Honours Day Presentation

Wiki Accuracy

Wikipedia founded in 2001 by Jimmy Wales
"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."
229 languages, 10 larger than britannica (120k articles), 39 with more than 10,000 articles
18th most popular web site according to alexa
refactoring of the failed newpedia project, with asked for academics to contribute content for articles, and had a rigerous review process
wikipedia opened up editing to the general public!
changes are made immediately
slogan "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"
from the outset the project caused some contravercy
had produced 1 million articles (350 million words) of good (although varying) content
nature study of 50 articles found wikipedia to have 4 errors/article compared to 3 for britannica
cleanup and project crews that monitor changes, ensureing all modifications meet a minimum standard.
large teams of dedicated volunteers, very responsive
- cleanup
  - several hundred members
- copyright violations
- vandalism
  - Most vandalisation reverted within minutes
  - history function allows additions to be tracked, and changes reversed easily.
- expanding short pages
- categorisation