Wikipedia - the printed encyclopedia killer?

[cooldude75ph]

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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

"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."

[cooldude75ph]

For me Wikipedia is better than any encyclopedia -- online or printed.
Let's face it. Where can we all find references to your favorite game (even Hentai games!), animes or other stuff not covered by other encylopedias?

I've used it so many times that I've added the english wikipidia search add-in to my firefox

[cen]

Permi na nako gamiton ang wikipedia. Dali ra ang update sa information compare sa traditional printed encyclopedia. :mrgreen:

[pnoize]

the printed encyclopedia has long been dead. households no longer make it a point to buy a set of encyclopedia for their children since the advent of software based references.

[dodie]

it's a wiki software.... php script opensource ... ehh... I tried installed some. it was nice playing with it, but inside is a complex php script.

Oh ya, I tried that, beleive me, it's prone to vandalism and false information from different people, anonymous access/anonymous editing..... So I can't trust Wikipedia website 100%, But most of them are useful. so I still use wikipedia... ekekek...

[sinus_]

encyclopedias dont have pr0n. i prefer the internet hehhe

[olybrius_e]

As what i have heard. In some schools sa US and even other countries mga reaserch sa mga students na gkan sa "Wikipedia" dili dawaton sa ila prof. dili man gud reliable ang sulod for example mga medical na mga topics dili jud daw accurate.

[obemon]

I'm a great fan of Wiki myself. It's a great source of information indeed. But since anyone can edit it's articles, it's definitely not 100% reliable. People just have to be aware of that.....

[celtic_predator]

I Love Wiki...
Hits keywords from Search Engines a lot too. That helps.

[Visual C#]

"Wikipedia: Britannica on the comfort room walls".