct mistakes at any time. Every user begins to add information along with citations. Some add images while a few others correct grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. Thus, after a lot of corrections by people all over the world, it becomes a perfect page which gathers the best information it can. The persons who write articles for Wikipedia – Wikipedians see it as a service free of cash credits. That makes Wikipedia a special site.

Article Posted By : Sandhya Rani  On April 16, 2013lView All Articles

Yes, I believe Wikipedia more than any site. I use it for all references

Article Source :

http://www.veethi.com/articles/a-brief-note-on-wikipedia-article-2005.htm

Keywords :
Wikipedia , wikipedians , free editing in wikipedia