Wikipedia FAQ

Wikipedia Trolling: What To Know

As an open-access encyclopedia, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone with internet access. Because of this, the site has attracted a large number of trolls over the years (and no, we’re not talking about the mystical Scandinavian creatures that live in the mountains). Loyal Wikipedia editors are constantly on the lookout for article vandalism.

Here is everything you need to know about trolling on Wikipedia.

What Exactly Does Trolling Mean?

If you have ever heard an old folktale about trolls, you’ll know that trolls are menacing creatures that are generally dangerous and mischievous towards humans. It would be in your best interest to avoid them at all costs, and the same is true for internet trolls.

In the modern day, internet trolls are people who antagonize other internet users by making provocative, controversial, or even downright offensive comments online. They do this in order to elicit an intense emotional response from the person they are trolling. Trolls add nothing to a conversation and are only there to derail it and upset people. At best, it’s a small mischievous prank, and at its worst, trolling can have real negative effects on the victim’s mental health.

Why Do People Troll?

If you are a normal person, you are probably wondering – why would someone go out of their way to upset others online? There are a lot of different reasons for this:

Trolls often hide behind the anonymity of the internet, and will even make fake profiles. People tend to say things they wouldn’t normally say in real life because there are usually no repercussions for them online.
For some reason, they take pleasure in seeing others suffer. This is known as “Schadenfreude“, and we all do this to a small extent. Internet trolls often take this to an extreme degree by seeking “negative social potency“.
These people could exhibit traits such as narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism. They enjoy deceiving, manipulating, and overall being hostile toward other people. They may also have an inflated sense of self or ego.
People who do this may be seeking attention, in whatever form they can get it. It doesn’t matter to them if it’s good or bad attention.
They are generally an anti-social person. Most people think “antisocial” means the same as “introverted”, but this is not the case. People with anti-social behavior are hostile toward others, and it is often easier to do this online than in real life.

How Prevalent Is Trolling?

One of the most iconic and oldest internet memes is of the troll face, an image used to signal that someone is trolling. Internet trolls have been around as long as the internet itself has, and will probably be around forever. Large-scale global events, such as the pandemic, can even exacerbate trolling.

Sadly, about one-quarter of teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 have experienced trolling or cyberbullying. 41% of American adults have also experienced harassment online. Trolls can be found on every corner of the internet. As the internet becomes more and more a part of our daily lives, cyberbullying can have real-world effects.

Examples Of Trolling & How To Spot One

Knowing when someone is trolling in the first place can be difficult. Here are some ways you can spot a troll:

Their comments are making you angry and upset
They exaggerate or make unbelievable claims
The account they are using is new, or they are using a fake or extremely common name
There is no identifiable information on their profile
They leave hurtful comments on other people’s pages
They talk down to you or call you names
They do not stay on topic, or their argument doesn’t make sense
They are relentless, often arguing the same topic over and over – they may also post a lot on social media
There are a lot of grammatical errors in their comments and posts

What Can You Do About Trolls?

If these insufferable trolls are ruining your life, there are things you can do to deal with them.

Do not give in to them. Their only goal is to get a reaction from you, so do not give it to them. Block and delete if necessary.
Unless you are an influencer or a business account, make your social media accounts private. That way, only people you know in real life can see your content.
Most platforms allow you to report people for online harassment. If someone is trolling you, you can always report them.
If you absolutely can’t ignore it, reply in a calm and professional way. Take a deep breath and try not to get heated.
Try responding with kindness or humor – this will usually disarm them and they will look for other people to troll.
If you run some kind of forum, a group page, or are hosting a live stream, make sure you have moderators to kick out the trolls.
If you are a Wikipedia editor and you come across trolling or vandalism, you can go into the article and revert the troll’s edits.

Trolling On Wikipedia

Wikipedia trolls, also known as vandals, will edit Wikipedia articles with inflammatory or false information in bad faith – whether it’s for humorous or malicious purposes. Articles of celebrities are common targets for vandalism because they garner a lot of attention – but animals, places, and events in history are targeted as well.

Wikipedia often will protect pages in order to prevent vandalism. Semi-protection will prevent unregistered Wikipedia users from editing a page. However, this status can’t be applied to all articles. Wikipedia maintains a list of commonly vandalized pages.

Is It Illegal To Mess With A Wikipedia Page?

The nature of Wikipedia is that it is designed to be edited by anyone. So no, it is not illegal in a literal sense to vandalize a Wikipedia page. The police will not come knocking on your door over an internet prank. However, it does violate the site’s policies and you could see yourself getting banned.

How To Report Vandalism On Wikipedia

If you are a casual Wikipedia reader, there isn’t a report button if you see that a page has been trolled or vandalized. It is up to editors to go back and fix Wikipedia vandalism by reverting the edits. However, since anyone is allowed to edit Wikipedia, you would be able to fix the issue yourself if you are up for it.

1. Log in or create an account with Wikipedia

2. Click “View History” on the Wikipedia page in question

3. Find the vandalizing edit and click Undo

4. Alternatively, you can also go to Edit Source and manually take the vandalism out of the article

What Happens If You Troll On Wikipedia

If you troll or vandalize a Wikipedia entry, you could eventually be blocked from editing the site altogether. Even if you don’t have an account, Wikipedia still tracks your IP address, which they will block for persistent vandals.

Users who vandalize Wikipedia pages will be given several warnings before a block is put in place. If you have committed vandalism, you will see a warning template on your user talk page. However, after repeated vandalism, you will be given a final warning before being blocked.

If you want access to editing again, you will need to show that you have learned from your actions and won’t repeat the mistake in the future. It will be hard to convince an administrator of this if you were deliberately trolling Wikipedia.

Wikipedia takes trolling and vandalism seriously, and editors are constantly on the lookout for it. Editors can report active and obvious vandalism to the Wikipedia administrator intervention against vandalism noticeboard.

In Closing: Wikipedia Trolling

The nature of accessibility on Wikipedia often attracts people to troll or vandalize articles. Whether it’s for humor or has bad intentions behind it, it is a fairly common issue on the site. Thankfully, editors are there to make sure that Wikipedia stays vandalism free. If you have more questions about all things related to Wikipedia, browse through our range of articles to find answers.

What To Do If You’ve Been Blocked From Editing Wikipedia

Blocked From Wikipedia, Wikipedia Editing

Whether you are someone who regularly edits Wikipedia or you are still learning the ropes, it can be really disheartening to find that you have been blocked or banned from editing. Wikipedia has several policies about how editors should behave on the site.

what to do if you've been blocked from editing wikipedia WikipediaFAQ

Being blocked or banned is largely at the discretion of other users, so it can be confusing to know why you’ve been blocked or what to do about it. Follow this guide to find out what to do if you have been blocked from editing Wikipedia.

Can You Be Banned From Editing Wikipedia?

Yes, other editors can block or ban you from editing if they find your behavior on the site to be damaging to Wikipedia articles. However, full bans are used in extreme cases. Most of the time you will be blocked for a certain period of time.

Reasons You Can Be Blocked From Editing

Some kind of misunderstanding between you and other editors. Editors will flag bad behavior, and an administrator will decide if a block is necessary.
A case of mistaken identity. If you have a shared IP address with someone else who has been blocked or banned, you may be blocked as well. A common example of this is having a shared IP on a college campus or workplace, and this is easily fixed.
Your account may be flagged if you are using a VPN, otherwise known as an anonymizing proxy or proxy server.
Other editors find that you have a conflict of interest with the subject you are editing and are writing too promotionally.
You either knowingly or unknowingly engaged in Wikipedia vandalism.
Even if you had good intentions while editing, you can still be blocked if your edits are disruptive.
You should always be editing Wikipedia with the intention “to build an encyclopedia“, and you can be blocked if other users find that this isn’t the case.
Spamming articles with too many citations or external links can get you blocked.
You disrespect, harass, or make threats to other users.
Engaging in edit warring with other users on the site. For example, you can not perform more than three reverts on a single page within 24 hours.
You create multiple Wikipedia accounts to either avoid detection or create the illusion of support for your edits. This is known as sockpuppetry and being found guilty of this can result in all accounts being banned.
Not otherwise complying with Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines.

Types Of Blocks & Bans

There are a few different types of blocks and bans that you may encounter depending on the circumstances:

Temporary block for a specified period of time. Typically, a block lasts 24-48 hours, especially if it is your first offense.
Partial blocks can be used to prevent you from editing specific articles, but you will otherwise still be able to edit other pages on Wikipedia.
Topic blocks are broader than partial blocks and will prevent you from making edits to any articles under a general theme, such as weather.
Talk page ban if you have been found to be abusing your talk page. Normally, you would appeal a block using the talk page, but Wikipedia also has an Unblock Ticket Request System which can be used in this case.
Depending on what happened, you may be banned from contacting other users.
Full site bans are used in extreme cases and will completely block you from making changes to any Wikipedia article. Bans can last for a long time and the decision is made by the Arbitration Committee. These are harder to reverse than a normal block and you will need to wait at least six months before attempting to appeal.

What To Keep In Mind

While blocked, you will still be able to view Wikipedia articles.
Do not attempt to log out and edit anonymously or create a new account in order to get around a block. Your IP address has been blocked from editing Wikipedia, not just your username. Attempting to get around the block can lead to a full ban.
Always request an appeal through your blocked account. Do not make a new one to submit an appeal.
If you have been blocked, you should go through your edit history to understand the reasons behind the block and read up on Wikipedia’s guidelines.
Blocks are not a punishment tool – they are simply there to protect Wikipedia pages. If you can demonstrate that you have learned from the block and won’t repeat your mistakes, it is quite likely you will be unblocked.

How To Appeal A Wikipedia Block (Step-By-Step)

1. Read The Block Notice

You may have been blocked from Wikipedia without realizing that you did anything wrong. Anytime you are blocked, you will receive a notice. The notice will give you some information, including:

The username of the blocking admin.
A brief explanation as to why you were blocked.
An expiry date for the block. If the block is indefinite, it will say so.

Depending on how long the block will last, you can always choose to simply wait until it expires. In cases of a short block, administrators are unlikely to bother appealing it, so you might have to wait a day or so.

2. Clarification

If you are confused about why you were blocked, contact the administrator from the block notice or ask any clarifying questions on your talk page. Do this before any attempts to make an appeal – do not ask questions in the appeal itself.

You can contact the administrator through their email or the administrator’s noticeboard.

3. Edit Your Talk Page

As long as your user talk page hasn’t been blocked, you should write your appeal by editing your talk page.

Sign into your Wikipedia account and click “Talk” at the top-right of the page.

Click “New Section”.

Add the subject title and type in the following unblock template:

{{unblock | reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}

You will replace “Your reason here” with an explanation of why you think the block should be reversed.

4. Write Your Appeal

Writing a genuine appeal is the most crucial element to getting your block reversed.

If you believe you have been blocked by mistake (such as having a shared IP address), explain the situation. This will likely be resolved quickly.
Be civil and do not act aggressively or defensively. Having a good attitude about the situation will get you a lot further.
Own up to your mistakes, even if it wasn’t your intention.
Show that you understand the reason why you were blocked, you have learned from the situation, and you will not repeat the mistake again.
Explain why you should be allowed to edit Wikipedia again.

5. What To Do If You Can’t Use Your Talk Page

In some cases, you may have been banned from using your Talk Page. When this happens, you can submit a request using the Unblock Ticket Request System.

Go to the ticket request Wikipedia page and click “Submit an unblock request”.

Click the first option “Appeal my block”. If you have already made an appeal, you can view your appeal by entering the appeal key at the bottom of the page.

Fill out all of the information, including your username or IP address.

You must answer the question “Why should you be unblocked?” Do not go over the 4,000-word limit, as your request will be denied.

6. Wait For Your Request

An administrator will look at your request within a couple of days. If they accept your request, you can edit Wikipedia again as normal. If they deny your request, they will explain the reasons why. Take their advice on board and go through the appeal process again.

In Closing: Wikipedia Blocks

Getting blocked on Wikipedia is frustrating, but it doesn’t mean you will be blocked forever. Follow the steps outlined in this guide and get back to editing articles. Take a look at our other articles and guides to get answers to all of your Wikipedia questions.

Why Did My Wikipedia Edit Get Removed?

Wikipedia Editing, Wikipedia Tips

Making edits to a Wikipedia page can be time-consuming. It is really frustrating when you have gone through the effort only to find that an edit you have made has been removed, and you don’t even know why. Especially as a beginner, the Wikipedia editing process can be confusing and complicated. Read on to find out some of the reasons your content on a Wikipedia page could be getting removed.

Who Updates Wikipedia?

Content on Wikipedia is constantly being updated by users from all over the world, though there is a relatively small number of registered users who regularly update the site.

Steven Pruit has made over five million edits to the English language version of Wikipedia, more than anyone else has ever made. This means that he has made content updates to one-third of all Wikipedia articles, as well as created over 30,000 Wikipedia articles himself.

With so many dedicated users, the information on the site is continuously monitored and updated, or removed. If you make any changes to an article, someone is likely to see it soon. Even unregistered users who come across the page may decide to make edits if they have knowledge about the subject.

Can Wikipedia Ban You From Editing?

If the Wikipedia community, which consists of other editors and administrators, deems your edits to be disruptive, they can decide to restrict your account. There are several different types of bans that could be placed on your account, including a specific article ban or even a full site ban.

This is why it is important to be mindful about making edits when contributing to Wikipedia pages.

Reasons Your Wikipedia Edits Could Be Getting Removed

You need to create an account. Anyone can edit articles without an account, however, other editors prefer to interact with registered Wikipedia users. It’s a good idea to create an account and Wikipedia username to which your content can be attributed.
Improper citations. Citing reliable sources is a key aspect of Wikipedia editing because that is how the site establishes credibility. Citations must be from published sources and not original research.
Biased perspective. You must write articles from a neutral perspective. If your content sounds too promotional or includes extreme views, someone else will remove it.
Conflict of interest. If you are deemed to be too close to the subject, other editors can remove your edits because you are more likely to be biased.
Not meeting notability requirements. If there aren’t enough published sources on the topic, your subject may not be notable enough to have a Wikipedia article at all. In this case, the entire page might get deleted.
Wikipedia vandalism. If you change any content in a malicious manner, other editors will remove it.
You did not provide an edit summary. This is a brief explanation of any changes you made to the content of an article so that other editors can read it. If you don’t provide one, your content is more likely to be removed.

How Can I Restore A Wikipedia Edit?

No, you should not try to restore Wikipedia edits that were removed or reverted back. Of course, this answer is probably not what you want to hear. If you try to restore edits you have previously made, Wikipedia will see this as a content war and could potentially ban your account. In this case, you should use the talk page to discuss the content with other editors, and why your addition was removed.

Closing:

Creating and editing Wikipedia pages is a process that can be frustrating at times. If you have questions about Wikipedia, browse through our other articles to get answers.

Do Wikipedia Editors Get Paid?

Wikipedia Editing, Wikipedia Tips

Having a Wikipedia page can be a beneficial part of your online marketing plan. As one of the most used sites on the internet, it often comes up at the top of search engine results. A Wikipedia article for you or your business can bring you online recognition and drive traffic to other sites.

WikipediaFAQ do wikipedia editors get paid

With that all being said, what are the costs associated with Wikipedia articles? If you want a Wikipedia article, do you have to pay money for an editor? Read on as we take a deep dive into how Wikipedia editors are paid.

Does Wikipedia Pay Editors?

As such a large and popular organization, you would think that Wikipedia would hire paid editors to keep up to date with all of its articles and pages. However, this is not the case due to the structure of the website.

Wikipedia Business Model

Wikipedia is a nonprofit organization under the Wikimedia Foundation that runs on donations and a large team of volunteer editors. People who edit Wikipedia on this volunteer basis do not receive compensation from Wikipedia.

The point of Wikipedia is to be an open-access and open-source encyclopedia that anyone in the world can edit. Every single one of us, including you, reading this, has the ability to contribute to Wikipedia. They don’t hire their own editors because it is supposed to be open to everyone to edit.

Paid Wikipedia Editors

Even though Wikipedia does not pay its editors, individuals and businesses still do hire paid editors. Wikipedia itself does not hire editors, but outside organizations may choose to do so if they want the benefits of having a Wikipedia page.

There are some extra rules that paid editors must follow

They should disclose that they are being paid, as it is a conflict of interest issue.
As with all Wikipedia articles, they must take extra care that their writing style is not promotional of their client in any way.
They may need to use the talk page to make edits to an article for a client to avoid conflict-of-interest issues.

Frequent Questions About Editing On Wikipedia

Does It Cost Money To Edit On Wikipedia?

No, it will never cost you money if you want to make edits yourself to any Wiki pages. Wikipedia is open-source, and the goal is to get people from all over the world to contribute their knowledge to the platform. Wikipedia will never charge you in order to make edits.

You may sometimes see a donation request at the top of a Wikipedia page. The organization runs on donations as a nonprofit, but this is optional, and you do not need to donate in order to make edits.

How Much Does It Cost To Get A Wikipedia Page?

If you want to create a Wikipedia page today on your own, it is absolutely free.

Individuals and businesses may choose to use paid editing services to create and manage their Wikipedia articles. The cost to create a Wikipedia page through a paid writer varies considerably – anywhere from a hundred dollars to a few thousand. Depending on the circumstances, hiring an expert editor can be useful for a number of reasons, including:

A specialized editor will know about all of the intricacies of Wikitext so that you don’t have to learn it.
They will know what mistakes to avoid when it comes to making edits on Wikipedia to ensure an article gets published.
They will be able to tell you if your subject fulfills notability requirements so that you don’t waste time writing your article just to have it rejected.
Editors are familiar with the style in which Wikipedia articles need to be written in.
If needed, they can manage your article over time by making sure no vandalism occurs and updating information as needed.

How Does Wikipedia Get Edited So Fast?

It would be easy to think that Wikipedia editors get paid since Wikipedia is edited so quickly and frequently. The reason for this is the sheer number of volunteers who dedicate their time to fact-checking the website. Anyone can do this, but a little more than 100,000 editors do so regularly.

Since there are so many editors on the site from all around the world, tons of people are constantly making edits to the website and creating new articles. All of these people care about Wikipedia’s goal of collecting the sum of all human knowledge. Most people are making edits because they have a passion for information, not because they are being paid.

Is It True That Anyone Can Edit Wikipedia?

Yes, anyone can edit Wikipedia pages. However, not all articles can be edited. Administrators on Wikipedia are able to restrict the editing of certain articles that they deem to need protection. There are many different levels of protection that a Wikipedia article could potentially have, from basic edit protection to full protection.

Articles may be put in a protected status if they are at a higher risk for vandalism or to avoid an editing war. Many articles are only protected temporarily. If you want to edit a protected article, you can still request edits through the talk page. Administrators will then review the request and either accept the edit or reject it.

When this happens, you will see a lock symbol in the top-left corner of the article.

How Do I Become A Wikipedia Editor?

If you want to start editing on Wikipedia, it is best to set up an account with them. This will give you access to several different benefits and will hide your IP address in favor of a chosen username. Wikipedia also has a lot of resources for you to learn how to edit pages if you are new to it.

Closing

Paid editing on Wikipedia is a huge topic, which can be controversial at times. If you are looking to hire someone to write and maintain your Wikipedia article, make sure you find someone who does so in an ethical manner and knows all of Wikipedia’s policies. Browse through our other articles to find answers to all of your Wikipedia questions.

Is Wikipedia A Reliable Source For Academic Research?

Wikipedia Research, Wikipedia Tips

Wikipedia is one of the most popular and visited sites on the internet. At 18 billion page views each month, Wikipedia is the largest open-source encyclopedia of information that we have. People can find information about all kinds of topics, but is it a reliable source to use for academic research?

WikipediaFAQ how to use wikipedia for academic research

Is Wikipedia Considered Reliable?

The answer to this question is complicated, and it depends on the circumstances. How reliable do you need Wikipedia to be? As an open-source project, Wikipedia makes information much more accessible than ever before, but it may not be suitable for every purpose.

Let’s break down the ways that Wikipedia is and is not reliable.

How Wikipedia Is Reliable

Wikipedia has content guidelines that editors should follow when creating Wikipedia entries and Wikipedia articles that help build Wikipedia’s credibility. These include:

Editors should regularly be fact-checking articles.
Articles must be written from a neutral standpoint, free from bias or conflict of interest.
All information claimed in a Wikipedia article must be verifiable with proper citations.
Editors and article writers should not cite other Wikipedia pages in their articles. All references must come from outside sources.
Wikipedia articles should not be original research. Rather, the writer should cite previously published research.

How Wikipedia Is Not Reliable

However, Wikipedia can also be unreliable for a number of reasons:

As an open source encyclopedia, anyone is able to make edits to Wikipedia pages.
Because anyone can make edits, articles may be subject to certain human biases.
Some articles may be lacking in citations, especially more obscure articles.
Wikipedia can often be subject to vandalism.
Citations on Wikipedia may not reach a standard needed for academic research. In fact, Wikipedia itself says that it is not a reliable source of academic research.

As an academic researcher, the question is not whether Wikipedia is reliable or unreliable in general. Are you looking for an overview of Irish history? Or are you writing a dissertation on the cultural implications of the potato famine?

The real question is: is it reliable enough to support my research and reference in my paper? The answer to that question is a resounding no. However, that doesn’t mean Wikipedia is useless to you.

How to Use Wikipedia for Academic Research

Even though you should avoid citing Wikipedia directly in your academic paper, it still makes a great starting point for research. Wikipedia is fantastic for giving you an overview of a particular topic, as well as leads to begin your research.

Here is a step-by-step guide for using Wikipedia in an academic way:

If you are completely unfamiliar with a topic, enter your search term into Google. Click on the Wikipedia article if there is one.
Read through the article to get familiarized with your topic of choice. Bookmark the Wikipedia page so you can come back to it later if you need to.
If there is a piece of information that you want to know more about, click on the corresponding citation. Not all citations will lead to websites. If the citation leads to a book, for example, you’ll have to purchase or borrow the book.
Evaluate the references based on your college or university guidelines. Good sources include peer-reviewed research papers, journal articles, news reports, primary and secondary sources, scientific articles, etc.
Keep a running list of these references in a document so that you can either cite them in your paper or add them to your bibliography.
Instead of citing Wikipedia, you can simply cite the references that you got from Wikipedia, knowing that you went through and fact-checked all the sources. Do this alongside other research methods.

In Closing:

Wikipedia is a wonderful resource that makes so much information accessible to people all over the world. In general, it is reliable, however, it won’t go as in-depth into topics as you will need to go for academic writing. However, it makes a great starting point. Take a look at our other articles for all of your Wikipedia-based questions.

How Did Wikipedia Start? A Full History

Wikipedia Editing, Wikipedia History

Everyone who uses the internet has read a Wikipedia page at least once in their lives. Wikipedia has played a large part in helping distribute information to people all over the world who wouldn’t otherwise have access to it. Have you ever wondered where it all began?

Let’s take a look at the history of Wikipedia – from its origins over 20 years ago through the present day.

Wikipedia FAQ How Did Wikipedia Start? A Full History

Origins Of Wikipedia

The world’s largest encyclopedia has humble beginnings in the late 1990s. It’s hard to imagine now, but at the time, it was unclear whether Wikipedia would have any success at all. Before we discuss Wikipedia itself, let’s take a look at the foundation that was paved for the world’s largest encyclopedia.

Origin Of Wiki

Understanding where the term ‘Wikipedia’ actually comes from is key to understanding the history of the website itself. Wikipedia was coined as a combination of the words wiki and encyclopedia. Most people will know what an encyclopedia is, but what does ‘wiki’ mean?

The word wiki is the Hawaiian word for quick or fast. Wiki sites use open-source software that allows for collaborative content creation. Wiki software has revolutionized the internet in a number of ways:

Allows users from different places and backgrounds to contribute their knowledge to a website.
People from different parts of the world can come together to work on the same page.
Allows more people to have free access to knowledge.
Decentralization of publishing power.
Allows for more diversity in content creation.
Due to the open-edit structure, information can be constantly updated.

The term ‘wiki’ is not strictly limited to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation. For example, sites such as WikiHow and WikiLeaks are not affiliated at all with Wikipedia – they just also use the same open-source wiki software to generate content on their website.

Years before the creation of Wikipedia, Ward Cunningham created the world’s first wiki-based website. On March 25, 1995, WikiWikiWeb was launched. At the time it was revolutionary as the internet’s first website that could be edited by anyone, not just the site creator.

Who Is The Real Founder Of Wikipedia

Wikipedia was co-founded by philosopher Larry Sanger and entrepreneur Jimmy Wales. Originally, Wales hired Sanger to help create Nupedia, an online encyclopedia that would be written by expert scholars, instead of the general public. Unlike Wikipedia, however, Nupedia lacked accessibility because it wasn’t based on open-source wiki software. The peer-review process for Nupedia was much more structured and extensive, much like professional encyclopedias.

Pretty quickly, they decided to go in a different direction by using wiki software to create a website that could be user edited. This meant anyone could make edits or create new articles without being held back by the more traditional structure of Nupedia, which had a challenging 7-step review process

The first Wikipedia edit was made on 15 January 2001, and the website quickly grew in popularity. The now-defunct Nupedia site went offline in 2003.

Whereas Nupedia was intended to be a profitable project, Wales went in a different direction for Wikipedia. In 2003, he founded the Wikimedia Foundation as a nonprofit organization to fund Wikipedia and its other free knowledge projects.

Larry Sanger left Wikipedia in 2002 and criticizes Wikipedia despite his hand in its creation. He has claimed that the site has a left-leaning bias. Jimmy Wales has tried to position himself as the sole founder of Wikipedia even though Sanger is often cited as a co-founder.

The Evolution Of Wikipedia

Wikipedia has changed dramatically since that first edit was made in 2001. As an open-source website, it is constantly evolving and has improved a lot throughout the years.

Credibility Of Wikipedia

Wikipedia was criticized heavily for being unreliable in the early 2000s but has taken steps since then to improve its credibility. Wikipedia now outlines guidelines for content publishing, which include:

Proper referencing of facts from outside, third-party sources.
Writing in a concise, clear, and specific manner.
Articles must be written from a neutral point of view.
Writers should not edit or create articles where there is a conflict of interest.
Content must pass notability requirements.
Wikipedia editors are encouraged to fact-check articles to ensure accuracy.

Wikipedia Through Time

The Mid To Late 2000s

The mid-2000s marked another pivotal time for Wikipedia. By the end of 2004, the site had expanded to more than 100 different languages with over a million articles.

In June of that year, Wikipedia was blocked for the first time by a foreign government. The Chinese government blocked their citizen’s access to Wikipedia for two weeks during the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. To this day, China’s government still blocks access to Wikipedia, and many other governments attempt to censor Wikipedia as well.

By 2005, the site had become the most popular online encyclopedia in the world when the English Wikipedia reached 750,000 articles. To this day, it is still the largest common knowledge resource that has ever been available in human history.

In the same year, Wikipedia started creating policies to combat vandalism on Wikipedia articles in response to the Seigenthaler Incident. During this incident, a random unidentified user made a hoax edit regarding the journalist’s involvement in the J.F.K assassinations, which went unnoticed for months.

The website continued to grow throughout the decade, reaching 14 million articles by 2009. In that year, the website crashed temporarily due to high traffic after the death of Michael Jackson.

The 2010s

Wikipedia’s growth did not stop in the 2000s. In April of 2010, Wikimedia as a whole reached its 1 billionth edit, just a few months shy of Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary. The English Wikipedia remains the largest version of the site, but growth continues in other languages on the platform as well.

In 2012, Wikipedia took part in a protest against two anti-piracy laws in the United States – the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act. For 24 hours, the English version of the site shut down, as co-founder Jimmy Wales believed these acts threatened free speech.

Justin Knapp won the Golden Wiki award in that same year for making over one million edits to Wikipedia articles. To this day, he still maintains the record for most contributions made to the platform.

In the middle of the decade, artist Michael Mandiberg attempted to print the entire English language version of Wikipedia for his installation Print Wikipedia. He managed to print around one hundred out of the thousands that would be required to print every piece of information.

Throughout the 2010s, the platform continued to expand through all of its language versions. Wikipedia has remained within the top ten most visited websites in the entire world. As a disseminator of information, the platform continues to have a major impact on public discourse and conversations about free speech. It has also positioned itself as a major source of news.

Wikipedia Today

In more recent years, Wikipedia has continued to expand the number of articles hosted on the platform, despite falling to 11th place for online engagement in 2020. During the pandemic, Wikipedia worked with the World Health Organization to combat rampant misinformation about COVID-19.

In 2021, Wikipedia turned 20 years old and fell into 13th place for online engagement. Even still, the site continues to provide massive amounts of free content and knowledge to people across the world. The platform is maintained by mostly anonymous volunteer editors from all around the world. Anyone can still edit Wikipedia, and there are around 100,000 people who make regular contributions.

Wikipedia still runs on a nonprofit model, receiving funding from small donations from readers all over the world. In return, they give people free access to information at an unparalleled level, despite the decline in engagement.

In Closing

Wikipedia is not without its flaws. At the end of the day, the knowledge hosted on Wikipedia is a reflection of our societal priorities and imperfections. However, the historical significance of this platform can not be overstated. There has never been a collection of knowledge so large in all of human history. Our current ability to find information about anything we want at a second’s notice was pioneered, in large part, by Wikipedia. When you want more information on all things Wikipedia, visit Wikipedia FAQ. We are a growing resource for all of the most frequently asked questions about Wikipedia.