How Wikipedia Works (2013)

How Wikipedia Works

Phoebe AyersWikimedia

UC Davis Libraries

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

What is Wikimedia?12 projects

280 languages 100,000 active individual editors 100s of local meetup groups 38 local/national level chapters 150 employees at the Wikimedia

Foundation, San Francisco 1,130,000 individual financial donors (in

2011-12)

500,000,000 readers

The cultivated person’s first duty is to always be prepared to rewrite

the encyclopedia. -Umberto Eco

Wikimania 2005

[[user:Walkerma]]

Bangalore, 2010

Wikimania, Buenos Aires 2009

David Ferrieio, Wikimania 2012

Wikimania, Haifa 2011

assume shared goals, shared principles and good faith –

but diversity: in interest, background, nationalities, senses of humor, political opinions

• Free [to use and reuse]

• Volunteer-written

• Supported by readers

• Everyone can participate

• Neutral, encyclopedic, factual

• No top down editorial control:

• Community curated work

Values

WikiProjects and to-do lists

Or: what is there to do today?

History of an article

compareDate of edit

username

Their other contributions

Edit summary

Revision of an article – one “edit”

Evaluating an article

Becoming an editor

Adding a reference

How to cite