A Wikimillion
There are now officially more than a million Wikipedia articles in the English language. Fittingly enough, the millionth article is about something completely random: a railway station in Scotland.
I have started two articles myself, about the NHK Symphony and the Residentie Orchestra, and I have edited a few more. I am a big fan of Wikipedia, even if there are some bumps in the road toward credible and useful information, and even if politicians conveniently edit their own biographical information.
Of course, there’s the occasional teenage prankster who adds dirty words to an entry or someone with one particular point of view trying to push his or her side, but these pranksters and fanatics are not given any room; a vandalized—the Wikipedia term for those types of edits—article is usually cleaned up within hours, if not minutes.
One million articles and most of them scientifically up to par with the Encyclopedia Britannica. One million articles and most of them in the top search results from engines like Google. More and more people are getting their information and news from the internet, including Wikipedia. With many progressive and conservative biased blogs on the internet, Wikipedia is edited by both sides of the spectrum and by people who have a genuine interest in reporting the truth and creating credible articles. I think that’s the strength of Wikipedia, a genuine interest and determination of the editors, and I am only wondering about its possible influence reaching an ever growing audience.
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