English language Wikipedia

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items 6,076,518 (as of April 28, 2020)
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On-line January 15, 2001 (currently active)
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Main page of the English language Wikipedia in July 2020

The English language Wikipedia ( English English Wikipedia ) is the edition of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia in English .

The first language version of Wikipedia, founded on January 15, 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger , retained its status as the quantitatively largest language version of all Wikipedias from the start. In December 2012 around 17.2% of all articles could be assigned to the English-language edition. From once more than 50% in 2003, the share gradually declined due to the growth of other language versions of Wikipedia. In summary, the text volume of all English-language Wikipedia articles reached a size of around 10 gigabytes in January 2013  .

The first Wikipedia articles were written during a pioneering period between September 2001 and January 2002.

In addition to the English-language Wikipedia, there is also a Simple-English-Wikipedia , in which the articles are written in Basic English , a simplified form of English with less vocabulary; also a language version in Old English or Anglo-Saxon ( Old English, self-denomination: Ænglisc ).

On November 1, 2015, the English language Wikipedia was the first language version of all Wikipedia to reach the 5 million mark, and on January 23, 2020, it reached the 6 million mark.

Pioneering role

Percentage of articles divided into language families. English is highlighted, the language of 16.76% of all articles (as of March 2013).

As the first and largest language version of Wikipedia, the English-language Wikipedia did pioneering work. For example, many of the conventions, guidelines and features ( functionality ) introduced here were later adopted by other language outputs. Among them are the award of articles as excellent or worth reading (featured articles), the policy of neutral standpoint ( neutral point of view, short NPOV), navigation bars (navigation templates), the Order of short articles (stubs) into subcategories, conflict resolution mechanisms such as mediation and arbitration , a regular campaign to collaborate and improve certain articles (Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive) as well as the marking of unoccupied text passages with the component "[ citation needed ]", which is now well known far beyond the Internet .

Among the features that have been adopted by smaller Wikipedias belong verifiable version history at the German Wikipedia and templates for computer-assisted update the population figures from the Dutch-language Wikipedia .

Even if the English-language Wikipedia contains text, image and audio files as well, many of the images have been moved to the Wikimedia Commons media archive while retaining the name . The English language version also contains image, audio and video files that are subject to fair use , a legal doctrine of the Anglo-American copyright system, and are not permitted on Commons.

Most of the participants in the Wikimedia Foundation , a non-profit organization and sponsor of Wikipedia, as well as developers of the freely available administration software MediaWiki are often users of the English language Wikipedia.

Users and editors

Country of origin of the users who contribute to the English language Wikipedia (2007)
Countries in which the English language Wikipedia is the most used language version of Wikipedia are highlighted in blue (as of November 2011)
Statistics on the English language Wikipedia
(as of the end of May 2019)
User accounts items Files Administrators
36,398,747 5,861,626 883.361 1,174
In April 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation conducted a user-friendliness survey in the English language Wikipedia .

The English language Wikipedia registered the 4,000,000 on April 1, 2007. User account - after just over a year, when at the end of February 2006 the threshold of just one million registered users was exceeded.

A 2008 survey provided basic information on the demographics and motivation of Wikipedia editors.

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The largest Wikipedia language version and the status of English as a world language , the English-language Wikipedia attracts many users and editors (Editors) , whose native language is not English. These users are apparently more likely to look for information in the English language Wikipedia than in the version of their mother tongue, because the English counterpart usually provides more information on general topics. A successful collaboration developed between non-native speakers and users with English as their first language, while the Anglophone speakers are editing the content that was inserted into Wikipedia by non-native speakers.

Arbitration board

The English-language Wikipedia has as the German edition a virtual " arbitration " ( Arbitration Committee, briefly ArbCom), which consists of an elected committee. Binding rules are imposed by the members of the committee in order to settle conflicts between users of the online encyclopedia. The arbitration tribunal was set up by Jimmy Wales on December 4, 2003 to give powers of attorney that otherwise only belonged to him as Wikipedia owner.

Top 25 countries with the greatest participation in Wikipedia. Countries in which English is the majority native language are highlighted in dark green. Countries with English as the predominant second or foreign language are highlighted in light green. Nevertheless, many users from other countries participate in the English language Wikipedia.

In the initial phase, the arbitral tribunal consisted of twelve members, divided into three groups of four members. Since then, the committee has grown gradually to 18 members.

Just like other aspects of the English language Wikipedia, similar imitations of the arbitral tribunal were created in its sister projects. The arbitration tribunal of the German-language Wikipedia was founded in 2007.

Controversy

The English-language Wikipedia is controversial about which variety of the English language should be preferred. The dispute is usually led by supporters of American and British English . Of the users numerous proposals came, they range from standardizing on a single variety to a spin-off ( Fork ) from the English Wikipedia. A style guideline states that "English language Wikipedia does not favor any major national variety" and "an article whose subject is related to a particular English-speaking nation is to be written in the variety that seems appropriate." should therefore consistently be written according to the same spelling and grammar rules . For example, the different spellings of "color" ("color" and "color") cannot appear in the same article at the same time, as they represent American and British English respectively. Furthermore, the guideline stipulates that the national variety in which the article was originally created or which is clearly evident from the history of its creation will remain.

There are similar specifications that affect regional differences in spelling in Chinese (compare Chinese languages ) and Portuguese-language Wikipedia (cf. European and Brazilian Portuguese ). There is also a comparable regulation in the German-language Wikipedia, which accepts the rules of Swiss High German ( e.g. ss instead of ß ) or Austrian spelling (e.g. January instead of January) for articles related to Switzerland and Austria .

The press reported some cases of cyber bullying on the English language Wikipedia. The Glen A. Wilson High School in California Hacienda Heights in 2008 was such a threat just as exposed as the Niles West High School in Skokie , Illinois , where a 14-year-old boy was arrested in 2006 after a threat of violence.

See also

Web links

Wikipedia in English
Commons : English Wikipedia  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Drew Bowling: Download Wikipedia In English - All 9.7GB Of It. (No longer available online.) WebProNews, April 9, 2012, archived from the original on December 28, 2012 ; accessed on December 26, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.webpronews.com
  2. ↑ Wikipedia: Featured articles. English Wikipedia, accessed on December 26, 2012 (English, continuously updated since the first entry on November 14, 2001).
  3. ^ Wikipedia: Neutral point of view. English Wikipedia, accessed on December 26, 2012 (English, continuously updated since the first entry on November 10, 2001).
  4. ↑ Help: Template. Wikimedia Meta-Wiki , accessed on December 26, 2012 (English, continuously updated since the first entry on June 2, 2004).
  5. ^ Wikipedia: WikiProject Stub sorting. English Wikipedia, accessed on December 26, 2012 (English, continuously updated since the first entry on November 15, 2004).
  6. ^ Wikipedia: Dispute resolution. English Wikipedia, accessed on December 26, 2012 (English, continuously updated since the first entry on January 12, 2004).
  7. ^ Wikipedia: Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive. English Wikipedia, accessed on December 26, 2012 (English, continuously updated since the initial application on February 18, 2005).
  8. ↑ a b Erik Zachte: Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report - Wikipedia. Wikimedia Statistics, November 11, 2012, accessed December 26, 2012 .
  9. ↑ Usability and Experience Study. Wikimedia Foundation , accessed December 26, 2012 .
  10. ↑ Ral315, Michael Snow: Wikipedia: Wikipedia Signpost / 2007-04-02 / News and notes. English Wikipedia: Wikipedia Signpost, April 2, 2007, accessed December 26, 2012 (English).
  11. ↑ Wikipedia: Wikipedia Signpost / 2006-02-27 / News and notes. English Wikipedia: Wikipedia Signpost, February 27, 2006, accessed December 26, 2012 (English).
  12. ^ Erik Moeller: New Reports from November 2008 Survey Released. Wikimedia Foundation, April 2, 2010, accessed December 26, 2012 .
  13. ↑ Stacy Schiff: Know-alls. The Age , December 2, 2006, accessed December 26, 2012 .
  14. ^ A b Jimmy Wales: [WikiEN-1] Wikiquette committee appointments. Wikipedia , Wikimedia Foundation, December 4, 2003, accessed December 26, 2012 .
  15. ^ David A. Hoffman, Salil Mehra: Wikitruth Through Wikiorder . In: Emory Law Journal . No. 59 , 2010 ( online version (Social Science Research Network 1354424) [accessed December 26, 2012] English).
  16. ^ Josh Hyatt: MySQL: Workers in 25 countries with no HQ. Fortune , June 1, 2006, accessed December 26, 2012 .
  17. ^ Jimmy Wales: User talk: Jimbo Wales: ArbCom Appointments. English Wikipedia, December 20, 2008, accessed December 26, 2012 .
  18. ↑ Torsten Kleinz: Wikipedia is looking for referees. Heise online , April 30, 2007, accessed December 26, 2012 .
  19. ↑ Wikipedia: Manual of Style / Spelling. English Wikipedia, accessed on December 26, 2012 (English, continuously updated since the first entry on February 18, 2005).
  20. ↑ National varieties of English. English Wikipedia, accessed December 26, 2012 (English).
  21. ^ Molly Hennessy-Fiske: Wikipedia threats went unchecked. Los Angeles Times , April 29, 2008, accessed December 26, 2012 .
  22. ^ Leo Stallworth: Student arrested in high school threats. (No longer available online.) Abc7, KABC-TV Los Angeles, CA, April 18, 2008, archived from the original on July 24, 2013 ; accessed on December 26, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / abclocal.go.com
  23. ↑ LA Now. Los Angeles Times, April 29, 2008, accessed December 26, 2012 .
  24. ↑ Teen charged after threat to school on Wikipedia. Associated Press. Bloomington, IL: Pantagraph.com, October 31, 2006, accessed December 26, 2012 .