Wikipedia went online on this day in 2001; Know more about free internet encyclopedia

Wikipedia, which is a free internet-based encyclopaedia and which operates under an open-source management style, was started today, i.e., January 15 in 2001. Wikipedia gets its name from the word ‘wiki’, a type of collaborative website from the Hawaiian word meaning "quick", and the word encyclopaedia. It was started by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, who were originally involved with a project called ‘Nupedia’, which was a free encyclopaedia whose articles were written by experts. 

The website is overseen by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation. It uses collaborative software known as 'wiki' that facilitates the creation and development of articles. It is one of the most-visited sites on the Internet, even though some highly publicised problems have called attention to its editorial process. 

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Back in 2001, Wikipedia was launched as a feature of Nupedia.com, but, following objections from the advisory board, it was relaunched as an independent Web site a few days later. In its first year alone the website expanded to some 20,000articles in 18 languages, including French, German, Polish, Dutch, Hebrew, Chinese and Esperanto. In 2003, Nupedia was then terminated and its articles also moved into Wikipedia. 

In the following years, the English-language version of the internet encyclopaedia had more than one million articles, and by the time of its 10th anniversary, it had surpassed 3.5 million. However, it is worth noting that while the encyclopaedia continued to expand at a rate of millions of words per month, the number of new articles created each year gradually decrease. In response to this, the website then began to focus its expansion efforts on the non-English versions, which by 2011 numbered more than 250. 

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‘The use of knowledge in society’ 

In a recent blogpost, Wikipedia informed that since beginning in 2001, the free access information site has exemplified the idea that people could collaborate together and build a robust knowledge portal with volunteers who share their knowledge, the community organizers who host convenings and new editors, donors, developers who make sure that Wikipedia is fast and accessible for the readers. Today Wikipedia has over 50 million articles in 300 languages. It is very popular around the world and has an estimated 15 billion readers.

Annually, the website attracts nearly 250,000 writers worldwide, who contribute to the site’s content each month. Wikipedia hosts 55 million articles and 6.2 million individual content pages in the English language with 20 billion page views per month and nearly 100 million edits. As a free content, non-profit institution, the website thrives on Friedrich Hayek’s concept of “The Use of Knowledge In Society.”

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