Wikipedia? What is it?

Question

I heard it's more than just a dictionary/encyclopaedia

Answer 1

Yeah, it's a copy & paste cheat "encyclopedia" used by YA answerers gaming for points & the "best answer." Wiki queens always come up with the right answer the fastest, which is why I try to ask questions they can't look up in Wikipedia so easily.

Wikipedia isn't always so reliable, either. Ask that dude whose reputation was tarnished last year due to an inaccurate Wikipedia entry.

Answer 2

Wikipedia is an on-line encyclopedia. It has articles on almost everything. It is a wiki site, which means that anyone who has access to it, can edit the site. It is mainly run by volunteers.

Wikipedia started in January of 2001 as an addition to Nupedia. Now, midway through 2006, it has over 4.5 million articles, with over a million in English, and the rest in a variety of other languages.

Because the articles in wikipedia can be edited by anyone, the reliability of it is questionable.However, seeing as it is one of the top twenty most visited sites on the web, it remains a great resource. Although some users take advantage of their opportunity to add nonsense to an encyclopedia, it is ofter quickly found by people with genuine interest and corrected.

Everyday, Wikipedia is updated with an article of the day (in English), current news stories (international), and did you know facts. There is also a discussion board for people to talk about pretty much anything.

In addition to being an encyclopedia, Wikipedia also had the following serivices:Dictionay and Thesaurus, Textbooks and Manuals, free-content news, free-content library, Directory of species, Collection of Quotations, and Shared Wikimedia.

Answer 3

An Information Web Site.

Answer 4

Its a very good online encyclopedia/dictionary/artificial brain that anyone can edit. It is very widely used, especially for homework/project research by students/people that like to look at encyclopedias.
It is found at wikipedia.org, which leads you to a screen that lets you choose your preferred language, which can be changed at any time. The home page has info about random stuff they choose to put on daily/weekly etc.
just search for what ever you want to know about and it will give you a list of related topics. Its a REALLY big database.

Answer 5

Well it is a dictionary, ecylopedia, but then there's so many things on it. I think it's also a thesaurus. You can also translate everything. It also shows you how to site things.
If you are using it to research for shcool, some teachers, in fact most, don't think it is reliable. That is the beauty of it. You can read and understand it on Wikipedia, because the information, in my opinion, is so simple, but then it also gives you the books and websites it used and others references related to the subject, so it is very useful. I recommend it. It has helped me on a number of thing.

Hope this helped.

Answer 6

Wikipedia (IPA: /ˌwiːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/, or /ˌwɪkiːˈpiːdi.ə/, else /ˌwɪkɪˈpiːdi.ə/) is an international Web-based free-content encyclopedia project. It exists as a wiki, a website that allows visitors to edit its content; the word Wikipedia itself is a portmanteau of the words wiki and encyclopedia. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers, allowing articles to be changed by anyone with access to the website. Wikipedia's main servers are located in Tampa, Florida, with additional servers in Amsterdam and Seoul.

The project began on January 29, 2001 as a complement to the expert-written (and now defunct) Nupedia, and is now operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

Midway through 2006, Wikipedia had more than 4,600,000 articles in many languages, including more than 1,200,000 in the English-language version. There were more than 200 language editions of Wikipedia, fifteen of which had more than 50,000 articles each. The German-language edition has been distributed on DVD-ROM, and there were also proposals for an English DVD or paper edition. Since its inception, Wikipedia has steadily risen in popularity,[1] and has spawned several sister projects. According to Alexa, Wikipedia ranked in the top 20 most visited websites, and many of its pages had been mirrored or forked by other sites, such as Answers.com.

Wikipedia's co-founder, Jimmy Wales, has called Wikipedia "an effort to create and distribute a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language."[2] However, there has been controversy over Wikipedia's reliability and accuracy, with the site receiving criticism for its susceptibility to vandalism, uneven quality and inconsistency, systemic bias, and preference for consensus or popularity over credentials. Nevertheless, its free distribution, constant and plentiful updates, diverse coverage, and versions in numerous languages have made it one of the most-used reference resources on the Internet.

Answer 7

wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. The only catch is that, it is user generated ie if u feel that u have a decent knowledge of a particular topic which is not listed there, u can create a topic and write about that. One can also edit the existing notes on a topic if they feel is wrong.

Answer 8

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) is an online encyclopedia. You can not only read the articles in any topic, even u can edit or add anything u wish.

Answer 9

It's the largest online collection of information. Ranging from people, to fiction, to fact, to theory, to languages. Also, anyone can contribute/edit an article.

Answer 10

It is a user modified sphere of knowledge. You are able to edit (most) of the content on the site to correct/modify/clarify it. You are also able to add your own topic content to help increase the scope of the reference material.