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English Wikipedia
English-language edition of the free online encyclopedia

The English Wikipedia is the primary English-language edition of Wikipedia, launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001. Hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization, it is written by volunteer Wikipedians in various English dialects. As the most-read version, it holds nearly 7 million articles as of May 2025 and was the first to reach one billion edits. Praised for enabling the democratization of knowledge and fact-checking role, it has faced criticism for systemic biases including gender and ideological bias, though it generally shows less cultural bias than other editions.

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Articles

The English Wikipedia surpassed six million articles on 23 January 2020.19 In November 2022, the total volume of the compressed texts of its articles amounted to 20 gigabytes.20

The edition's one-billionth edit was made on 13 January 2021 by Ser Amantio di Nicolao (Steven Pruitt) who as of that date is the user with the highest number of edits on the English Wikipedia, at over four million.21 Currently, there are 6,992,924 articles created with 937,050 files. The encyclopedia is home to 10.8% of articles in all Wikipedias (down from more than 50% in 2003).2223 The English Wikipedia currently has 49,129,078 registered accounts of which 841 are administrators.

Bureaucracy

Editors of the English Wikipedia have pioneered some ideas as conventions, policies or features which were later adopted by Wikipedia editions in some of the other languages. These ideas include "featured articles",24 the neutral-point-of-view policy,25 navigation templates,26 the sorting of short "stub" articles into sub-categories,27 dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation and arbitration,28 and weekly collaborations.29

Wikipedians

Main article: Wikipedian

The English Wikipedia reached 4,000,000 registered user accounts on 1 April 2007,30 over a year since the millionth Wikipedian registered an account in February 2006.31

Over 1,100,000 volunteer editors have edited Wikipedia more than 10 times.32 Over 30,000 editors perform more than 5 edits per month, and over 3,000 perform more than 100 edits per month.33

On 1 March 2014, The Economist, in an article titled "The Future of Wikipedia", cited a trend analysis concerning data published by the Wikimedia Foundation stating that "[t]he number of editors for the English-language version has fallen by a third in seven years."34 The attrition rate for active editors in English Wikipedia was cited by The Economist as substantially in contrast to statistics for Wikipedia in other languages (non-English Wikipedia). The Economist reported that the number of contributors with an average of five or more edits per month was relatively constant since 2008 for Wikipedia in other languages at approximately 42,000 editors within narrow seasonal variances of about 2,000 editors up or down. The number of active editors in English Wikipedia, by "sharp" comparison, was cited as peaking in 2007 at approximately 50,000 and dropping to 30,000 by the start of 2014.

The trend analysis published in The Economist presents Wikipedia in other languages (non-English Wikipedia) as successful in retaining their active editors on a renewable and sustained basis, with their numbers remaining relatively constant at approximately 42,000.35

The English Wikipedia has the Arbitration Committee (also known as ArbCom) that consists of a panel of editors that imposes binding rulings with regard to disputes between other editors of the online encyclopedia.36 It was created by Jimmy Wales on 4 December 2003 as an extension of the decision-making power he had formerly held as owner of the site.3738 When it was founded, the committee consisted of 12 arbitrators divided into three groups of four members each.3940

In 2022, for English Wikipedia, Americans accounted for about 40% of active editors, followed by British and Indian editors accounting for about 10% of each, and Canadian and Australian at about 5%.41

Criticism

The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been criticized since its creation in 2001. Most of the criticism has been directed toward its content, community of established volunteer users, process, and rules. Critics have questioned its factual reliability, the readability and organization of its articles, the lack of methodical fact-checking, and its political bias.

Concerns have also been raised about systemic bias along gender, racial, political, corporate, institutional, and national lines. Conflicts of interest arising from corporate campaigns to influence content have also been highlighted. Further concerns include the vandalism and partisanship facilitated by anonymous editing, clique behavior (from contributors as well as administrators and other top figures), social stratification between a guardian class and newer users, excessive rule-making, edit warring, and uneven policy application.

Controversies

See also: Essjay controversy and Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident

English varieties

A notable discussion within the English Wikipedia community concerns the preference for national variety of the English language, particularly American English and British English.42 Various suggestions have been made, ranging from standardizing a single form of English to creating separate versions of the English Wikipedia project. According to a style guideline, "the English Wikipedia has no general preference for a major national variety of the language" and "an article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation."43

Disputed articles

A 2013 study from Oxford University found that the most disputed articles on the English Wikipedia tend to address broader, global issues. In contrast, articles on other language Wikipedias often focus on regional issues. This pattern is attributed to the status of English as a global lingua franca, leading to contributions from many editors for whom English is a second language. The study identified the most disputed entries on the English Wikipedia as George W. Bush, anarchism, Muhammad, list of WWE personnel, global warming, circumcision, United States, Jesus, race and intelligence, and Christianity.44

2024 research determined that several groups of connected accounts had coordinated to promote Russian propaganda narratives and state-controlled media sources in articles, related to Russian-Ukrainian relations and Russia's war with Ukraine.4546

Threats against high schools

There have been reports of threats of violence against high schools made on Wikipedia.474849 In 2006, a 14-year-old was arrested for making a threat against Niles West High School on Wikipedia.50 In 2008, Glen A. Wilson High School was the subject of such a threat.515253

WikiProjects and assessment

Main article: WikiProject

"Good articles on Wikipedia" redirects here. For the Wikipedia project page, see Wikipedia:Good articles.

A "WikiProject" is a group of contributors who want to work together as a team to improve Wikipedia. These groups may focus on a specific topic area (for example, women's history), a specific location or a specific kind of task (for example, checking newly created pages). As of August 2022, the English Wikipedia had over 2,000 WikiProjects, for which activity varied.54

In 2007, in preparation for producing a print version, the English Wikipedia introduced an assessment scale of the quality of articles.55 Articles are rated by WikiProjects. The range of quality classes begins with "Stub" (very short pages), followed by "Start", "C" and "B" (in increasing order of quality). Community peer review is needed for the article to enter one of the quality classes: either "good article", "A" or the highest, "featured article". Of the about 6.5 million articles and lists assessed as of April 2022, more than 6,000 (0.09%) are featured articles, and fewer than 4,000 (0.06%) are featured lists. One featured article per day, as selected by editors, appears on the main page of Wikipedia.5657

Researcher Giacomo Poderi found that articles tend to reach featured status via the intensive work of a few editors.58 A 2010 study found unevenness in quality among featured articles and concluded that the community process is ineffective in assessing the quality of articles.59

Internal news publications

Community-produced news publications include The Signpost.60 Other community news publications include the "WikiWorld" web comic, the Wikipedia Weekly podcast, and newsletters of specific WikiProjects like The Bugle from WikiProject Military History and the monthly newsletter from The Guild of Copy Editors. There are a number of publications from the Wikimedia Foundation and multilingual publications such as the Wikimedia Blog and This Month in Education.

See also

Notes

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to English Wikipedia.

References

  1. The other edition is Simple English Wikipedia, which uses Basic English. /wiki/Simple_English_Wikipedia ↩

  2. Harrison, Stephen (1 September 2021). "Wikipedia Is Trying to Transcend the Limits of Human Language". Slate. Archived from the original on 30 July 2023. Retrieved 17 October 2023. https://slate.com/technology/2021/09/wikipedia-human-language-wikifunctions.html ↩

  3. Sato, Yumiko (19 March 2021). "Non-English Editions of Wikipedia Have a Misinformation Problem". Slate. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 17 October 2023. https://slate.com/technology/2021/03/japanese-wikipedia-misinformation-non-english-editions.html ↩

  4. Anderson, Monica; Hitlin, Paul; Atkinson, Michelle (14 January 2016). "Wikipedia at 15: Millions of readers in scores of languages". Pew Research Center. Archived from the original on 11 August 2023. Retrieved 17 October 2023. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/01/14/wikipedia-at-15/ ↩

  5. A455bcd9 (8 February 2021). Wikipedia page views by language over time (PNG). Retrieved 25 June 2021. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_page_views_by_language_over_time.png ↩

  6. The number of articles on the English Wikipedia is shown by the MediaWiki variable {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}, with all Wikipedias as total {{NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|total}} = 64,908,120. /wiki/MediaWiki ↩

  7. The number of articles on the English Wikipedia is shown by the MediaWiki variable {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}, with all Wikipedias as total {{NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|total}} = 64,908,120. /wiki/MediaWiki ↩

  8. Harrison, Stephen (1 September 2021). "Wikipedia Is Trying to Transcend the Limits of Human Language". Slate. Archived from the original on 30 July 2023. Retrieved 17 October 2023. https://slate.com/technology/2021/09/wikipedia-human-language-wikifunctions.html ↩

  9. "The English Language Wikipedia Just Had Its Billionth Edit". Vice. 15 January 2021. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021. Retrieved 26 February 2021. https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-english-language-wikipedia-just-had-its-billionth-edit/ ↩

  10. "Happy Birthday, Wikipedia". The Economist. 9 January 2021. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 22 January 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230101031816/https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/01/09/happy-birthday-wikipedia ↩

  11. Harrison, Stephen (9 June 2020). "How Wikipedia Became a Battleground for Racial Justice". Slate. Archived from the original on 10 February 2023. Retrieved 17 August 2021. https://slate.com/technology/2020/06/wikipedia-george-floyd-neutrality.html ↩

  12. "Wikipedia is 20, and its reputation has never been higher". The Economist. 9 January 2021. Archived from the original on 31 December 2022. Retrieved 25 February 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20221231224550/https://www.economist.com/international/2021/01/09/wikipedia-is-20-and-its-reputation-has-never-been-higher ↩

  13. "Happy Birthday, Wikipedia". The Economist. 9 January 2021. Archived from the original on 1 January 2023. Retrieved 22 January 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230101031816/https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/01/09/happy-birthday-wikipedia ↩

  14. Cooke, Richard (17 February 2020). "Wikipedia Is the Last Best Place on the Internet". Wired. Archived from the original on 17 December 2022. Retrieved 13 October 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20221217081500/https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-online-encyclopedia-best-place-internet/ ↩

  15. Despite this praise, Wikipedia does not recognize itself as a reliable source. ↩

  16. Hughes, Taylor; Smith, Jeff; Leavitt, Alex (3 April 2018). "Helping People Better Assess the Stories They See in News Feed with the Context Button". Meta. Archived from the original on 11 January 2023. Retrieved 23 January 2023. https://about.fb.com/news/2018/04/news-feed-fyi-more-context/ ↩

  17. Cohen, Noam (7 April 2018). "Conspiracy videos? Fake news? Enter Wikipedia, the 'good cop' of the Internet". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 14 June 2018. /wiki/Noam_Cohen ↩

  18. Sato, Yumiko (19 March 2021). "Non-English Editions of Wikipedia Have a Misinformation Problem". Slate. Archived from the original on 25 August 2023. Retrieved 17 October 2023. https://slate.com/technology/2021/03/japanese-wikipedia-misinformation-non-english-editions.html ↩

  19. "Wikipedia:Six million articles". Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on 6 June 2020. Retrieved 6 June 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Six_million_articles ↩

  20. See size of downloads at Wikipedia:Database download and a list of historical sizes here Archived 1 April 2019 at the Wayback Machine /wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download ↩

  21. "The English Language Wikipedia Just Had Its Billionth Edit". Vice. 15 January 2021. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021. Retrieved 26 February 2021. https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-english-language-wikipedia-just-had-its-billionth-edit/ ↩

  22. 875912 (about 14%) more than the next in rank, the Cebuano Wikipedia. See m:List of Wikipedias. /wiki/Cebuano_Wikipedia ↩

  23. Wikimedia Meta-Wiki (21 September 2008). "List of Wikipedias". Archived from the original on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 21 September 2008. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Wikipedias&oldid=520778 ↩

  24. English Wikipedia (30 January 2007). "Featured articles". Archived from the original on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_articles&oldid=104207677 ↩

  25. English Wikipedia (25 January 2007). "Neutral point of view". Archived from the original on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view&oldid=103033132 ↩

  26. Wikimedia Meta-Wiki (29 January 2007). "Help:Template". Archived from the original on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2007. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Template&oldid=520481 ↩

  27. English Wikipedia (19 January 2007). "WikiProject Stub sorting". Archived from the original on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting&oldid=101829026 ↩

  28. English Wikipedia (27 January 2007). "Resolving disputes". Archived from the original on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes&oldid=103577785 ↩

  29. English Wikipedia (30 January 2007). "Article Creation and Improvement Drive". Archived from the original on 3 November 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Article_Creation_and_Improvement_Drive&oldid=104243512 ↩

  30. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-04-02/News and notes. Retrieved 20 April 2007 /wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-04-02/News_and_notes ↩

  31. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-02-27/News and notes. Retrieved 20 April 2007 /wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2006-02-27/News_and_notes ↩

  32. "Wikipedia Statistics – Tables – English". Stats.wikimedia.org. Archived from the original on 2 August 2008. Retrieved 8 August 2013. https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm#wikipedians ↩

  33. "Wikipedia Statistics – Tables – English". Stats.wikimedia.org. Archived from the original on 2 August 2008. Retrieved 8 August 2013. https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm#activitylevels ↩

  34. "The future of Wikipedia: WikiPeaks?". The Economist. 1 March 2014. Archived from the original on 8 April 2014. Retrieved 11 March 2014. https://www.economist.com/news/international/21597959-popular-online-encyclopedia-must-work-out-what-next-wikipeaks ↩

  35. "The future of Wikipedia: WikiPeaks?". The Economist. 1 March 2014. Archived from the original on 8 April 2014. Retrieved 11 March 2014. https://www.economist.com/news/international/21597959-popular-online-encyclopedia-must-work-out-what-next-wikipeaks ↩

  36. Schiff, Stacy (2 December 2006). "Know-alls". The Age. Australia: Fairfax Digital Network. Archived from the original on 21 April 2016. Retrieved 15 June 2009. /wiki/Stacy_Schiff ↩

  37. Wales, Jimmy (4 December 2003). "WikiEN-l Wikiquette committee appointments". Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on 17 September 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2009. http://markmail.org/message/komcldyapats43xj#query:+page:1+mid:komcldyapats43xj+state:results ↩

  38. Hoffman, David A.; Salil Mehra (2010). "Wikitruth Through Wikiorder". Emory Law Journal. 59 (2010). SSRN 1354424. /wiki/Emory_Law_Journal ↩

  39. Wales, Jimmy (4 December 2003). "WikiEN-l Wikiquette committee appointments". Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Archived from the original on 17 September 2020. Retrieved 9 June 2009. http://markmail.org/message/komcldyapats43xj#query:+page:1+mid:komcldyapats43xj+state:results ↩

  40. Hyatt, Josh (1 June 2006). "Secrets of Greatness: Great Teams". Fortune. Archived from the original on 13 April 2010. Retrieved 15 June 2009. https://money.cnn.com/2006/05/31/magazines/fortune/mysql_greatteams_fortune/index.htm ↩

  41. "Wikistats - Statistics For Wikimedia Projects". stats.wikimedia.org. Archived from the original on 11 July 2020. Retrieved 28 January 2022. https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org/contributing/active-editors-by-country/normal%7Cmap%7Clast-month%7C(activity-level)~100..-edits%7Cmonthly ↩

  42. English Wikipedia. "Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling)". Archived from the original on 15 December 2005. Retrieved 25 February 2006. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_%28spelling%29 ↩

  43. English Wikipedia. "Wikipedia:Manual of Style". Archived from the original on 25 September 2007. Retrieved 10 October 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English ↩

  44. Gross, Doug (24 July 2013). "Wiki wars: The 10 most controversial Wikipedia pages". CNN. Archived from the original on 12 April 2016. Retrieved 26 July 2013. https://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/24/tech/web/controversial-wikipedia-pages/index.html?hpt=hp_t5 ↩

  45. Boichak, Olga (7 October 2024). "How Russia Invaded Wikipedia". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 5 October 2024. https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/10/04/russia-ukraine-putin-wikipedia-ruwiki-disinformation/ ↩

  46. "Identifying Sock-Puppets on Wikipedia: A Semantic Clustering Approach". ISD. Retrieved 5 October 2024. https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-publications/identifying-sock-puppets-on-wikipedia-a-semantic-clustering-approach/ ↩

  47. Hennessy-Fiske, Molly (29 April 2008). "Wikipedia threats went unchecked – Los Angeles Times". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 6 July 2011. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-apr-29-me-wikipedia29-story.html ↩

  48. "Hacienda Heights school receives possible threat". abc7.com. Abclocal.go.com. 18 April 2008. Archived from the original on 24 July 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013. https://abc7.com/archive/6087243/ ↩

  49. "Student arrested for violent threats on Wikipedia". Los Angeles Times. 29 April 2008. Archived from the original on 13 November 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2012. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/04/wiki.html?cid=6a00d8341c630a53ef011571abd811970b ↩

  50. "Teen charged after threat to school on Wikipedia". Bloomington, IL: Pantagraph.com. Associated Press. 31 October 2006. Archived from the original on 22 June 2013. Retrieved 26 January 2011. https://www.pantagraph.com/news/article_baef01f3-e56f-52e1-b9af-e90eb83e811b.html ↩

  51. Hennessy-Fiske, Molly (29 April 2008). "Wikipedia threats went unchecked – Los Angeles Times". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 11 August 2011. Retrieved 6 July 2011. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-apr-29-me-wikipedia29-story.html ↩

  52. "Hacienda Heights school receives possible threat". abc7.com. Abclocal.go.com. 18 April 2008. Archived from the original on 24 July 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2013. https://abc7.com/archive/6087243/ ↩

  53. "Student arrested for violent threats on Wikipedia". Los Angeles Times. 29 April 2008. Archived from the original on 13 November 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2012. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/04/wiki.html?cid=6a00d8341c630a53ef011571abd811970b ↩

  54. "Wikipedia: Wikiprojects". Archived from the original on 19 March 2015. Retrieved 16 March 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject ↩

  55. "Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment". Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 28 October 2007. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Assessment ↩

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  57. Fernanda B. Viégas; Martin Wattenberg; Matthew M. McKeon (22 July 2007). "The Hidden Order of Wikipedia" (PDF). Visual Communication Lab, IBM Research. Archived from the original (PDF) on 31 October 2007. Retrieved 30 October 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20071031052814/http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/papers/hidden_order_wikipedia.pdf ↩

  58. Poderi, Giacomo, Wikipedia and the Featured Articles: How a Technological System Can Produce Best Quality Articles, Master thesis, University of Maastricht, October 2008. /wiki/University_of_Maastricht ↩

  59. Lindsey, David (5 April 2010). "Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's featured articles". First Monday. 15 (4). Archived from the original on 24 November 2012. Retrieved 29 January 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20121124044443/http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2721/2482 ↩

  60. Phoebe Ayers; Charles Matthews; Ben Yates (2008). How Wikipedia Works: And how You Can be a Part of it. No Starch Press. pp. 345–. ISBN 978-1-59327-176-3. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019. Retrieved 17 October 2016. 978-1-59327-176-3 ↩