''Wikipedia @ 20'' is a book of essays about

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 ...

published by the

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

in late 2020, marking 20 years since the creation of Wikipedia. It was edited by academic and author

Joseph M. Reagle Jr. Joseph Michael Reagle Jr. (born 1972) is an American academic and author focused on digital technology and culture, including Wikipedia, online comments, geek feminism, and life hacking. He is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at North ...

and social researcher Jackie Koerner. Contributions came from 34 other

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 ...

Wikimedian According to the Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikimedia movement is the global community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects. This community directly builds and administers the projects. It is committed to using open standards and software. ...

s, academics, researchers, journalists, librarians, artists and others, reflecting on particular histories and future themes in Wikipedia discussions.

Background

The title "''Wikipedia @ 20''" has a distinct style used in 2021 around celebration of Wikipedia's birthday, and the subtitle paraphrases the closing remarks of the preface: The book features an introduction by the editors and 21 essays split into three chapters: ''Hindsight'', ''Connection'', and ''Vision''. Essays were selected through an open submission process in the spirit of Wikipedia and published using open publishing platform PubPub. The project was financially supported by

Knowledge Unlatched Knowledge Unlatched (KU) is an Open Access service provider registered as a for-profit GmbH in Berlin, Germany, and owned by multinational commercial publishing company Wiley as of December 2021. It offers a crowdfunding model to support a variet ...

, the

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...

Communication Studies Department, and 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 ...

so the book could be released in both print and digital forms.

Synopsis

The book contains the following essays:

Katherine Maher Katherine Roberts Maher (; born April 18, 1983) is a former chief executive officer and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Maher worked for UNICEF, the National Democratic Institu ...

also contributed to the book.

Reception

The publication was launched during a live stream with an author's round table on Wikipedia Weekly Network on the 20th birthday of Wikipedia, and it was referenced in international media coverage of the 20th anniversary. The book was endorsed by Wikipedia co-founder

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...

for its "hard-won wisdom of its contributors, the novel reflections of scholars, and the necessary provocations of those working to shape its next twenty years." It was also reviewed critically by ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

'' magazine's Andrew Robinson and furthermore in

Bookforum ''Bookforum'' is an American book review magazine devoted to books and the discussion of literature that was based in New York City, New York. The magazine was founded in 1994 and announced in December of 2022 it would cease publishing after ...

by Rebecca Panovka who reflected on some of its inconsistencies, ties to "Enlightenment-era liberalism," and lack of voices of less loyal external criticism. Other mainstream media that referenced the book include

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hum ...

and

ABC Radio National Radio National, known on-air as RN, is an Australia-wide public service broadcasting radio network run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). From 1947 until 1985, the network was known as ABC Radio 2. History 1937: Predecessors an ...

, as well as technology focused websites. The book is featured in

IEEE Xplore IEEE Xplore digital library is a research database for discovery and access to journal articles, conference proceedings, technical standards, and related materials on computer science, electrical engineering and electronics, and allied fields. It ...

, and some of the content of the book was adapted for shorter form publishing, such as a ''Slate'' article on how the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

shaped Wikipedia.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Wikipedia@20
on

Meta-Wiki 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 foundation (United States law), a charitable foundati ...

Wikipedia @ 20
on PubPub
Wikipedia @ 20
on the

Author's roundtable on Wikipedia Weekly Network
on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

History of Wikipedia MIT Press books Creative Commons-licensed books 2020 non-fiction books Essay collections