{"id":5001,"date":"2011-01-15T20:00:58","date_gmt":"2011-01-16T01:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/blog\/?p=5001"},"modified":"2022-03-19T17:14:53","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T21:14:53","slug":"happy-b-day-wikipedia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/happy-b-day-wikipedia\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy B-Day Wikipedia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"Happy B-Day Wikipedia alignleft wp-image-5021 size-full\" style=\"border: 0pt none; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 3px;\" title=\"Birthday_cake_fun\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rbach.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Birthday_cake_fun.png?resize=64%2C64&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Happy B-Day Wikipedia\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wikipedia.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wikipedia<\/a> is 10 years today. The \u201cmultilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project,\u201d was launched on January 15, 2001. <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The New York Times<\/a><\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20210614213328\/https:\/\/bits.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/01\/13\/wikipedia-marks-10-years-of-edit-it-yourself\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">says<\/a> Wikipedia will celebrate its 10th anniversary with conferences and parties across the globe, including in New York, Boston, and San Francisco, organized by its community of users.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wikipedia.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-5024 \" style=\"border: 0pt none; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 3px;\" title=\"Wikipedia-logo\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rbach.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Wikipedia-logo.png?resize=97%2C97&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"97\" height=\"97\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rbach.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Wikipedia-logo.png?w=200&amp;ssl=1 200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/rbach.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/Wikipedia-logo.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 97px) 100vw, 97px\" \/><\/a>An early example of crowd-sourcing, allowing regular people to shape the content of the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia went live with no fanfare in 2001. There were doubts whether people would contribute or if the information they submitted would be reliable. 10 years later, Wikipedia, is an important source of information for millions of topics according to the <em><a title=\"NYSE: NYT\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/finance?q=NYSE:NYT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"googlefinance noopener noreferrer\">NYT<\/a><\/em>. Although it has suffered its share of inaccuracies and hoaxes, Wikipedia remains among the Internet\u2019s most visited sites.<\/p>\n<p>The percentage of all American adults who use Wikipedia to look for information has increased from 25% in February 2007 to 42% in May 2010. This translates to 53% of adult internet users <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20140208221455\/http:\/\/www.pewinternet.org:80\/Reports\/2011\/Wikipedia.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">according<\/a> to the <a href=\"http:\/\/pewinternet.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Pew Internet<\/em><\/a> report. <em>Pew<\/em> says that using Wikipedia is more popular than sending instant messages (done by 47% of internet users) and the <em>NYT<\/em> says Wikipedia is more popular than <a title=\"eBay\" href=\"http:\/\/ebay.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage noopener noreferrer\">eBay<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Sue Gardner\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sue_Gardner\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Sue Gardner<\/a>, executive director of the <a href=\"http:\/\/wikimediafoundation.org\/wiki\/Home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wikimedia Foundation<\/a>, the nonprofit organization that oversees Wikipedia, told the <em>NYT<\/em>, \u201cWikipedia is modest. It isn\u2019t a beautiful site. It looks a little awkward \u2014 sometimes the writing is a little bit awkward.\u201d But she added that people still have \u201ca deep and abiding affection for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wikipedia is working to improve the site. Among the initiatives the <em>NYT<\/em> points to are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Opening its first overseas office in India<\/li>\n<li>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.physorg.com\/news\/2010-11-uc-berkeley-students-wikipedia-credibility.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">partnership with 16 universities<\/a> to have professors assign students to write about public policy,<\/li>\n<li>Increasing the number of experts who contribute, and<\/li>\n<li>Recruiting museums, which could offer better images for the site.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Wikipedia\u2019s plan is to make it easier to add new articles and photos to the site. Tweaks to the underlying software are intended to streamline the service, although <a title=\"Jimmy Wales\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jimmy_Wales\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener wikipedia noreferrer\">Jimmy Wales<\/a> founded Wikipedia told the <em>NYT<\/em> the site would never become flashy. \u201cWe are not going to become Facebook, we are not going to become <a title=\"MySpace\" href=\"https:\/\/myspace.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage noopener noreferrer\">MySpace<\/a> or <a title=\"YouTube\" href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage noopener noreferrer\">YouTube<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you use Wikipedia? Does Wikipedia need to become more like Facebook?<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><a title=\"Ralph Bach\" href=\"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/new-resume\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ralph Bach<\/a>\u00a0has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his\u00a0<a title=\"Bach Seat\" href=\"https:\/\/rbach.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bach Seat<\/a> about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on <a class=\"broken_link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/rb48334\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">LinkedIn<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ralph.bach.14\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rbach48334\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter<\/a>. Email the Bach Seat\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:\/\/bach.seat@gmail.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wikipedia is 10 years today. The \u201cmultilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project,\u201d was launched on January 15, 2001<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[295],"tags":[3045,2350,512,307],"class_list":["post-5001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-networking","tag-3045","tag-crowdsource","tag-open-source","tag-wikipedia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5001"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126192,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5001\/revisions\/126192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}