Milestone for Wikipedia
2007-09-13 11:58
San Francisco - Wikipedia published its
two-millionth article in the English language version of the
anyone-can-edit encyclopaedia, a symbolic milestone for the
world's largest user-generated web publishing site.
Wikipedia, the sixth most visited network of websites
worldwide behind commercial operators Google, Microsoft, Yahoo,
Time Warner and eBay, is available in 250 languages. Combined,
Wikipedia has published more than eight million articles.
On September 10, an article on El Hormiguero, a popular
Spanish TV show, was created by Wikipedia contributor Zzxc to
become the two millionth article in the English Wikipedia. The
article is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Hormiguero/.
Since the reference project started in 2001, more than
100 000 registered users have made at least 10 edits each to
Wikipedia articles, according to the Wikimedia Foundation, the
non-profit charitable organisation that operates Wikipedia.
The English version of Wikipedia alone has signed up 3.4
million volunteer contributors. The German and French editions
of the Wikipedia, the next two largest sites, each have more
than half a million articles.
Nine other language sites each have more than 100 000
articles. It also offers versions in less common languages
ranging from South Africa's Xhosa language to the hybrid
Esperanto.
Wikipedia articles can be constantly improved upon because
they are based on group-editing "wiki" software. A study this year by the Hewlett Packard Information Dynamics Laboratory found that the best articles on Wikipedia are those that have been edited most frequently, by the largest number of people.
