The English Wikipedia is, along with the

Simple English Wikipedia The Simple English Wikipedia is a modified English-language edition of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia, written primarily in Basic English and Learning English. It is one of seven Wikipedias written in an Anglic language or English-based ...

, one of two

English-language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

editions of

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

, an online encyclopedia. It was founded on January 15, 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition, and, as of , has the most articles of any edition, at . As of , of articles in all Wikipedias belong to the English-language edition; this share was more than 50% in 2003. The edition's one-billionth edit was made on January 13, 2021.

Articles

The English Wikipedia has pioneered some ideas as conventions, policies or features which were later adopted by Wikipedia editions in some of the other languages. These ideas include "featured articles", the neutral-point-of-view policy, navigation templates, the sorting of short "stub" articles into sub-categories, dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation and arbitration, and weekly collaborations. It surpassed six million articles on 23 January 2020. In November 2022, the total volume of the compressed texts of its articles amounted to 19.9

gigabyte The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix ''giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte is GB. This defini ...

s. The edition's one-billionth edit was made on 13 January 2021 by

Ser Amantio di Nicolao Steven Pruitt (born April 17, 1984) is an American Wikipedia editor with the highest number of edits made to the English Wikipedia, at over 5 million, having made at least one edit to one-third of all English Wikipedia articles. Pruitt first b ...

(Steven Pruitt) who as of that date is the user with the highest number of edits on the English Wikipedia, at over four million. Currently, there are articles created with files. The English Wikipedia currently has registered accounts of which are administrators.

Wikipedians

The English Wikipedia reached 4,000,000 registered user accounts on 1 April 2007, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-04-02/News and notes. Retrieved 20 April 2007 over a year since the millionth

Wikipedian The Wikipedia community, collectively known colloquially as Wikipedians, is an informal community that volunteers to create and maintain Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. Since August 2012, the word "Wikipedian" has been an '' Oxford Diction ...

registered an account in February 2006. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-02-27/News and notes. Retrieved 20 April 2007 Over 1,100,000 editors have edited Wikipedia more than 10 times. Over 30,000 editors perform more than 5 edits per month, and over 3,000 perform more than 100 edits per month. Editors English Wikipedia History

Edits to English Wikipedia by country January 2022

On March 1, 2014, ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...

'', in an article titled "The Future of Wikipedia", cited a trend analysis concerning data published by the Wikimedia Foundation stating that " e number of editors for the English-language version has fallen by a third in seven years." The attrition rate for active editors in English Wikipedia was cited by ''The Economist'' as substantially in contrast to statistics for Wikipedia in other languages (non-English Wikipedia). ''The Economist'' reported that the number of contributors with an average of five or more edits per month was relatively constant since 2008 for Wikipedia in other languages at approximately 42,000 editors within narrow seasonal variances of about 2,000 editors up or down. The number of active editors in English Wikipedia, by "sharp" comparison, was cited as peaking in 2007 at approximately 50,000 and dropping to 30,000 by the start of 2014. The trend analysis published in ''The Economist'' presents Wikipedia in other languages (non-English Wikipedia) as successful in retaining their active editors on a renewable and sustained basis, with their numbers remaining relatively constant at approximately 42,000. The English Wikipedia has the

Arbitration Committee On Wikimedia Foundation projects, an Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) is a binding dispute resolution panel of editors. Each of Wikimedia's projects are editorially autonomous and independent, and some of them have established their own ArbComs w ...

(also known as ArbCom) that consists of a panel of editors that imposes binding rulings with regard to disputes between other editors of the online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales on 4 December 2003 as an extension of the decision-making power he had formerly held as owner of the site. When it was founded, the committee consisted of 12

arbitrators An arbitral tribunal or arbitration tribunal, also arbitration commission, arbitration committee or arbitration council is a panel of unbiased adjudicators which is convened and sits to resolve a dispute by way of arbitration. The tribunal may con ...

divided into three groups of four members each. In 2022, for English Wikipedia, Americans accounted for about 40% of active editors, followed by British and Indian editors accounting for about 10% of each, and Canadian and Australian at about 5%.

Controversies

English varieties

One controversy in the English Wikipedia concerns which national variety of the English language is to be preferred, some candidates being

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...

and

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

. Suggestions range from standardizing upon a single form of English to forking the English Wikipedia project. A style guideline states, "the English Wikipedia has no general preference for a major national variety of the language" and "an article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation".

Disputed articles

A 2013 study from

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

concluded that the most disputed articles on the English Wikipedia tended to be broader issues, while on other language Wikipedias the most disputed articles tended to be regional issues; this is due to the English language's status as a global ''

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

'', which means that some who edit the English Wikipedia have English as their second language. The study stated that the most disputed entries on the English Wikipedia were:

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...

list of WWE personnel WWE is an American professional wrestling promotion based in Stamford, Connecticut. WWE personnel consists of professional wrestlers, managers, play-by-play and color commentators, ring announcers, interviewers, referees, trainers, producers, ...

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

circumcision Circumcision is a surgical procedure, procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

race and intelligence Discussions of race and intelligence – specifically, claims of differences in intelligence along racial lines – have appeared in both popular science and academic research since the modern concept of Race (human categorization), race was fi ...

, and

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

.Gross, Doug.
Wiki wars: The 10 most controversial Wikipedia pages
." ''

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

''. 24 July 2013. Retrieved on 26 July 2013.

Threats against high schools

Incidents of threats of violence against high schools on Wikipedia have been reported in the press. The

Glen A. Wilson High School Glen A. Wilson High School is a public high school located in Hacienda Heights, California. It is one of two high schools located in the unincorporated community, and one of four in the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District. Wilson was ranke ...

was the subject of such a threat in 2008, and a 14-year-old was arrested for making a threat against

Niles West High School Niles West High School, officially Niles Township High School West or NWHS, is a public four-year high school located in Skokie, Illinois, a north suburb of Chicago in the United States. It is part of Niles Township Community High School Distric ...

on Wikipedia in 2006.

Wikiproject and assessment

A "

WikiProject A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiqu ...

" is a

group A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic ide ...

of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia. These groups may focus on a specific topic area (for example,

women's history Women's history is the study of the role that women have played in history and the methods required to do so. It includes the study of the history of the growth of woman's rights throughout recorded history, personal achievement over a period of ...

), a specific location or a specific kind of task (for example, checking newly created pages). As of August 2022, the English Wikipedia had over 2,000 WikiProjects, for which activity varied. In 2007, in preparation for producing a print version, the English Wikipedia introduced an assessment scale of the quality of articles. Articles are rated by WikiProjects. The range of quality classes begins with "Stub" (very short pages), followed by "Start", "C" and "B" (in increasing order of quality). Community peer review is needed for the article to enter one of the quality classes: either "

good article __NOTOC__ Click any of the topics above for a list of good articles on that topic. Good Articles ...

", "A" or the highest, " featured article". Of the about 6.5 million articles and lists assessed as of April 2022, more than 6,000 (0.09%) are featured articles, and fewer than 4,000 (0.06%) are featured lists. One featured article per day, as selected by editors, appears on the

main page Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. articles in English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * '' ...

of Wikipedia. The Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team has developed a table (shown below) that displays data of all rated articles by quality and importance, on the English Wikipedia. If an article or list receives different ratings by two or more WikiProjects, then the highest rating is used in the table, pie-charts, and bar-chart. The software auto-updates the data. Researcher Giacomo Poderi found that articles tend to reach featured status via the intensive work of a few editors.Poderi, Giacomo, ''Wikipedia and the Featured Articles: How a Technological System Can Produce Best Quality Articles'', Master thesis,

University of Maastricht Maastricht University (abbreviated as UM; nl, Universiteit Maastricht) is a public research university in Maastricht, Netherlands. Founded in 1976, it is the second youngest of the thirteen Dutch universities. In 2021, 22,383 students studied at ...

, October 2008. A 2010 study found unevenness in quality among featured articles and concluded that the community process is ineffective in assessing the quality of articles.

Internal news publications

Community-produced news publications include ''The Signpost''. ''The Signpost'' (previously known as ''The Wikipedia Signpost'') is the English Wikipedia's newspaper. It is managed by the

Wikipedia community The Wikipedia community, collectively known colloquially as Wikipedians, is an informal community that volunteers to create and maintain Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. Since August 2012, the word "Wikipedian" has been an '' Oxford Diction ...

and is published online weekly. Each edition contains stories and articles related to the Wikipedia community. The publication was founded in January 2005 by

Wikipedia administrator On Wikipedia, trusted users may be appointed as administrators (also referred to as admins, sysops or janitors), following a successful request for adminship. Currently, there are administrators on the English Wikipedia. Administrators have add ...

and later Chair of the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

Board of Trustees, Michael Snow. Originally titled ''The Wikipedia Signpost'', it was later shortened to ''The Signpost''. The newspaper reports on Wikipedia events including

rulings, Wikimedia Foundation issues, and other Wikipedia-related projects. Snow continued to contribute as a writer to ''The Signpost'' until his appointment to the

Board of Trustees A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

of the Wikimedia Foundation in February 2008.

Investigative journalism Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years rese ...

by ''The Signpost'' in 2015 on changes to

freedom of panorama Freedom of panorama (FOP) is a provision in the copyright laws of various jurisdictions that permits taking photographs and video footage and creating other images (such as paintings) of buildings and sometimes sculptures and other art works ...

copyright restrictions in Europe was covered by publications in multiple languages including German, Italian, Polish, and Russian. Wikipedia users Gamaliel and Go Phightins! became editors-in-chief of ''The Signpost'' in January 2015; prior editor-in-chief The ed17 noted that during his tenure the publication expanded its scope by including more reporting on the wider Wikimedia movement and English Wikipedia itself. In a letter to readers upon the newspaper's, tenth anniversary, the co-editors-in-chief stressed the importance of maintaining independence from the Wikimedia Foundation in their reporting. ''The Signpost'' has been the subject of academic analysis in publications including ''

Sociological Forum ''Sociological Forum'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Wiley on behalf of the Eastern Sociological Society. The journal was established in 1986 with Robin M. Williams Jr as founding editor-in-chief. Subsequent editors ...

'', the social movements journal ''Interface'', and ''New Review of Academic Librarianship''; and was consulted for data on Wikipedia by researchers from

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy (DOE), located a short distance northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico, ...

and

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

. It has garnered "positive" reception from some media publications including ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

The Register ''The Register'' is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee, John Lettice and Ross Alderson. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "''Biting the hand that feeds IT''." Their primary focus is information tec ...

'', ''Nonprofit Quarterly'', and ''

Heise Online Heise (officially ''Heise Gruppe'', formerly ''Verlag Heinz Heise'') is a German media conglomerate headquartered in Hanover, Lower Saxony. It was founded in 1949 by and is still family-owned. Its core business is directory media as well as gen ...

''. John Broughton's 2008 book '' Wikipedia: The Missing Manual'' called ''The Signpost'' "essential reading for ambitious new Wikipedia editors". Other community news publications include the " WikiWorld" web comic, the ''Wikipedia Weekly'' podcast, and newsletters of specific WikiProjects like ''The Bugle'' from

WikiProject Military History A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is a Wikimedia movement affinity group for contributors with shared goals. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiq ...

and the monthly newsletter from The Guild of Copy Editors. There are a number of publications from the Wikimedia Foundation and multilingual publications such as the

Wikimedia Blog The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best know ...

and '' This Month in Education''.

Footnotes

References

* * * * (alkaline paper).

External links

* * English Wikipedia on Meta-Wiki {{Wikipedias in Germanic languages 2001 establishments in the United States Articles containing video clips

Global culture Internet properties established in 2001 Wikipedias by language Wikipedias in Germanic languages