5 facts you didn't know about Wikipedia

1. Supposed to be written by experts

Wikipedia is an offshoot of the Nupedia project - Internet encyclopedia developed by Internet businessman Jimmy Wales and philosopher Larry Sanger. Nupedia is said to be a free encyclopedia. Where the experts publish their articles.

However, the Wikipedia review process is slow, with fewer than 24 articles per year. Hence, the philosopher Sanger offered to create a version where anyone could contribute without editorial supervision.

'My original idea was that Wikipedia was created as part of Nupedia, it was a way for people to contribute to the flow of knowledge that could be incorporated into Nupedia' - philosopher Sanger shared.

Released on January 15, 2001, Wikipedia has gleamed like a star. There were 6,000 articles published just 6 months after inception and increased to 13,000 4 months later. At the beginning of 2017, 40 million articles in 293 languages ​​were published on Wikipedia.

2. Some people claim that Jimmy Wales wrote all of it on Wikipedia

5 facts you didn't know about Wikipedia Picture 1

In 2006, Mr. Wales appeared on the quiz show 'Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me!' of NPR and shares that he usually receives 2 types of emails. One kind asked him to fix what's on Wikipedia. Kind of also what people think about Wikipedia, they think the site has something to do with Wicca - a kind of heresy. The truth is that everything on Wikipedia is not entirely written by him.

3. Not everything is mentioned on the website

It seems hard to believe that there are topics that are not covered by Wikipedia, but still exist in our world. One study found that only about 15.6% of biographies are about women on Wikipedia. Most of the topics appearing on this website are written and operated by men.

4. It's more accurate than you might think

For years, university professors and journalists have told students and their staff that Wikipedia should not be relied upon as anyone can edit and write on it. However, a 2014 study found that the drug information on this website was 99.7% accurate compared to the information in the textbook. Another 2005 study looked at a number of articles on different topics and found Wikipedia to be as accurate as Britannica's Encyclopedia.

5. Mobile devices harm Wikipedia

Many reports indicate that the number of people editing Wikipedia has decreased over the years. Previously, the reason for this was due to office culture. However, now it's due to smartphones.

It's hard to write and edit long and complicated text on small screens. Besides, the editing interface for the mobile version of Wikipedia is not really useful either. Whether this editorial decline will make Wikipedia unreliable is still under consideration.

Jessica Tanner

Update 15 April 2021