Free to use and free to edit, Wikipedia is growing fast. Now its founder has announced a series of new projects, writes Sean Dodson

Thursday August 11, 2005
The Guardian

In less than five years, what started out as a small side project with a budget of a few thousand pounds has grown into one of the web's greatest success stories. Wikipedia, the open, editable encyclopedia, and its sister projects have gone from absolutely nothing to 22m entries in less than half a decade. In doing so, Wikipedia - the centrepiece of the Wikimedia empire - has become the most detailed encyclopedia in history. And its breathtaking pace has yet to show any sign of slowing.

As an online knowledge database, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org) has one significant advantage over its expert, professional predecessors: anyone is free to edit it. Equally, anybody is free to delete entries or add new ones. The system works by using editable web pages known as wikis (hence the name), which let ordinary users make changes as they see fit. And, in handing this power to the people, Wikipedia has become more than just a hobby - for some it is almost a religion.

Guardian Unlimited | Online | Worldwide Wikimania

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take me
::: to the top :::
::: to the lab-archives :::
::: to the :::nostress::: homepage :::
::: to the :::nostress::: archives :::
::: to the pics :::