Wikipedia:FAQ/Overview
Overview FAQ
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
What is Wikipedia?
- Wikipedia is an online free-content encyclopedia that you can edit and contribute to. Wikipedia co-founderJimmy Waleshas described Wikipedia as "an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language." Wikipedia exists to bring knowledge to everyone who seeks it.
Who owns Wikipedia?
- Wikipedia's tech framework is supported by theWikimedia Foundation,which also supports Wikipedia's sister projects, includingWiktionary,Wikibooks,and others, and owns all of their domain names. Previously, the site was hosted on the servers ofBomis,a company mostly owned byJimmy Wales.With the announcement of the Wikimedia Foundation on June 20, 2003, the ownership of all domain names was transferred to the Foundation. The site is run by the community ofWikipediansguided by thefive pillars.
- The articles hosted on this site have been edited by many people, each of whom has (by editing the article) agreed to release their contributions under theCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlikelicense. As such, the articles arefree contentand may be reproduced freely under this license. SeeWikipedia:CopyrightsandWikipedia:Readers' FAQfor information on how you can use Wikipedia content.
- By law, contributions are still owned by the people who donated them. These people are not bound by the license and can use their property in the way they like. However, media with multiple authors require permission from every contributor to use them differently from the terms of the Wikipedia license.
Who is responsible for the articles on Wikipedia?
- You are! Editing is a collaborative effort. Millions of people have contributed information to this project, and anyone can do so, including you. All you need is to knowhow to edit a page,and have some encyclopedic knowledge that you would like to share. The encyclopedia provides users with a certain amount of freedom.
- You can learn who is responsible for the most recent versions of any given page by clicking on the "View history" link. If you spot an error in the latest revision of an article, you are highly encouraged tobe boldand correct it. This practice is one of the basic review mechanisms that maintains the reliability of the encyclopedia. As a result, Wikipedia has become one of the most extensive information libraries available on the Internet.
- If you are uncertain, or find the wording confusing, quote the material on the associatedtalk pageand leave a question for the next person. This helps reduce errors, inaccuracies, or misleading wording more quickly and is highly appreciated by the community.
How can I contact the project?
- SeeWikipedia:Contact usfor important links and e-mail addresses.
- Given the massively collaborative nature of the project, there is no single point of contact. If you send an e-mail to an individual board or staff member, they will likely just forward it to the group of Wikipedia volunteers who answer reader inquiries. You can reach those volunteers yourself, by e-mailing info-en
wikimedia.org. - Alternatively, if you wish to suggest improvements to a specific article, you can do so via itstalk page.Use thetalktab at the top of each article to get to its talk page.
Should I create an account? Can't I just edit articles anonymously?
- Editors with user names enjoy several benefits. Among them is the positive reputation that goes with quality work. Wikipedians with an established history are respected especially with regard to neutralizing article disputes. In addition, Wikipedians sometimes find collaborating with unregistered users frustrating, because it is more difficult to contact them with questions, concerns, or suggestions. This is not to say there is a Wikipedia hierarchyper se.Although there are editors with administrative abilities (seeWikipedia:Administrators), these are approved by the community.
- Wikipedians with user names aremoreanonymous than contributors that do not log in. While anyone can see theIP addressof a user who did not log in when they edited, only a few especially trusted people,checkusers,are able to view the IP address of a logged-in user, and this is rarely done. If you are concerned about privacy and anonymity, you may prefer to create a user name for yourself in order to hide your IP address.
- But editing as an unregistered user is acceptable. Many valuable contributors have made this choice. That said, you will not be able to create or rename pages without a user name. Some pages are also protected from editing by unregistered users in order to preventvandalism.
How do you know if information is correct?
- Given that anyone can edit any article, it is, of course, possible for biased, out-of-date, or incorrect information to be posted. However, because there are so many people reading the articles and monitoring contributions, incorrect information is usually corrected quickly. The overall accuracy of the encyclopedia is improving all the time. You are encouraged to help by correcting articles, validating content, and providing useful references.
How do you prevent people from ruining articles?
- Allchanges to a page are registered in a "page history",so any defacement can be replaced by an older version of the page byrevertingit. And, in general, recent changes toWikipediaare automatically listed on aspecial page for that purpose.
- Somebotsautomatically reverse obvious defacement immediately. Moreover, there are hundreds of people who spend a little time each day watching the list of recent changes on Wikipedia (seeWikipedia:Recent changes patrol). Any user interested in a particular page can add it to a personalwatchlist,which shows when a page is updated and gives the user a chance to check that update. Readers who pass by can correct vandalism or erroneous information.
- The popular pages, which are the most likely to be defaced, are also those that receive the most attention from editors and readers.
- To stem a recurrent problem, an article can betemporarily protectedfrom editing and/or user names and IP addresses can beblockedfrom editing.
This website seems to be violating Wikipedia's copyright. Do you guys know about this?
- All text on Wikipedia is licensed under theCreative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License(CC-BY-SA), and in most cases, also theGNU Free Documentation License(GFDL). Over 100 sites using Wikipedia for content have been identified, and categorized by their degree of compliance, atWikipedia:CC-BY-SA ComplianceandWikipedia:GFDL Compliance.Wikipedia:Mirrors and forkshas more information, including what to do if someone is violating the CC-BY-SA license or the GFDL.
Which wiki software does Wikipedia run on?
- Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects use theMediaWikisoftware to facilitate collaborative editing and storage of page histories.
- For more information on MediaWiki, see:
- theMediaWikiarticle, and
- theMediaWiki web site.
What if two people edit the same article at the same time?
- That will cause anedit conflict.
How big is Wikipedia?
- Wikipedia currently has 6,854,383 articles in total in the English version alone.
- In a past comparison of encyclopedias, Wikipedia had about 1,400,000 articles with 340 million words in total, theEncyclopædia Britannicahad about 85,000 articles with 55 million words in total, and Microsoft'sEncartahad about 63,000 articles and 40 million words in total.
What can I do about libelous content or an invasion of privacy?
- You can simply delete wrong or hurtful information yourself. However, because every revision is logged, special steps are required to remove this information from the historical record. Please seeWikipedia:OversightandWikipedia:Libelfor Wikipedia's policy on removing historical revisions, and how to request such a change.
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