The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." --Jimmy Wales With more than 2,000,000 individual articles on everything from Aa! (a Japanese pop group) to Zzyzx, California, written by an army of volunteer contributors, Wikipedia is the #8 site on the World Wide Web. Created (and corrected) by anyone with access to a computer, this impressive assemblage of knowledge is growing at an astonishing rate of more than 30,000,000 words a month. Now for the first time, a Wikipedia insider tells the story of how it all happened -- from the first glimmer of an idea to the global phenomenon it's become. Andrew Lih has been an administrator (a trusted user who is granted access to technical features) at Wikipedia for more than four years, as well as a regular host of the weekly Wikipedia podcast. In The Wikipedia Revolution, he details the site's inception in 2001, its evolution, and its remarkable growth, while also explaining its larger cultural repercussions. Wikipedia is not just a website; it's a global community of contributors who have banded together out of a shared passion for making knowledge free. Featuring a Foreword by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and an Afterword that is itself a Wikipedia creation. |
Contents
Acknowledgments | |
Foreword by Jimmy Wales | |
Chapter 1_The Wiki Phenomenon | |
lhapter 2_A Nupedia | |
glhapter 3_Wiki Origins | |
Chapter 5_Con1n1unity at Work The Piranha Effect | |
Ghapter 6_Wikipedia Goes International | |
Hyper lard Reyisited | |
glhapter 7_Trolls Vandals and Sock Puppets Oh | |
glhapter 8_Crisis of Community | |
glhapter 9_Wikipedia Makes Waves | |
Aftemord | |
About the Author | |
Other editions - View all
The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's ... Andrew Lih No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
academic administrators allowed became Bomis Britannica bulletin board systems bytes called CamelCase Chinese Wikipedia chocolate Citizendium collaboration computer code computer programming consensus contributors create Cunningham Danzig database debate deletion discussion dot maps dot-com edit history edit wars editors Encarta encoding encyclopedia English Wikipedia Essjay folks free content Gdansk Gdansk/Danzig German Wikipedia going Google hacker human HyperCard idea Internet Japanese Wikipedia Jimmy Wales language Larry Sanger license Linux mailing list MeatballWiki Microsoft Netnews Nico Nupedia online community open source people’s piranha effect popular problem quickly Rambot revert Richard Stallman RickK Seigenthaler server simplified Chinese simply Slashdot sock puppet solution someone Spanish Wikipedia Stallman started stubs sysop talk things topics traditional trolls Unicode UseModWiki Usenet users vandalism volunteers vote Wales’s wanted Ward Cunningham watchlist Wik rv wiki culture Wikipedia articles Wikipedia community WikiWikiWeb