Webcomic Penny Arcade satirizes Wikipedia users' ability to vandalize its articles: supervillain Skeletor makes biased revisions to his archnemesis He-Man's entry.

Wikipedia, a free content encyclopedia project written by volunteers, has attracted criticism along with its size and popularity. Notable criticisms include that its open nature makes it unauthoritative and unreliable, that it exhibits systemic bias, and that its group dynamics hinder its goals. Specific criticisms include the encyclopedia's exposure to obvious or subtle vandalism, attempts by strongly opinionated editors to dominate articles, inaccurate or sometimes non-existent sourcing for controversial assertions in articles, and edit wars and other types of nonconstructive conflict among editors. Image File history File linksMetadata Penny_Arcade_comic-20051216h. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Penny_Arcade_comic-20051216h. ... Penny Arcade is a webcomic and blog written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. ... Wikipedia (IPA: , or ( ) is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. ... Skeletor is a fictional character in the Masters of the Universe franchise, where he is the arch-enemy and main antagonist of He-Man. ... He Man redirects here. ... Wikipedia (IPA: , or ( ) is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. ... Free content is any kind of functional work, artwork, or other creative content upon which no legal restriction has been placed that significantly interferes with peoples freedom to use, understand, redistribute, improve, and share the content. ... Cyclopedia redirects here. ... Vandalism of a Wikipedia article. ... Systemic bias is the inherent tendency of a process to favor particular outcomes. ... The term group dynamics implies that individual behaviours may differ depending on individuals current or prospective connections to a sociological group. ...

Particularly noteworthy controversies about Wikipedia's content and editors have attracted wide and unfavorable media attention. Critics used the Seigenthaler and Essjay incidents to call Wikipedia's reliability and usefulness as a reference into question. Wikipedia has also been the subject of parody and other humorous criticism. In May 2005, Wikipedia contributor Brian Chase anonymously posted a hoax in the entry for John Seigenthaler, Sr. ... The Essjay controversy was a February 2007 incident where a prominent English Wikipedia administrator known as Essjay was found to have made false claims about his academic qualifications and professional experience in a telephone interview with The New Yorker. ... In contemporary usage, a parody (or lampoon) is a work that imitates another work in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke some affectionate fun at the work itself, the subject of the work, the author or fictional voice of the parody, or another subject. ...

Criticism of the concept

The Wiki model

Wikipedia has been both praised and criticized for being open to editing by anyone. Larry Sanger, who played a key role in the founding of Wikipedia^[1] but left the project in 2002,^[2] criticized Wikipedia in late 2004 for having an "anti-elitist" philosophy of active contempt for expertise.^[3] Some librarians, academics, and editors of other encyclopedias consider it to have little utility as a reference work.^[4][5] Most university lecturers discourage students from citing any encyclopedia in academic work, preferring primary sources.^[6] One university program and several schools have even banned Wikipedia citations specifically.^[7] Wiki wiki redirects here. ... Lawrence Mark Larry Sanger (born July 16, 1968[1]) has been involved with various online encyclopedia projects. ... This article covers the history of Wikipedia, a project to produce a free content encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. ... Look up expert in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Librarian, a 1556 painting by Giuseppe Arcimboldo A librarian is an information professional trained in library science and information science: the organization and management of information and service to people with information needs. ... Academia is a collective term for the scientific and cultural community engaged in higher education and research, taken as a whole. ... A reference work is a compendium of information, usually of a specific type, compiled for ease of reference. ... Lecturer is the name given to university teachers in most of the English-speaking world (but not at most universities in the U.S. or Canada) who do not hold a professorship. ... In historical scholarship, a primary source is a document, or other source of information that was created at or near the time being studied, by an authoritative source, usually one with direct personal knowledge of the events being described. ...

Wikipedia's policies state that assertions should be supported by reliable, published sources—ideally, by peer reviewed publications.^[8] Jimmy Wales, the de facto leader of Wikipedia,^[9] stresses that encyclopedias of any type are not usually appropriate as primary sources, and should not be relied upon as authoritative.^[10] In a 2005 study, Emigh and Herring note that there are not yet many formal studies of Wikipedia or its model, and suggest that Wikipedia achieves its results by social means—self-norming, a core of active users watching for problems, and expectations of encyclopedic text drawn from the wider culture.^[11] Oliver Kamm expressed skepticism toward Wikipedia's reliance on consensus in forming its content: "Wikipedia seeks not truth but consensus, and like an interminable political meeting the end result will be dominated by the loudest and most persistent voices."^[12] It has been suggested that Attribution (journalism) be merged into this article or section. ... Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a scholarly process used in the publication of manuscripts and in the awarding of funding for research. ... Jimmy Donal Jimbo Wales, (born August 7, 1966)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for his role in founding Wikipedia, as well as other wiki-related projects, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. ... De facto is a Latin expression that means in fact or in practice. It is commonly used as opposed to de jure (meaning by law) when referring to matters of law or governance or technique (such as standards), that are found in the common experience as created or developed without... In sociology, a norm, or social norm, is a pattern of behavior expected within a particular society in a given situation. ...

Usefulness as a reference

Wikipedia acknowledges that it should not be used as a primary source for serious research.^[13] Librarian Philip Bradley acknowledged in an October 2004 interview with The Guardian that the concept behind the site was in theory a "lovely idea," but that he would not use it in practice, and that he is "not aware of a single librarian who would. The main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, the publishers have to ensure that their data is reliable, as their livelihood depends on it. But with something like this, all that goes out the window."^[14] For other uses, see Guardian. ...

Robert McHenry, former editor-in-chief of Encyclopædia Britannica said in November 2004: Robert Dale McHenry (born April 30, 1945) is an American editor, encyclopedist, and writer. ... The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. ...

"The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him."^[5]

CNET noted in a December 15, 2005 story: "Wikipedia is about as good a source of accurate information as Britannica, the venerable standard-bearer of facts about the world around us, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature."^[15] The investigation, which was conducted and published (Dec. 2005) by Nature was criticized by Andrew Orlowski in an editorial for The Register which claimed, CNET Networks, Inc. ... Nature is a prominent scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. ... Andrew Orlowski (born 1966) is a British columnist for the online IT newspaper The Register. ... Current logo of The Register. ...

"…Nature sent only misleading fragments of some Britannica articles to the reviewers, sent extracts of the children's version and Britannica's 'book of the year' to others, and in one case, simply stitched together bits from different articles and inserted its own material, passing it off as a single Britannica entry."^[16]

Encyclopædia Britannica also denied the validity of the Nature study, claiming that it was "fatally flawed" as the Britannica extracts were compilations that sometimes included articles written for the youth version.^[17] Nature acknowledged the compiled nature of some of the Britannica extracts, but disputed the claim that this invalidated the conclusions of the study.^[18] Encyclopædia Britannica also argued that the Nature study showed that while the error rate between the two encyclopedias was similar, a breakdown of the errors indicated that the mistakes in Wikipedia were more often the inclusion of incorrect facts, while the mistakes in Britannica were "errors of omission".

Wall Street Journal debate

In the 2006-09-12 edition of the Wall Street Journal, Jimmy Wales debated with Dale Hoiberg, editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica.^[19] Hoiberg focused on a need for expertise and control in an encyclopedia and cited Lewis Mumford that overwhelming information could “bring about a state of intellectual enervation and depletion hardly to be distinguished from massive ignorance.” Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 255th day of the year (256th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Wall Street Journal is an influential international daily newspaper published in New York City, New York with an average daily circulation of 1,800,607 (2002). ... Jimmy Donal Jimbo Wales, (born August 7, 1966)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for his role in founding Wikipedia, as well as other wiki-related projects, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. ... Dale Hoiberg is a sinologist and, as of 2004, the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... 1913 advertisement for the 11th edition, with the slogan When in doubt — look it up in the Encyclopædia Britannica The Encyclopædia Britannica (properly spelled with æ, the ae-ligature) was first published in 1768–1771 as The Britannica was an important early English-language general encyclopedia and is still... Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian of technology and science. ...

Wales emphasized Wikipedia's differences, and asserted that openness and transparency lead to quality. Hoiberg claimed that he “had neither the time nor space to respond to [criticisms]” and “could corral any number of links to articles alleging errors in Wikipedia,” to which Wales responded: “No problem! Wikipedia to the rescue with a fine article,” and included a link to the Wikipedia article Criticism of Wikipedia.

Suitability as an encyclopedia

Robert McHenry said that Wikipedia errs in billing itself as an encyclopedia, because that word implies a level of authority and accountability that they believe cannot be possessed by an openly editable reference. McHenry argues that

"to the ordinary user, the turmoil and uncertainty that may lurk beneath the surface of a Wikipedia article are invisible. He or she arrives at a Wikipedia article via Google, perhaps, and sees that it is part of what claims to be an "encyclopedia". This is a word that carries a powerful connotation of reliability. The typical user doesn't know how conventional encyclopedias achieve reliability, only that they do."^[20]

Frequent Wikipedia critic Orlowski wrote on a December 2005 OpEd at The Register: Look up editorial, op-ed in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Current logo of The Register. ...

"If what we today know as 'Wikipedia' had started life as something called, let's say —'Jimbo's Big Bag O'Trivia'— we doubt if it would be the problem it has become. Wikipedia is indeed, as its supporters claim, a phenomenal source of pop culture trivia. Maybe a 'Big Bag O'Trivia' is all Jimbo ever wanted. Maybe not. "For sure a libel is a libel, but the outrage would have been far more muted if the Wikipedia project didn't make such grand claims for itself. The problem with this vanity exercise is one that it's largely created for itself. The public has a firm idea of what an 'encyclopedia' is, and it's a place where information can generally be trusted, or at least slightly more trusted than what a labyrinthine, mysterious bureaucracy can agree upon, and surely more trustworthy than a piece of spontaneous graffiti — and Wikipedia is a king-sized cocktail of the two."^[21]

A number of academics – such as Sarah Deutch, dean of social sciences and professor of history at Duke University, and Margaret Humphries, professor of history and associate clinical professor of medicine at Duke – have criticized Wikipedia for its perceived failure as a reliable source.^[4] Many Wikipedia editors do not have degrees or other credentials generally recognized in academia.^[22] The use of Wikipedia is not accepted in many schools and universities in writing a formal paper. Several educational institutions have blocked Wikipedia in the past while others have limited its use to only a pointer to external sources.^[4] University of Maryland professor of physics Robert L. Park has characterized Wikipedia as a target for "purveyors of pseudoscience."^[23] Duke University is a private coeducational research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. ... The University of Maryland, College Park (also known as UM, UMD, or UMCP) is a public university located in the city of College Park, in Prince Georges County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C., in the United States. ... Robert L. Park is a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park. ... A typical 18th century phrenology chart. ...

Wikipedia articles have been referenced in "enhanced perspectives" provided on-line in the journal Science. The first of these perspectives to provide a hyperlink to Wikipedia was "A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light,"^[24] and dozens of enhanced perspectives have provided such links since then. The publisher of Science states that these enhanced perspectives "include hypernotes - which link directly to websites of other relevant information available online - beyond the standard bibliographic references."^[25] Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is considered one of the worlds most prestigious scientific journals. ...

Anti-elitism as a weakness

Co-founder of Wikipedia, and former editor-in-chief of Nupedia, Larry Sanger,^[26] stated in an opinion piece in Kuro5hin that "anti-elitism" — active contempt for expertise — was rampant among Wikipedia editors and supporters. He further stated that "far too much credence and respect [is] accorded to people who in other Internet contexts would be labelled 'trolls'."^[27] The sort of sentiment Sanger describes is more commonly known as anti-intellectualism. Nupedia was a Web-based encyclopedia whose articles were written by experts and licensed as free content. ... Lawrence Mark Larry Sanger (born July 16, 1968[1]) has been involved with various online encyclopedia projects. ... Kuro5hin (K5) (pronounced corrosion) is a community discussion website (sometimes known as an example of Commons-based peer production) focused on technology and culture. ... An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and usually irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic... Anti-intellectualism describes a sentiment of hostility towards, or mistrust of, intellectuals and intellectual pursuits. ...

Jimmy Wales admits that wide variations in quality between different articles and topics is significant, but that he considers the average quality to be "pretty good" and getting better by the day.

Staff at the Encyclopædia Britannica say it does not feel threatened by Wikipedia. "The premise of Wikipedia is that continuous improvement will lead to perfection; that premise is completely unproven," the reference work's executive editor, Ted Pappas, told The Guardian.^[28] For other uses, see Guardian. ...

Systemic bias in coverage

Wikipedia has been accused of systemic bias, a tendency to cover topics in a detail disproportionate to their importance. As an example, Stephen Colbert once faux-praised Wikipedia for having a "longer entry on 'lightsabers' than it does on the 'printing press.'" In an interview with The Guardian, Dale Hoiberg, the editor-in-chief of Encyclopædia Britannica, noted:^[14] Systemic bias is the inherent tendency of a process to favor particular outcomes. ... This article is about Stephen Colbert, the actor. ... This article is about the weapon in Star Wars. ... The printing press is a mechanical device for printing many copies of a text on rectangular sheets of paper. ... The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. ...

people write of things they're interested in, and so many subjects don't get covered; and news events get covered in great detail. In the past, the entry on Hurricane Frances was more than five times the length of that on Chinese art, and the entry on Coronation Street was twice as long as the article on Tony Blair. This article is about the Atlantic hurricane of 2004; for other storms of the same name, see Hurricane Frances (disambiguation) Lowest pressure 935 mbar (hPa; 27. ... Chinese Jade ornament with flower design, Jin Dynasty (1115-1234 AD), Shanghai Museum. ... Coronation Street is an award-winning British soap opera. ... For other people of the same name, see Tony Blair (disambiguation) Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born May 6, 1953)[1] is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, Leader of the Labour Party, and Member of Parliament for the constituency...

This flaw has been the subject of a game known as "Wikigroaning", a term coined by Jon "DocEvil" Titanium^[29] of the website Something Awful.^[30] In the game, two articles (preferably with similar names) are compared: one about a serious subject and the other about a topic important only to a select group of fans.^[31] Critics of Wikipedia concede that the encyclopedia's coverage of pop culture does not impose space constraints on the coverage of more "serious" subjects, as spelled out in the "Wiki is not paper" article. As Ivor Tossell noted: Something Awful, often abbreviated to SA, is a comedy website housing a variety of content, including blog entries, forums, feature articles, digitally edited pictures, and humorous media reviews. ...

That Wikipedia is chock full of useless arcana (and did you know, by the way, that the article on "Debate" is shorter than the piece that weighs the relative merits of the 1978 and 2003 versions of Battlestar Galactica?) isn't a knock against it: Since it can grow infinitely, the silly articles aren't depriving the serious ones of space.^[32]

However, Wikipedia's own policies make the veracity of this claim dubious as even popular articles are often deleted on "notability" grounds^[33]. Online comics are particularly susceptible to these deletions, and the authors of these articles have had difficulty obtaining clear guidelines on the notability policy ^[34]. Articles on so-called Internet memes or "Web culture" are also vulnerable^[35]. Various theories have been proposed to explain this apparent contradiction with the lack of space constraints referenced above, including censorship to make the encyclopedia appear more "respectable" to media sources; or favoritism for particular comics, memes, et cetera and against others on the part of editors. Nicholson Baker writes: This list of web comics includes comics which are (or were) primarily published on the World Wide Web, as described in the main article on web comics. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

Still, a lot of good work—verifiable, informative, brain-leapingly strange—is being cast out of this paperless, infinitely expandable accordion folder by people who have a narrow, almost grade-schoolish notion of what sort of curiosity an on-line encyclopedia will be able to satisfy in the years to come. Anybody can "pull the trigger" on an article (as Broughton phrases it)—you just insert a double-bracketed software template. It's harder to improve something that's already written, or to write something altogether new, especially now that so many of the World Book–sanctioned encyclopedic fruits are long plucked. There are some people on Wikipedia now who are just bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking peoples' work—even to the point of laughing at nonstandard "Engrish." They poke articles full of warnings and citation-needed notes and deletion prods till the topics go away.^[36]

Neutral point of view

The concept of a neutral point of view (NPOV), which is a non-negotiable principle of Wikipedia,^[37] has itself been criticized as an impossible ideal due to the inevitable biases of editors. In an interview with Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia critic Robert Cox, NPR commentator Mark Glaser stated:

"I keep hearing from my readers (many of whom I’m guessing are Wikipedians or ex-Wikipedians) that attaining NPOV is impossible, that everyone has bias and introduces it in some way...Can anyone write from an NPOV? Doesn’t everyone have inherent biases?"^[38]

Other critics allege that NPOV is arguably in practice "mainstream point of view," with the effect that mainstream points of view are privileged and radical points of view disadvantaged.^[39][40]

Difficulty of fact-checking

Wikipedia contains no formal peer review process for fact-checking, and due to the lack of requiring qualifications to edit any article, the contributors themselves may not be well-versed in the topics they write about. As the cultural commentator Paul Vallely put it, writing in The Independent on the subject of Wikipedia: Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a scholarly process used in the publication of manuscripts and in the awarding of funding for research. ... Paul Vallely CMG is a leading British writer on Africa and development issues. ... For other uses, see The Independent (disambiguation). ...

"Using it is like asking questions of a bloke you met in the pub. He might be a nuclear physicist. Or he might be a fruitcake."^[41]

This is one of Wikipedia's most frequently encountered criticisms. Sometimes, the subject of a biographical article must fix blatant lies about his own life.^[42] Television personality Stephen Colbert lampooned this drawback of Wikipedia, calling it wikiality. In a typical experiment, an editor inserted mistakes into five Wikipedia articles; they remained unnoticed for up to five days by which time the editor reverted the edits himself.^[43] In another example, on March 2, 2007, MSNBC.com reported that Hillary Rodham Clinton had been incorrectly listed for 20 months in her Wikipedia biography as valedictorian of her class of 1969 at Wellesley College. (Hillary Rodham was not the valedictorian, though she did speak at commencement.)^[44] The article included a link to the Wikipedia edit,^[45] where the incorrect information was added on July 9, 2005. After the MSNBC report, the inaccurate information was removed the same day.^[46] Between the two edits, the wrong information had stayed in the Clinton article while it was edited more than 4,800 times over 20 months. This article is about Stephen Colbert, the actor. ... References to Wikipedia in popular culture have increased as more people learn about and use the online encyclopedia project. ... is the 61st day of the year (62nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (born October 26, 1947) is the junior United States Senator from New York, and is a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2008 presidential election. ... For other uses, see Wellesley College (disambiguation). ...

In a sample of Wikipedia articles, John Willinsky reported a preference for online sources over print sources:

"Only four out of the 100 entries relied exclusively on print sources (and they were single–source entries), while print sources turned up in a dozen entries in total...Online sources were clearly favored among contributors, as the greater interconnectivity which the Internet represents, compared to print culture, also forms part of Wikipedia's quality as an instrument of knowledge and learning."^[47]

Use of dubious sources

Wikipedia requests that contributors verify the accuracy of information by checking the references cited, which generally come from external sources. Despite guidelines deprecating the use of personal blogs and dubious sources,^[48] Hiawatha Bray of the Boston Globe contends that some references used in Wikipedia articles have come from dubious sources, such as blog entries. Bray wrote in 2004: The Boston Globe is the most widely-circulated daily newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts and in the greater New England region. ... Dubious sources are sources used for research that are potentially unreliable, especially those that may have been empirically disproven in the past, or that may display extreme bias. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

"So of course Wikipedia is popular. Maybe too popular. For it lacks one vital feature of the traditional encyclopedia: accountability. Old-school reference books hire expert scholars to write their articles, and employ skilled editors to check and double-check their work. Wikipedia's articles are written by anyone who fancies himself an expert."^[49] Accountability is a concept in ethics with several meanings. ...

Wikipedia content is often mirrored at sites such as Answers.com, which means that incorrect information can be replicated alongside correct information through a number of web sources. Such information can develop a misleading air of authority because of its presence at such sites.^[50] A converse criticism of Wikipedia is that contributors sometimes rely too much on citing sources, particularly in disputed articles.^[51] Answers. ...

Exposure to vandals

In November 2005, Wikipedia received a great deal of bad publicity as a result of the Seigenthaler incident, in which a user edited a biographical article on John Seigenthaler Sr. so that it contained several false and defamatory statements. The inaccurate claims went unnoticed between May and September 2005 when they were discovered by Victor S. Johnson, Jr., a friend of Seigenthaler. Vandalism is recognized by Wikipedia as an ongoing problem facing its articles. Some users may have axes to grind on a particular subject, or may simply enjoy disrupting Wikipedia. There have also been instances of users deliberately inserting false information into Wikipedia in order to test the system and demonstrate its alleged unreliability.^{[52][citation needed]} This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Press photo of Seigenthaler John Lawrence Seigenthaler (pronounced , born July 27, 1927) is an American journalist, writer, and political figure. ... Slander and Libel redirect here. ... Victor Samuel Johnson, Jr. ...

Wikipedia acknowledges these issues, and the Wikipedia page "Researching with Wikipedia" states:

Wikipedia's radical openness means that any given article may be, at any given moment, in a bad state: for example, it could be in the middle of a large edit or it could have been recently vandalized. While blatant vandalism is usually easily spotted and rapidly corrected, Wikipedia is certainly more subject to subtle vandalism than a typical reference work.^[13]

• One form of subtle vandalism that has occurred on Wikipedia is the destruction of work through false claims of copyright violation. Contributors may post similar information in web forums. These postings have been used by competing interests as a very effective means to destroy significant contribution to Wikipedia. This has happened with the 6.5 Grendel page where it was countered through gaining statements from contributors/forum owners. This also happened with the .50 Beowulf wikipedia page where it was caught too late resulting in the majority of the contribution being lost.

Wikipedia has a range of tools available to users and administrators in order to combat vandalism. Supporters of the project argue that the vast majority of vandalism on Wikipedia is reverted within a short time, and a study by Fernanda Viégas of the MIT Media Lab and Martin Wattenberg and Kushal Dave of IBM Research found that most vandal edits were reverted within around five minutes.^[53] While most instances of page blanking or the addition of offensive material are soon reverted, less obvious vandalism has remained for longer periods. For example, a user made several racist edits to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day that were not reverted for nearly four hours.^[54] Columnist Sujay Kumar commented: "While Wikipedia says that most vandal edits are removed within five minutes, some falsities have managed to go unnoticed. An outlandishly fake entry about Larry King's uncontrollable flatulence was posted for a month."^[55] 6. ... The . ... Manifestations Slavery Racial profiling Lynching Hate speech Hate crime Genocide (examples) Ethnocide Ethnic cleansing Pogrom Race war Religious persecution Blood libel Paternalism Police brutality Movements Policies Discriminatory Race / Religion / Sex segregation Apartheid Redlining Internment Ethnocracy Anti-discriminatory Emancipation Civil rights Desegregation Integration Equal opportunity Counter-discriminatory Affirmative action Racial quota... Martin Luther King Jr. ...

Attempts to perpetrate hoaxes may not be confined to editing Wikipedia articles. In October 2005 Alan Mcilwraith, a former call centre worker from Scotland created a Wikipedia article in which he claimed to be a highly decorated war hero. The article was quickly identified by other users as unreliable (see Wikipedia Signpost article 17 April 2006). However, Mcilwraith had also succeeded in convincing a number of charities and media organizations that he was who he claimed to be.^[56] A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. ... Alan Mcilwraith posing as Captain Sir Alan Mcilwraith Alan Mcilwraith (born 3 March 1978) is a former call centre worker from Glasgow, Scotland who was exposed by a tabloid newspaper after passing himself off as a much-decorated British Army officer. ... A very large collections call centre in Lakeland, FL. A call centre or call center (see spelling differences) is a centralised office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. ... This article is about the country. ...

While malicious edits to the text of the articles are relatively easy to revert, numbers and statistics edits are much more difficult to spot, and can go unnoticed for extended periods of time.

Exposure to political operatives and advocates

While Wikipedia policy requires articles to have a neutral point of view, it is not immune from attempts by outsiders (or insiders) with an agenda to place a spin on articles. In January 2006 it was revealed that several staffers of members of the U.S. House of Representatives had embarked on a campaign to cleanse their respective bosses' biographies on Wikipedia, as well as inserting negative remarks on political opponents. References to a campaign promise by Martin Meehan to surrender his seat in 2000 were deleted, and negative comments were inserted into the articles on U.S. Senator Bill Frist and Eric Cantor, a congressman from Virginia. Numerous other changes were made from an IP address which is assigned to the House of Representatives.^[57] In an interview, Wikipedia de facto leader Jimmy Wales^[9] remarked that the changes were "not cool."^[58] The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... January 2006 : ← - January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accuses European nations of trying to complete the Holocaust by creating a Jewish camp Israel in the Middle East. ... The House of Representatives is the larger of two houses that make up the U.S. Congress, the other being the United States Senate. ... Meehan celebrates gaining enough votes to bring his campaign finance reform bill to the floor. ... Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... William Harrison Bill Frist, Sr. ... Eric Ivan Cantor (born June 6, 1963) is an American politician who has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives since 2001, representing Virginias 7th congressional district (map). ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a unique address that certain electronic devices currently use in order to identify and communicate with each other on a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol standard (IP)—in simpler terms, a computer address. ... Jimmy Donal Jimbo Wales, (born August 7, 1966)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for his role in founding Wikipedia, as well as other wiki-related projects, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. ...

Various individuals and groups that hold different political opinions may also start "edit wars" aimed at spinning the content of an article. For instance, soon after disgraced former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay died due to a heart attack, several editors to the encyclopedia added content to Lay's Wikipedia biography surmising that the death was in fact a suicide, well in advance of any official determination of cause of death. Such edits were reverted and re-inserted several times; eventually the article reported the cause of death as a heart attack. As of July 2007, there is no evidence to suggest that Lay's death was by other than natural causes. The edit history of the article was investigated by the press, and the Washington Post published a column on the subject.^[59] Enron Creditors Recovery Corporation (formerly Enron Corporation) (former NYSE ticker symbol: ENE) was an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. ... Kenneth Lee Ken Lay (April 15, 1942 – July 5, 2006) was an American businessman, best known for his role in the widely-reported corruption scandal that led to the downfall of Enron Corporation. ... Heart attack redirects here. ... For other uses, see Suicide (disambiguation). ... ...

In August 2007, a tool called WikiScanner developed by Virgil Griffith, a visiting researcher from the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, was released to match anonymous IP edits in the encyclopedia with an extensive database of addresses. Griffith said he developed WikiScanner "to create minor public-relations disasters for companies and organizations I dislike (and) to see what 'interesting organizations' are up to." News stories appeared about IP addresses from various organizations such as the Central Intelligence Agency, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Diebold, Inc. and the Australian government being used to make edits to Wikipedia articles, sometimes of an opinionated or questionable nature. The BBC quoted a Wikipedia spokesperson as praising the tool: "We really value transparency and the scanner really takes this to another level. Wikipedia Scanner may prevent an organisation or individuals from editing articles that they're really not supposed to."^[60] Another story stated that an IP address from the BBC itself had been used to vandalize the article on George W. Bush.^[61] Jimmy Wales, who played a central role in the founding of Wikipedia, spoke enthusiastically about Wikipedia Scanner: "It's awesome -- I love it...It brings an additional level of transparency to what's going on at Wikipedia...Wikipedia Scanner uses information we've been making publicly available forever, hoping someone would do something like this."^[62] WikiScanner (also known as Wikipedia Scanner) is a tool created by Virgil Griffith and released on August 14, 2007,[1] which consists of a publicly searchable database that links millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to the organizations where those edits apparently originated, by cross-referencing the edits with data on... Virgil Griffith playing Diamond Go, 2005 Virgil Griffith (born 1983), also known as Romanpoet, is an American hacker, best known for his involvement with a 2003 lawsuit with the Blackboard Inc. ... The Santa Fe Institute (or SFI) is a non-profit research institute dedicated to the study of complex systems in Santa Fe, New Mexico founded by George Cowan, David Pines, Stirling Colgate, Murray Gell-Mann, Nick Metropolis, Herb Anderson, Peter A. Carruthers, and Richard Slansky in 1984 to study complex... CIA redirects here. ... Categories: Politics stubs ... For the electronic voting machines, see Premier Election Solutions. ... The Commonwealth of Australia is a federative constitutional monarchy under a parliamentary democracy. ... For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the forty-third and current President of the United States of America, originally inaugurated on January 20, 2001. ...

In February 2008, British technology news and opinion website The Register published an article called "Wikipedia ruled by 'Lord of the Universe'", in which it was pointed out that despite the fact that a prominent administrator of Wikipedia, Jossi Fresco, declared a conflict of interest related to Prem Rawat, the article alleged that not only did Fresco edit the article of Prem Rawat to keep criticism to bare minimum, he altered the Wikipedia policies over personal biography and policies regarding "conflict of interest", to favour his alleged "biased" editing. The article pointed out that Fresco was also involved in Wikipedia's "Conflict of Interest Noticeboard", the situation which the Register article described as "a conflict of conflict of interest". The article stated that Fresco bore "the most extreme conflict of interest in the history of Wikipedia - and he edits the policy that governs conflict of interest."^[63] Current logo of The Register. ... Prem Rawat (b. ...

In April 2008, the Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) was accused of organizing a secret campaign to influence Israel-related articles in Wikipedia. Emails reportedly from CAMERA group members instructed interested editors in how to become Wikipedia administrators in order to better control article content. In response, several Wikipedia editors were blocked or given topic bans.^[64] For other uses, see Camera (disambiguation). ...

Prediction of failure

Eric Goldman, assistant law professor at Santa Clara University in California, has blogged about his bet with attorney Mike Godwin that Wikipedia will have failed by December 2, 2010.^[65] His argument is that "eventually, marketers will build scripts to edit Wikipedia pages to insert links and conduct automated attacks on Wikipedia", thus putting the encyclopedia beyond the ability of its editors to provide countermeasures against the attackers,^[66] particularly because of a vicious circle where the strain of responding to these attacks drives core contributors away, increasing the strain on those who remain. In a followup post on December 5, 2006, Goldman stood by his prediction of Wikipedia's failure, now within four years.^[67] For other uses, see Law (disambiguation). ... The Santa Clara Mission is a notable on-campus landmark. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Mike Godwin Mike Godwin is an American attorney and author. ... is the 336th day of the year (337th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2010 (MMX) will be a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... RNAFs F-16, firing countermeasures (flares) during a solo display at Radom Air Show 2005 A countermeasure is a system (usually for a military application) designed to prevent sensor-based weapons from acquiring and/or destroying a target. ... Vicious Circle is an album released in 1995 by L.A. Guns. ... is the 339th day of the year (340th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Jimmy Wales commented that technical questions about Wikipedia's backup practices should be directed to MediaWiki developer Brion Vibber.^[68] Periodic database dumps of Wikipedia content are publicly available.^[69] This article is about the wiki software. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

Privacy concerns

Most privacy concerns refer to cases of government or employer data gathering; or to computer or electronic monitoring; or to trading data between organizations.^[70]. "The Internet has created conflicts between personal privacy, commercial interests and the interests of society at large" warn James Donnelly and Jenifer Haeckl.^[71] Balancing the rights of all concerned as technology alters the social landscape will not be easy. It "is not yet possible to anticipate the path of the common law or governmental regulation" regarding this problem.^[71] Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to control the flow of information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. ...

The concern in the case of Wikipedia is the right of a private citizen to remain private; to remain a "private citizen" rather than a "public figure" in the eyes of the law.^[72] It is somewhat of a battle between the right to be anonymous in cyberspace and the right to be anonymous in real life ("meatspace"). Wikipedia Watch argues that "Wikipedia is a potential menace to anyone who values privacy" and that "a greater degree of accountability in the Wikipedia structure" would be "the very first step toward resolving the privacy problem."^[73] It has been suggested that Virtual world be merged into this article or section. ... For other meanings of this phrase (book and album titles etc. ... Meatspace is synonymous with the physical world and conceived as the opposite of cyberspace or virtual reality. ... Wikipedia Watch is a website created by Daniel Brandt through his organization Public Information Research on October 13, 2005. ...

A particular problem occurs in the case of an individual who is relatively unimportant and for whom there exists a Wikipedia page against their wishes.

In January 2006, a German court ordered the German-language Wikipedia shut down within Germany due to its publication of the full name of Boris Floricic, aka "Tron", a deceased hacker who was formerly with the Chaos Computer Club. More specifically, the court ordered that the URL within the German .de domain (http://www.wikipedia.de/) may no longer redirect to the encyclopedia's servers in Florida at http://de.wikipedia.org/, though since German readers are still able to use the US-based URL directly, there is not really any loss of access on their part. The court order arose out of a lawsuit filed by Floricic's parents, demanding that their son's surname be removed from Wikipedia.^[74] On February 9, 2006, the injunction against Wikimedia Deutschland was overturned.^[75] The plaintiffs appealed to the Berlin state court, but were refused relief in May 2006. Boris Floricic was a German hacker with the nickname of Tron, appropriately dubbing himself thus out of respect for that character in the 1982 Disney film. ... The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is one of the biggest and most influential hacker organisations. ... is the 40th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Quality concerns

A study by Dartmouth researchers found that the quality of Wikipedia articles varies widely. Some articles are excellent by any reasonable measure — authored and edited by persons knowledgeable in the field, containing numerous useful and relevant references, and written in a proper encyclopedic style. However, there are many articles on Wikipedia that are amateurish, unauthoritative, and even incorrect, making it difficult for a reader unfamiliar with a given subject matter to know which information to rely upon. In addition, Wikipedia contains many stubs — very short articles that provide a brief mention of a subject, and little else. The Dartmouth study was criticized by John Timmer of the Ars technica website for an inexact measure of quality of Wikipedia articles.^[76] Dartmouth College is a private, coeducational university located in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. Incorporated as Trustees of Dartmouth College,[6][7] it is a member of the Ivy League and one of the nine colonial colleges founded before the American Revolution. ... Ars Technica is a technology-related website catering to PC enthusiasts. ...

Others have noted that in some areas, such as science, Wikipedia's quality is often excellent. A report by the science journal Nature claimed that "Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries."^[77] The article detailed a study wherein 42 articles in both encyclopedias were reviewed by experts on the subject matter. Based on the review, the average Wikipedia article contained 4 errors or omissions; the average Britannica article, 3. Encyclopædia Britannica's initial concerns led to Nature releasing further documentation of its survey method.^[78] Encyclopædia Britannica, in its formal corporate response "Fatally Flawed",^[17] responded: A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... Nature is a prominent scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. ... Wikipedia (IPA: , or ( ) is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. ... 1913 advertisement for the 11th edition, with the slogan When in doubt - look it up in the Encyclopædia Britannica The Encyclopædia Britannica (properly spelt with æ, the ae-ligature) is the oldest English-language general encyclopedia. ... A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ...

"[t]hat conclusion was false, however, because Nature's research was invalid. As we demonstrate below, almost everything about the journal’s investigation, from the criteria for identifying inaccuracies to the discrepancy between the article text and its headline, was wrong and misleading."

Nature has since rejected the Britannica response^[79] and published a point-by-point response to Britannica's specific objections about alleged errors.^[80]

Threat to traditional publishers

Some observers claim that Wikipedia is undesirable, because it is an economic threat to publishers of traditional encyclopedias, many of whom may be unable to compete with a product which is essentially free. Nicholas Carr writes in the essay "The amorality of Web 2.0," speaking of the so-called Web 2.0 as a whole: "Implicit in the ecstatic visions of Web 2.0 is the hegemony of the amateur. I for one can't imagine anything more frightening."^[81] Others dispute the notion that Wikipedia, or similar efforts, will entirely displace traditional publications. For instance, Chris Anderson, the editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, wrote in Nature that the "wisdom of the crowds" approach of Wikipedia will not displace top scientific journals with their rigorous peer review process.^[82] In fact, according to Wikipedia editing guidelines regarding the requirement of references to external primary sources, Wikipedia's existence is essentially dependent on these professional publications. Nicholas G. Carr (b. ... On September 30, 2005, Tim OReilly wrote a piece summarizing his view of Web 2. ... Chris Anderson speaking at Boalt Hall. ... Wired is a full-color monthly magazine and on-line periodical published in San Francisco, California since March 1993. ... Nature is a prominent scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. ... The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, first published in 2004, is a book written by James Surowiecki about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than... Nature, Science and PNAS In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. ... Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a scholarly process used in the publication of manuscripts and in the awarding of funding for research. ...

"Waffling" prose, "antiquarianism" and quality of writing

Roy Rosenzweig, in a June 2006 essay that combined both praise and criticism of Wikipedia, had several criticisms of its prose and its failure to distinguish the genuinely important from the merely sensational. While acknowledging that Wikipedia is "surprisingly accurate in reporting names, dates, and events in U.S. history" (Rosenzweig's own field of study) and that most of the few factual errors that he found "were small and inconsequential" and that "some errors simply repeat widely held but inaccurate beliefs," many of which are also reflected in Encarta and the Britannica; nonetheless

"Good historical writing requires not just factual accuracy but also a command of the scholarly literature, persuasive analysis and interpretations, and clear and engaging prose. By those measures, American National Biography Online easily outdistances Wikipedia."^[83]

Contrasting Wikipedia's treatment of Abraham Lincoln to that of Civil War historian James McPherson in American National Biography Online, he acknowledges that both are essentially accurate and cover the major episodes in Lincoln's life, but praises "McPherson’s richer contextualization… his artful use of quotations to capture Lincoln’s voice … and … his ability to convey a profound message in a handful of words." By contrast, he cites an example of Wikipedia's prose that he finds "both verbose and dull." Further, he contrasts "the skill and confident judgment of a seasoned historian" displayed by McPherson and others to the "antiquarianism" of Wikipedia (which he compares in this respect to American Heritage magazine), and states that while Wikipedia often provides extensive references, they are not the best ones. Still, he acknowledges that "not all historians write as well as McPherson and [Alan] Brinkley, and some of the better-written Wikipedia entries provide more engaging portraits than some sterile and routine entries in American National Biography Online.^[83] For other uses, see Abraham Lincoln (disambiguation). ... The American Civil War was fought in the United States from 1861 until 1865 between the northern states, popularly referred to as the U.S., the Union, the North, or the Yankees; and the seceding southern states, commonly referred to as the Confederate States of America, the CSA, the Confederacy... For the Civil War General of a similar name see James B. McPherson James M. McPherson (born October 11, 1936) is an American Civil War historian, and is the George Henry Davis 86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Rosenzweig also criticizes the "waffling—encouraged by the npov policy—[that] means that it is hard to discern any overall interpretive stance in Wikipedia history." He cites as an example of this the conclusion of Wikipedia's article on William Clarke Quantrill. While generally praising the article, he nonetheless points to its "waffling" conclusion: "Some historians…remember him as an opportunistic, bloodthirsty outlaw, while others continue to view him as a daring soldier and local folk hero."^[83] William Clark Quantrill of Quantrills Raiders William Clark Quantrill (July 31, 1837–June 6, 1865) was a pro-Confederate States of America guerrilla fighter during the American Civil War. ...

Other critics have made similar charges that, even if Wikipedia articles are factually accurate, they are often written in a poor, almost unreadable style. Frequent Wikipedia critic Andrew Orlowski commented: "Even when a Wikipedia entry is 100 per cent factually correct, and those facts have been carefully chosen, it all too often reads as if it has been translated from one language to another then into to a third, passing an illiterate translator at each stage."^[84]

Anonymous editing

Wikipedia has been criticized by many for allowing users to edit anonymously, with only their IP address to identify them. This is said to allow the vandals anonymity and makes it difficult to track them, due to the long and hard-to-remember nature of IP addresses. For instance, Wikipedia co-founder^[26] Larry Sanger wrote:^[85] An IP address (Internet Protocol address) is a unique address that certain electronic devices currently use in order to identify and communicate with each other on a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol standard (IP)—in simpler terms, a computer address. ... Lawrence Mark Larry Sanger (born July 16, 1968[1]) has been involved with various online encyclopedia projects. ...

Widespread anonymity leads to a distinguishable problem, namely, the attractiveness of the project to people who merely want to cause trouble, or who want to undermine the project, or who want to change it into something that it is avowedly not – in other words, the troll problem.

However, anonymous editors reveal their IP addresses, which can be used by admins to register complaints with Internet service providers or to put "range blocks" in place. Admins may also choose not to block because they might exclude regular contributors who share the same IP. Knowledgeable computer users and hackers, though, are easily capable of finding ways around IP blocking. Many have suggested requiring users to register before editing articles, and on December 5, 2005 non-registered editors were prohibited from creating new articles.^[86] The term Hackers can refer to several things: Hacker - a type of person interested in exploration, usually of a computer or electrical engineering background. ... is the 339th day of the year (340th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Copyright issues

A significant number of people, including Jimmy Wales, the de facto leader of the project,^[9] have commented that many images, and some articles, are copyright violations.^[87] Often images are uploaded and incorrectly tagged as fair use, which is discouraged but not disallowed on the English-language Wikipedia (other language projects each have their own image copyright policy); however, unless an image provides a reasonable justification for fair use, it will usually be deleted within a few weeks. There is also a copyright violations page where violations can be listed, and Wikipedia has their own designated agent^[88] who can take down content upon request, as required by current United States law (see Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act). Jimmy Donal Jimbo Wales, (born August 7, 1966)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for his role in founding Wikipedia, as well as other wiki-related projects, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. ... Not to be confused with copywriting. ... For fair use in trademark law, see Fair use (US trademark law). ... The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA), a portion of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act known as DMCA 512 or the DMCA takedown provisions, is a 1998 United States federal law that provided a safe harbor to online service providers (OSPs, including internet service providers) that promptly take down...

The "hive mind"

See also: Conformity (psychology) and Groupthink

In his article, Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism (first published online by Edge: The Third Culture, 30 May 2006), computer scientist and digital theorist Jaron Lanier describes Wikipedia as a "hive mind" that is "for the most part stupid and boring," and asks, rhetorically, "why pay attention to it?" His thesis follows: This article is about the psychological concept of conformity. ... Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. ... is the 150th day of the year (151st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Jaron Lanier Jaron Lanier (born 1960) is a virtual reality developer. ...

The problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous.^[89]

Lanier goes on to point out the economic trend to reward entities that aggregate information, rather than those that actually generate content. In the absence of "new business models," the popular demand for content will be sated by mediocrity, thus reducing or even eliminating any monetary incentives for the production of new knowledge.^[89] The ASCII codes for the word Wikipedia represented in binary, the numeral system most commonly used for encoding computer information. ...

Lanier's opinions produced some strong disagreement. Internet consultant Clay Shirky noted that Wikipedia has many internal controls in place and is not a mere mass of unintelligent collective effort: Clay Shirky is a writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. ...

Neither proponents nor detractors of hive mind rhetoric have much interesting to say about Wikipedia itself, because both groups ignore the details... Wikipedia is best viewed as an engaged community that uses a large and growing number of regulatory mechanisms to manage a huge set of proposed edits... To take the specific case of Wikipedia, the Seigenthaler/Kennedy debacle catalyzed both soul-searching and new controls to address the problems exposed, and the controls included, inter alia, a greater focus on individual responsibility, the very factor “Digital Maoism” denies is at work.^[90]

However critics charge that unless one is both familiar with Wikipedia and willing to spend a certain amount of time on wikipedia these safeguards can and do fail.

Criticism of the implementation

Notability

Wikipedia's notability policy, and the application thereof, is the subject of much criticism. One argument given for maintaining notability standards is that non-notable subjects are difficult to verify.^[91] Timothy Noah argues that the verifiability policy covers that issue sufficiently.^[92] Many writers believe that notability decisions are inevitably arbitrary. Nicholson Baker writes, "There are quires, reams, bales of controversy over what constitutes notability in Wikipedia: nobody will ever sort it out."^[93] David Gerard notes that "inside the wiki people argue endlessly, and outside the wiki it becomes a source of horrible public relations because it’s so obviously subjective and applied subjectively. And it trashes our usefulness for the Long Tail, thus damaging our breadth, one of our greatest strengths."^[94] The phrase The Long Tail (as a proper noun with capitalized letters) was first coined by Chris Anderson in a 2004 Wired Magazine article [1] to describe certain business and economic models such as Amazon. ...

Criticism of the contributors

Flame wars

A common complaint about Wikipedia concerns so-called "flame wars", or deliberate insults made by users to create a hostile environment. This concern has been acknowledged by Wikipedia; civility^[95] and "no personal attacks"^[96] are official policies of the project, and the concept of "wikiquette" has been adopted by some users in response.^[97] Flaming is the hostile and insulting interaction between Internet users. ...

Strongly biased editing

Another complaint about Wikipedia focuses on the efforts of contributors with idiosyncratic beliefs, who push their point of view in an effort to dominate articles, especially controversial ones.^[98][99] This sometimes results in revert wars and pages being locked down. In response, an Arbitration Committee has been formed on the English Wikipedia that deals with the worst alleged offenders — though a conflict resolution strategy is actively encouraged before going to this extent. Also, to stop the continuous reverting of pages, Jimmy Wales introduced a "three revert rule",^[100] whereby those users who reverse the effect of others' contributions to one article more than three times in a 24 hour period may be blocked. Jimmy Donal Jimbo Wales, (born August 7, 1966)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for his role in founding Wikipedia, as well as other wiki-related projects, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. ...

Liberal bias

Another criticism is that a politically liberal bias is predominant. According to Jimmy Wales: "The Wikipedia community is very diverse, from liberal to conservative to libertarian and beyond. If averages mattered, and due to the nature of the wiki software (no voting) they almost certainly don’t, I would say that the Wikipedia community is slightly more liberal than the U.S. population on average, because we are global and the international community of English speakers is slightly more liberal than the U.S. population. There are no data or surveys to back that."^[101] The belief in a liberal bias at Wikipedia led to the creation of Conservapedia.^[102] Conservapedia editors have compiled a list of alleged examples of bias in Wikipedia.^[103] In 2007, an article in The Christian Post criticised Wikipedia's coverage of Intelligent Design, saying that it was biased and hypocritical.^[104] A February, 2007 study by ValueWiki.com of 901 politically self-identified Wikipedia contributors concluded: "1. Liberal and "Leftist" Wikipedians are roughly proportionate to the US population. 2. Libertarians are overwhelmingly over-represented. 3. Conservative Wikipedians are dramatically under-represented." The study was criticized as "very basic" and not "representative" due to its reliance on self-identifications by a small number of Wikipedia contributors.^[105] Modern liberalism in the United States is a form of liberalism that began in the United States in the last years of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century. ... Jimmy Donal Jimbo Wales, (born August 7, 1966)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for his role in founding Wikipedia, as well as other wiki-related projects, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. ... Conservapedia is an English-language wiki-based web encyclopedia project with the stated purpose of creating an encyclopedia written from a socially- and economically-conservative viewpoint supportive of Conservative Christianity. ... The Christian Post is a pan-denominational, Evangelical-leaning Christian newspaper based in Washington, D.C.. It is an operating division of The Christian Post Company - a multimedia firm whose principal member productions include digital publications ( www. ... For other uses, see Intelligent design (disambiguation). ...

Censorship

An article in The Independent stated that many "censorial interventions" by editors with vested interests on a variety of articles in Wikipedia have been recently discovered: For other uses, see The Independent (disambiguation). ...

"[Wikipedia] was hailed as a breakthrough in the democratisation of knowledge. But the online encyclopedia has since been hijacked by forces who decided that certain things were best left unknown... Now a website designed to monitor editorial changes made on Wikipedia has found thousands of self-serving edits and traced them to their original source. It has turned out to be hugely embarrassing for armies of political spin doctors and corporate revisionists who believed their censorial interventions had gone unnoticed."^[106]

An article in Computer Power User asserted that former editors of Wikipedia formed Wikitruth, a site that exposes alleged censorship and infighting on the encyclopedia: "Former editors recently created Wikitruth.info, which purports to expose articles and edits that Wikipedia censors and other “atrocities” involving in-fighting among the administrators."^[107] According to InformationWeek, Jimmy Wales dismissed the site as a "hoax" created by editors who had their articles deleted or modified on Wikipedia.^[108] Computer Power User (or CPU) is a monthly computing and technology magazine published by Sandhills Publishing Company in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. It has been in circulation since December 2001. ... Wikitruth is a website critical of the online encyclopedia project Wikipedia. ... InformationWeek is a weekly technology magazine published by CMP Media. ...

Administrator actions

In an article on Wikipedia conflicts, The Guardian noted criticism that administrators of the site, who have "special powers to lock down vulnerable articles from further editing, and temporarily block problem users from making changes to the site",^[109] have occasionally abused those powers to suppress legitimate editors. The article discussed "a backlash among some editors, who argue that blocking users compromises the supposedly open nature of the project, and the imbalance of power between users and administrators may even be a reason some users choose to vandalise in the first place."^[109] A paper published by Palo Alto Research Center, noted the "social stratification in the Wikipedia society" due to the "admins class". The paper suggested that such stratification could be beneficial in some respects but recognized a "clear subsequent shift in power among levels of stratification" due to the "status and power differentials" between administrators and other editors.^[110] An article on The Register, dated 4 December 2007 and entitled "Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia", discussed the use of a private mailing list to coordinate administrative actions.^[111] For other uses, see Guardian. ... Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) was a flagship research division of the Xerox Corporation, based in Palo Alto, California, USA. It was founded in 1970 and spun out as a separate company in 2002. ... Current logo of The Register. ...

Level of debate

The standard of debate on Wikipedia has been called into question by persons who have noted that contributors can make a long list of salient points and pull in a wide range of empirical observations to back up their arguments, only to have them ignored completely on the site.^[112] An academic study of Wikipedia articles found that the level of debate among Wikipedia editors on controversial topics often degenerated into counterproductive squabbling: "For uncontroversial, 'stable' topics self-selection also ensures that members of editorial groups are substantially well-aligned with each other in their interests, backgrounds, and overall understanding of the topics...For controversial topics, on the other hand, self-selection may produce a strongly misaligned editorial group. It can lead to conflicts among the editorial group members, continuous edit wars, and may require the use of formal work coordination and control mechanisms. These may include intervention by administrators who enact dispute review and mediation processes, [or] completely disallow or limit and coordinate the types and sources of edits."^[113]

Male domination

In November 2006 a group of female long-term contributors to Wikipedia formed WikiChix, a group inspired by and modeled after the female-dominated LinuxChix, in response to their perception of how male-dominated Wikipedia has become, and how uncomfortable some women are when contributing in such an atmosphere.^[114] One example of their frustration, though not explicitly cited by the WikiChix community, was the attempt to create the article "Feminist science fiction," which became the subject of a revision war which was ultimately resolved, unsatisfactorily to many, by changing the title to "Women in science fiction" in October 2002. The article at "Feminist science fiction" was then only restarted in June 2006.^[115] The existence of a mailing list limited exclusively to female contributors prompted some controversy; the list was subsequently moved from the Wikimedia Foundation's servers to Wikia, the separate wiki-hosting service.^[116] A study by Hitwise found that visitors to Wikipedia are almost equally split 50/50 male/female, but that 60% of edits are made by male editors.^[117] LinuxChix is a women-oriented mailing list and IRC community for Linux users. ... LeGuins Left Hand Of Darkness Feminist science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that focuses on the examination of womens roles in society. ... Although women had always been represented among science fiction writers (Frankenstein by Mary Shelley has been called the first science fiction novel), it was not until the 1960s and 1970s that authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ began to consciously explore feminist themes in works such... For the wiki software used and developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, see MediaWiki. ... Wikia (no official pronunciation[2]; originally Wikicities) is a selective wiki hosting service (or wiki farm) operated by Wikia, Inc. ... Hitwise provides insights into the performance of websites within the selected industry. ...

Community

The Wikipedia community consists of people that are frequent contributors.^[118] Emigh and Herring argue that "a few active users, when acting in concert with established norms within an open editing system, can achieve ultimate control over the content produced within the system, literally erasing diversity, controversy, and inconsistency, and homogenizing contributors' voices."^[11] Editors on Wikinfo, a fork of Wikipedia, similarly argue that new or controversial editors to Wikipedia are often unjustly labeled "trolls" or "problem users" and blocked from editing.^[119] The community has also been criticized for responding to complaints regarding an article's quality by advising the complainer to fix the article themselves.^[120] Professor James H. Fetzer criticized Wikipedia in that he could not change the article about himself;^[121] to ensure impartiality, Wikipedia has a policy that discourages the editing of biographies by the subjects themselves except in "clear-cut cases", such as reverting vandalism or correcting out-of-date or mistaken facts.^[122] Wikinfo, formerly known as Internet-Encyclopedia (renamed in January 2004), is a fork of the English Wikipedia initiated by Fred Bauder in July 2003. ... The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. ... A Do not feed the troll image In Internet terminology, a troll is someone who comes into an established community such as an online discussion forum, and posts inflammatory, rude, repetitive or offensive messages designed intentionally to annoy or antagonize the existing members or disrupt the flow of discussion, including... Image:James H. Fetzer. ...

The community has been described as "cult-like,"^{[123][124][125]} although not always with entirely negative connotations.^[126] A popular joke is that Wikipedia can't possibly work in theory, but does work in practice.^[127] A larger social community also helps in maintaining a supportive atmosphere and collective etiquette, such as resolving disputes by appealing to reliable sources and Wikipedia's own policies.^[128]

Wikipedia does not require that its users identify themselves. This anonymity has been criticized, since it does not allow editors to be held accountable for their edits.^[129] It also means that multiple people may use one account — or, more often, one person may use multiple accounts, often in an attempt to influence an argument. The latter practice is known as "sock puppetry," which is actively discouraged on Wikipedia.^[130] A sock puppet, after which Internet sock puppets are named. ...

Essjay and the lack of credential verification

Main article: Essjay controversy

In July 2006 The New Yorker ran a feature about Wikipedia by Stacy Schiff.^[131] Experts including the president of Encyclopædia Britannica, Jorge Cauz, and Wikipedia's de facto leader Jimmy Wales,^[9] gave their opinions on the future of Wikipedia. Cauz stated that Wikipedia risked a "decline into a hulking, mediocre mass of uneven, unreliable, and, many times, unreadable articles" and that "Wikipedia is to Britannica as American Idol is to the Juilliard School." Wales countered by stating that he would consider Britannica a competitor, “except that I think they will be crushed out of existence within five years.” The Essjay controversy was a February 2007 incident where a prominent English Wikipedia administrator known as Essjay was found to have made false claims about his academic qualifications and professional experience in a telephone interview with The New Yorker. ... For other uses, see New Yorker. ... Stacy Madeleine Schiff (born October 26, 1961[1]) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American nonfiction author and guest columnist for The New York Times. ... The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. ... Jorge Cauz is an American businessman and the president of Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. ... Jimmy Donal Jimbo Wales, (born August 7, 1966)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for his role in founding Wikipedia, as well as other wiki-related projects, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. ... For the current American Idol season, see American Idol (season 7). ... The Juilliard School is one of the worlds premier performing arts conservatories, in New York City. ...

The New Yorker article included an interview with a Wikipedia administrator known by the pseudonym Essjay, who was described in the article as a tenured professor of theology.^[132] Essjay's Wikipedia user page^[133] (now removed) made the following claim: For other uses, see Alias. ... Look up tenure in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The meaning of the word professor (Latin: [1]) varies. ... Theology finds its scholars pursuing the understanding of and providing reasoned discourse of religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ...

I am a tenured professor of theology at a private university in the eastern United States; I teach both undergraduate and graduate theology. I have been asked repeatedly to reveal the name of the institution, however, I decline to do so; I am unsure of the consequences of such an action, and believe it to be in my best interests to remain anonymous.

Essjay also claimed on his user page that he held four academic degrees: Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies (B.A.), Master of Arts in Religion (M.A.R.), Doctorate of Philosophy in Theology (Ph.D.), and Doctorate in Canon Law (JCD). Essjay specialized in editing articles about religion on Wikipedia, including subjects such as "the penitential rite, transubstantiation, the papal tiara";^[131] on one occasion he was called in to give some "expert testimony" on the status of Mary in the Roman Catholic Church.^[134] In January 2007, Essjay was hired as a manager with Wikia, a wiki-hosting service founded by Wales and Angela Beesley. In February, Wales appointed Essjay as a member of the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee, a group with powers to issue binding rulings in disputes relating to Wikipedia.^[135] Virgin Mary redirects here. ... Catholic Church redirects here. ... Wikia (no official pronunciation[2]; originally Wikicities) is a selective wiki hosting service (or wiki farm) operated by Wikia, Inc. ... Angela Beesley (born 1977 in Norwich, England)[2] is a British Internet entrepreneur. ...

In late February 2007 The New Yorker added an editorial note to its article on Wikipedia stating that it had learned that Essjay was Ryan Jordan, a 24-year-old college dropout from Kentucky with no advanced degrees and no teaching experience.^[136] Initially Jimmy Wales commented on the issue of Essjay's identity: "I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it." Larry Sanger, co-founder^{[1][137][138]} of Wikipedia, responded to Wales on his Citizendium blog by calling Wales' initial reaction "utterly breathtaking, and ultimately tragic." Sanger said the controversy "reflects directly on the judgment and values of the management of Wikipedia."^[139] Look up dropout in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Official language(s) English[1] Capital Frankfort Largest city Louisville Area  Ranked 37th  - Total 40,444 sq mi (104,749 km²)  - Width 140 miles (225 km)  - Length 379 miles (610 km)  - % water 1. ... Lawrence Mark Larry Sanger (born July 16, 1968[1]) has been involved with various online encyclopedia projects. ... This article covers the history of Wikipedia, a project to produce a free content encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. ... The Citizendium (pronounced the citizens compendium of everything) is an English-language online wiki-based free encyclopedia project spearheaded by Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia. ...

Wales later issued a new statement saying he had not previously understood that "EssJay used his false credentials in content disputes." He added: "I have asked EssJay to resign his positions of trust within the [Wikipedia] community."^[140] Sanger responded the next day: "It seems Jimmy finds nothing wrong, nothing trust-violating, with the act itself of openly and falsely touting many advanced degrees on Wikipedia. But there most obviously is something wrong with it, and it’s just as disturbing for Wikipedia’s head to fail to see anything wrong with it."^[141]

On March 4, Essjay wrote on his user page that he was leaving Wikipedia, and he also resigned his position with Wikia.^[142] A subsequent article in the Louisville Courier-Journal suggested that the new résumé he had posted at his Wikia page was exaggerated.^[143] The March 19, 2007 issue of The New Yorker published a formal apology by Wales to the magazine and Stacy Schiff for Essjay's false statements.^[144] Categories: Stub | Newspapers in Kentucky | Louisville, Kentucky ... Look up résumé, curriculum vitae, resume in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Discussing the incident, the New York Times noted that the Wikipedia community had responded to the affair with "the fury of the crowd," and observed: The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...

The Essjay episode underlines some of the perils of collaborative efforts like Wikipedia that rely on many contributors acting in good faith, often anonymously and through self-designated user names. But it also shows how the transparency of the Wikipedia process — all editing of entries is marked and saved — allows readers to react to suspected fraud.^[145]

The Essjay incident received extensive media coverage, including a national U.S. television broadcast on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson^[146] and a March 7, 2007 Associated Press story that was picked up by more than 100 media outlets listed in the Google news cache.^[147] The controversy has led to a proposal that users claiming to possess academic qualifications would have to provide evidence before citing them in Wikipedia content disputes.^[148] The proposal was not accepted.^[149] The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is an American television network. ... World News with Charles Gibson (previously known as World News Tonight and often abbreviated as WNT) is an American television news program. ... The Associated Press, or AP, is an American news agency, the worlds largest such organization. ... This article is about the corporation. ...

Humorous criticism

Wikipedia is frequently satirized by humorists who call attention to factual inaccuracies that may appear in articles owing to sloppy or biased editors and/or vandalism. For example, an article in The Onion was entitled "Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence". In a piece on The Colbert Report, entitled "Wikiality," Stephen Colbert encouraged his viewers to change Wikipedia's article on elephants to state that the number of African elephants had tripled over the past six months.^[150] Colbert's comments provoked a wave of vandalism of various articles at Wikipedia.^[151] On the 28 January 2007 edition of his program, Colbert did another segment on an attempt by Microsoft to hire writers to skew certain Wikipedia articles in their favor, ending with a call by Colbert to change the Wikipedia article on "reality" to the phrase "Reality has become a commodity" and offering a $5 cash reward to the first viewer to do so. In the animated American Dad! episode "Black Mystery Month" the character Steve Smith, seeking the “one place where a person can put out crazy information with no evidence that millions will accept as true,” turns to Wikipedia.^[152] Mad Magazine has spoofed Wikipedia several times in a section of "short takes" on topics of current interest. Satire also exists in the form of parody encyclopedias such as Uncyclopedia^[153] and Encyclopedia Dramatica.^[154] Allegations that Wikipedia has been used as a platform for defamation gave rise to a joke in an episode of The Simpsons, where jailed hoodlum Snake says to his girlfriend, "Hey, baby. Listen carefully. Someone’s been editing my biography on Wikipedia. I want you to kill him. "[1] The Onion is a United States-based parody newspaper published weekly in print and daily online. ... The Colbert Report (IPA ) is an American satirical television program that airs from 11:30 p. ... Wikiality is a portmanteau of wiki and reality first used on the The Colbert Report on July 31, 2006. ... Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A. (pronounced ) is the fictional persona of political satirist Stephen Colbert, portrayed most notably on The Colbert Report. ... Genera and Species Loxodonta Loxodonta cyclotis Loxodonta africana Elephas Elephas maximus Elephas antiquus † Elephas beyeri † Elephas celebensis † Elephas cypriotes † Elephas ekorensis † Elephas falconeri † Elephas iolensis † Elephas planifrons † Elephas platycephalus † Elephas recki † Stegodon † Mammuthus † Elephantidae (the elephants) is a family of pachyderm, and the only remaining family in the order Proboscidea... Species Loxodonta adaurora (extinct) Loxodonta africana Loxodonta cyclotis African elephants are the two species of elephants in the Loxodonta genus, one of the two existing genera in Elephantidae. ... is the 28th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ... For other uses, see Reality (disambiguation). ... American Dad! is a satirical American animated series produced by Underdog Productions and Fuzzy Door Productions for 20th Century Fox Television. ... Black Mystery Month is a second season episode of the animated series American Dad!. While researching a paper about George Washington Carver in celebration of Black History Month, Steve uncovers a conspiracy thats been going on since the Civil War. ... Steven Smith (voiced by Scott Grimes) is a fictional character on American Dad!. He is Stan and Francine Smiths only son and Hayleys brother. ... Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. ... Uncyclopedia was originally founded in 2005 as an English-language wiki featuring satirically themed articles. ... Simpsons redirects here. ...

See also

Wikinews has related news:

Teen charged with seven felonies related to threats made on Wikipedia, Wikinews interviews administrator who contacted police

• Open content
• User-generated content
• Wikipedia:Replies to common objections
• Wikipedia:Press coverage

Image File history File links WikiNews-Logo. ... Wikinews is a free-content news source and a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. ... Open content, coined by analogy with open source, (though technically it is actually share-alike) describes any kind of creative work including articles, pictures, audio, and video that is published in a format that explicitly allows the copying of the information. ... User-generated content (UGC), also known as Consumer Generated Media or User-created Content (UCC) [1], refers to various kinds of media content that are produced by end-users, (as opposed to traditional media producers such as professional writers, publishers, journalists, licensed broadcasters and production companies). ...

Further reading

• Andrew Keen. The Cult of the Amateur. Doubleday/Currency, 2007. ISBN 9780385520805 (substantial criticisms of Wikipedia and other web 2.0 projects). Listen to: Does the Internet Undermine Culture?, NPR interview with A. Keen, Weekend Edition Saturday, June 16, 2007.

Andrew Keen (born circa 1960[1]) is a British-American entrepreneur and author best known as a critic of Web 2. ...

Notes

ABC News logo ABC News Special Report ident, circa 2006 ABC News is a division of American television and radio network ABC, owned by The Walt Disney Company. ... The Associated Press, or AP, is an American news agency, the worlds largest such organization. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year (86th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 113th day of the year (114th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Lawrence Mark Larry Sanger (born July 16, 1968[1]) has been involved with various online encyclopedia projects. ... Kuro5hin (K5) (pronounced corrosion) is a community discussion website (sometimes known as an example of Commons-based peer production) focused on technology and culture. ... is the 365th day of the year (366th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 87th day of the year (88th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 92nd day of the year (93rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Robert Dale McHenry (born April 30, 1945) is an American editor, encyclopedist, and writer. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 319th day of the year (320th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 58th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 106th day of the year (107th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 26th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 27th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... The Associated Press, or AP, is an American news agency, the worlds largest such organization. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 92nd day of the year (93rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 111th day of the year (112th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 116th day of the year (117th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year (86th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Times is a national newspaper published daily in the United Kingdom (and the Kingdom of Great Britain before the United Kingdom existed) since 1788 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 116th day of the year (117th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... BusinessWeek is a business magazine published by McGraw-Hill. ... is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 29th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Wikipedia (IPA: , or ( ) is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Guardian. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 299th day of the year (300th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 328th day of the year (329th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year (86th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 195th day of the year (196th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Encyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopaedia published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 89th day of the year (90th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Nature is a prominent scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. ... A digital object identifier (or DOI) is a standard for persistently identifying a piece of intellectual property on a digital network and associating it with related data, the metadata, in a structured extensible way. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 195th day of the year (196th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 256th day of the year (257th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Robert Dale McHenry (born April 30, 1945) is an American editor, encyclopedist, and writer. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 346th day of the year (347th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Rutland Herald is the second largest daily newspaper in Vermont, USA. With a weekly circulation of just over 20,000, it is the main source of news geared towards the southern part of the state, along with the Brattleboro Reformer. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 95th day of the year (96th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 82nd day of the year (83rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 92nd day of the year (93rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... is the 214th day of the year (215th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Science is the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is considered one of the worlds most prestigious scientific journals. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 194th day of the year (195th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Guardian. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Lawrence Mark Larry Sanger (born July 16, 1968[1]) has been involved with various online encyclopedia projects. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Kuro5hin (K5) (pronounced corrosion) is a community discussion website (sometimes known as an example of Commons-based peer production) focused on technology and culture. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 195th day of the year (196th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Guardian. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 9th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 196th day of the year (197th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 156th day of the year (157th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 168th day of the year (169th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 166th day of the year (167th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 171st day of the year (172nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 111th day of the year (112th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 256th day of the year (257th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 107th day of the year (108th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see The Independent (disambiguation). ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 291st day of the year (292nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 291st day of the year (292nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 333rd day of the year (334th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 247th day of the year (248th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 62nd day of the year (63rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 76th day of the year (77th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 190th day of the year (191st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 76th day of the year (77th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 61st day of the year (62nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 76th day of the year (77th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 23rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 276th day of the year (277th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 193rd day of the year (194th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Boston Globe is the most widely-circulated daily newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts and in the greater New England region. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 105th day of the year (106th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 118th day of the year (119th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 80th day of the year (81st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 119th day of the year (120th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The News & Observer logo The front page of The News & Observer from January 26, 2005 The News & Observer is the regional daily newspaper of the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, USA. It is based in Raleigh and also covers Durham, Cary and Chapel Hill. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 75th day of the year (76th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... April 8 is the 98th day of the year (99th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 142nd day of the year (143rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 103rd day of the year (104th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 277th day of the year (278th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 101st day of the year (102nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 328th day of the year (329th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 30th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... CNET Networks, Inc. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 28th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 256th day of the year (257th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 190th day of the year (191st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... This article is about the day of the year. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... This article is about the day of the year. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... This article is about the day of the year. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... This article is about the day of the year. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... This article is about the day of the year. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 228th day of the year (229th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Current logo of The Register. ... is the 37th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance to the Gregorian calendar. ... Current logo of The Register. ... is the 119th day of the year (120th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2008 (MMVIII) is the current year, a leap year that started on Tuesday of the Anno Domini (or common era), in accordance to the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 339th day of the year (340th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 340th day of the year (341st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 339th day of the year (340th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... InformationWeek is a weekly technology magazine published by CMP Media. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 350th day of the year (351st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 339th day of the year (340th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 212th day of the year (213th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 253rd day of the year (254th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 259th day of the year (260th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 259th day of the year (260th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... is the 102nd day of the year (103rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 16th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 291st day of the year (292nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 348th day of the year (349th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 356th day of the year (357th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 83rd day of the year (84th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 82nd day of the year (83rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 276th day of the year (277th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 196th day of the year (197th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 283rd day of the year (284th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 223rd day of the year (224th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 291st day of the year (292nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 273rd day of the year (274th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 283rd day of the year (284th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Jimmy Donal Jimbo Wales, (born August 7, 1966)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for his role in founding Wikipedia, as well as other wiki-related projects, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 339th day of the year (340th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 364th day of the year (365th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 219th day of the year (220th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Edge Foundation was created in 1988 to seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together and have themselves ask each other the questions they are asking themselves. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 120th day of the year (121st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 158th day of the year (159th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 121st day of the year (122nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 28th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... The New Zealand Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 107th day of the year (108th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... There is also a collection of Hadith called Sahih Muslim A Muslim (Arabic: مسلم, Persian: Mosalman or Mosalmon Urdu: مسلمان, Turkish: Müslüman, Albanian: Mysliman, Bosnian: Musliman) is an adherent of the religion of Islam. ... For other people named Muhammad, see Muhammad (disambiguation). ... For other people of the same name, see Tony Blair (disambiguation) Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born May 6, 1953)[1] is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, Leader of the Labour Party, and Member of Parliament for the constituency... Linux Magazin (ISSN 1432-640X) is a German professional journal. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 132nd day of the year (133rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 111th day of the year (112th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 60th day of the year (61st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Conservapedia is an English-language wiki-based web encyclopedia project with the stated purpose of creating an encyclopedia written from a socially- and economically-conservative viewpoint supportive of Conservative Christianity. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 189th day of the year (190th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 129th day of the year (130th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 221st day of the year (222nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 57th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 284th day of the year (285th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 230th day of the year (231st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 107th day of the year (108th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 84th day of the year (85th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 277th day of the year (278th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 338th day of the year (339th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 338th day of the year (339th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 195th day of the year (196th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... For other uses, see 5th October (Serbia). ... Annalee Newitz is a writer based in the U.S. She covers the cultural impact of science and technology. ... AlterNet, a project of the non-profit Independent Media Institute, is a progressive news website that was launched in 1998 and receives over 2 million visitors per month. ... is the 353rd day of the year (354th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 355th day of the year (356th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 115th day of the year (116th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... (Clockwise from upper left) Time magazine covers from May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 120th day of the year (121st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 20th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Wikinfo, formerly known as Internet-Encyclopedia (renamed in January 2004), is a fork of the English Wikipedia initiated by Fred Bauder in July 2003. ... is the 89th day of the year (90th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 29th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Current logo of The Register. ... is the 204th day of the year (205th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 123rd day of the year (124th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Guardian. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The British Broadcasting Company Ltd was a British commercial company formed on October 18, 1922 by British and American electrical companies doing business in the United Kingdom. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 350th day of the year (351st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Current logo of The Register. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 340th day of the year (341st in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... CNN or Cable News Network is a cable television network that was founded in 1980 by Ted Turner & Reese Schonfeld [1]. It is a division of the Turner Broadcasting System, owned by Time Warner. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 216th day of the year (217th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 87th day of the year (88th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Public Information Research, Inc. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 28th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 27th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 67th day of the year (68th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... For other uses, see Guardian. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 213th day of the year (214th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 162nd day of the year (163rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 169th day of the year (170th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Andrew Orlowski (born 1966) is a British columnist for the online IT newspaper The Register. ... is the 61st day of the year (62nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Current logo of The Register. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 77th day of the year (78th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 65th day of the year (66th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 67th day of the year (68th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... This article is about the year. ... is the 263rd day of the year (264th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 213th day of the year (214th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... The Boston Globe is the most widely-circulated daily newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts and in the greater New England region. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 211th day of the year (212th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 61st day of the year (62nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 62nd day of the year (63rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 262nd day of the year (263rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 65th day of the year (66th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Categories: Stub | Newspapers in Kentucky | Louisville, Kentucky ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 137th day of the year (138th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 66th day of the year (67th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Jimmy Donal Jimbo Wales, (born August 7, 1966)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for his role in founding Wikipedia, as well as other wiki-related projects, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit company Wikia, Inc. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 78th day of the year (79th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see New Yorker. ... The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... This article is about the day. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... This article is about the day. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 67th day of the year (68th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 66th day of the year (67th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 68th day of the year (69th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 213th day of the year (214th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 219th day of the year (220th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 139th day of the year (140th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 277th day of the year (278th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 182nd day of the year (183rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 323rd day of the year (324th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Wiki boss 'edited for donation' Wednesday, March 12, 2008, 10:27 GMT (News.BBC.co.uk)
• Is something fundamentally wrong with Wikipedia governance processes? February 27, 2008
• Secret mailing list rocks wikipedia-by Cade Metz, The Register, December 4, 2007.
• Wikipedia is a real-life Hitchhiker's Guide: huge, nerdy, and imprecise - by Paul Boutin, Slate, May 3, 2005.
• Wikipedia target of House 'editors' - by Evan Lehmann, TheTranscript.com, January 30, 2006.
• A thirst for knowledge by Andrew Orlowski The Guardian April 13, 2006
• Wikipedia: magic, monkeys and typewriters - by Andrew Orlowski, The Register, October 24, 2005.
• Can you trust Wikipedia? - by Elvira van Noort, Mail & Guardian (South Africa), November 7, 2005.
• A false Wikipedia 'biography' - by John Seigenthaler Sr., USA Today, November 29, 2005.
• "The Danger of Wikipedia", Editor and Publisher, November 30, 2005. (Login required)
• Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar - by Katharine Q. Seelye in The New York Times, December 3, 2005.
• Unreliable (adj): log on and see - by Rosemary Righter, The Times, December 9, 2005
• Online encyclopedias put to the test - by Stephen Cauchi, December 14, 2005.
• Wikipedia science 31% more cronky than Britannica's - by Andrew Orlowski, The Register, December 16, 2005.
• "Wikipedia founder admits to serious quality problems" - by Andrew Orlowski, The Register, December 18, 2005.
• Does Wikipedia win through the "wisdom of crowds"? by Jack Schofield Guardian Unlimited December 19, 2005
• Turf Wars: Wikipedia spars with a splinter site for truth by Julian Dibbell The Village Voice May 2, 2006
• Wikipedia Founder Looks Out for Number 1 - by Rogers Cadenhead, December 19, 2005.
• Wikipedia target of House 'editors' - by Evan Lehmann, TheTranscript.com, January 30, 2006.
• Profs knock Wikipedia - by Brittany Anas, February 6, 2006. (Login required)
• The Great Failure of Wikipedia (transcript) by Jason Scott Sadofsky at Notacon 3 in Cleveland, Ohio
• The Wikipedia FAQK, Wired article that provides sarcastic advice to new Wikipedia contributors. April 19, 2006
• Neil Gaiman: What Bears Do On the Lawn, May 11, 2006, criticism of Wikipedia by noted author and essayist Neil Gaiman.
• "U. Florida cops ask fiction writer for fingerprints, DNA", boingboing, May 22, 2006, retrieved May 25, 2006.
• Wikis Are a Waste of Time bySteven J. Vaughan-Nichols eWeek May 22, 2006
• The death of Wikipedia by Nicholas Carr May 24, 2006
• Now, let's bury the myth by Nicholas Carr May 25, 2006
• Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence The Onion's satirical view July 26, 2006
• How wiki-wiki can get sticky by Ben Macintyre The Times July 21, 2006
• Segal, David. "Our love/hate relationship with Wikipedia", Washington Post, December 3, 2006. 
• McNamara, Paul. "Look Me Up Under 'Missing Link'", NetworkWorld, December 3, 2006. 
• "The Shiny Diamonds 1". On the Coast. CBC Radio. CBC Radio One, Vancouver, BC. 2006-12-19. 165 minutes in.
• "The Shiny Diamonds 2". On the Coast. CBC Radio. CBC Radio One, All of British Columbia except Vancouver. 2006-12-20. 105 minutes in.
• "Stabbing Polonius" by Nicholas Carr April 27, 2007
• Sand Castles of Knowledge by Kyle Gann May 5, 2007
• Wikipedia Encyc.org article
• "Wikipedia: A Million Monkeys Typing" Editorial note from Workers Vanguard, biweekly newspaper of the Spartacist League/US [2]
• "Communiqué from Wikiality" Letter and response from Workers Vanguard on Wikipedia [3]
• The Book Stops Here Wired News article
• Microsoft's step into Wikipedia prompts debate

This article incorporates text from the GFDL Wikipedia page Wikipedia:Replies to common objections.