Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that is collaboratively written and edited by volunteers. It contains over 4 million articles in English and over 25,000 new articles are added each month. Contributors are self-selected volunteers and the average contributor is a 22 year old male. While Wikipedia aims to be a reliable source of information, students should not directly cite it in research papers and should check sources and information on the site.

1. Wikipedia Basics

5. What is Wikipedia?
• Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia, written
collaboratively by the people who use it.
• Wikipedia represents a shift in methods of
gathering and exchanging information from the
authority of so-called experts to communal
knowledge building.
• Yes, but is it accurate? Here’s what Wikipedia
says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikip
edia

6. Factoids (at 7am EDT, Nov 5, 2014)
• Founded 2001 by Jimmy Wales
• Constructed in wiki software
• 4,639,705 articles in English
• 34,161,631 pages
• 23, 023,380 users
• 22 languages
• About 25,000 new articles created each
month

7. Who writes?
• Self-selected volunteers
• number of editors with named accounts is
currently 23,024,186
• Everyone is able to read Wikipedia. Everyone
may freely edit.

8. Contributor demographics
Based on a survey of 22 language editions in 231
countries.
• four approximately equal age-groups: under 18;
18-22; 22-30;30-85.
• Average contributor is male, 22.5 years old
• 87% are men and 13% women.
• About 23% of contributors have completed
degree-level education, 26% are undergraduates
and 45% have secondary education or less.

9. Gender gap
• There is a gender gap in Wikipedia and they
admit it and encourage discussion and
change.
• Wikipedian’ editor took on website’s gender
gap
• http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/wikipedian
-editor-took-wikipedias-gender-gap/

10. Who monitors?
• Administrators—also volunteers—selected on
the basis of their work on Wikipedia writing,
creating, etcetera monitor content
• Bureaucrats—can work on user accounts
• Stewards—next level up
• Various privileges given to volunteers on
individual bases.

11. History/historians and wikipedia
• Editathons for GLAMs (Galleries, libraries,
archives, and museums)
• Wikipedian-in-residence
• Resource:Museum Welcomes Wikipedia
Editors (Patricia Cohen, The New York Times,
July 26, 2013)

12. What’s a Wiki?
• A wiki is a web application, a content
management system, that allows people to
collaborate to create, add, modify, or delete
content on a website.
• It is flexibly structured according to how
collaborators add pages and content.
• The organizational structure of contributors
usually has little hierarchy and is flexible.

13. Wikipedia Miscellany
• Wikis have their own
markup:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Wi
ki_markup#Section_headings
• Wikipedia content is monitored by robots and
by people:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Qualit
y_control
• Edits and versions are transparent

14. So, can I use Wikipedia for my paper?
• Founder, Jimmy Wales, “For God’s sake, you’re
in college. Don’t cite the encyclopedia!”
• But what are the pros and cons?