English Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The English Wikipedia is the English language edition of the Wikipedia encyclopedia. Founded on 15 January 2001 and reaching a million articles [1] by March 2006, it was the first edition of Wikipedia and remains the largest. As of 2005, approximately one-third of articles in all Wikipedias belong to the English-language edition, this share having gradually declined from over half in 2003. As of November 2006, it has just over 1.5 million articles. The encyclopedia is supposed not to give a disproportionate space to issues and views important in English speaking countries.

1 Pioneering edition
2 Controversies
- 2.1 National stylistic conventions
- 2.2 Edit wars over content and the neutral point of view
3 Users and editors whose native language is not English
4 Non-English sources
5 Wikipedia Signpost
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Pioneering edition

Image:English Wikipedia's Main Page screenshot.png

The English Wikipedia was the first-established Wikipedia edition and has remained the largest Wikipedia edition. As such, it has pioneered many Wikipedia conventions and features that have been adopted by other Wikipedia editions. These include:

Featured Articles
the neutral point of view policy
navigation templates
sorting of stubs into sub-categories
dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation and arbitration
Wikipedian associations
Collaborations of the week

The majority of MediaWiki software programmers and of active participants of the Wikimedia Foundation are also English Wikipedia users.

[edit] Controversies

[edit] National stylistic conventions

Among the controversies in the English Wikipedia is a debate over which national variety of the English language is to be preferred, with the most common candidates being American English and British or International English.<ref>Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling). Retrieved on February 25, 2006.</ref> There has been a similar issue in the Chinese language Wikipedia, although with a different solution. Many suggestions have been proposed by editors, ranging from standardizing upon a single form of English to forking the English Wikipedia project. The policy, however, is to prefer an appropriate form of English for articles of regional scope (e.g., Canadian English for subjects related to Canada) but otherwise to allow the use of any variety of English, as long as the variety of English is consistent throughout the text of an article.<ref>Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Retrieved on February 25, 2006.</ref>

[edit] Edit wars over content and the neutral point of view

As the largest Wikipedia edition, the English Wikipedia has been the site of some of the fiercest and most prolonged edit wars of any Wikipedia projects. Edit wars often take place over issues that many English-speaking users regard as controversial, such as:

However, prolonged edit wars have also taken place between users whose native languages are not English: among the most well-known early edit wars in the English Wikipedia took place between German and Polish users, centering on such articles as Gdańsk.

The English Wikipedia has been accused of systemic bias resulting from most of its editors being technologically-competent English-speaking people living in developed countries.

[edit] Users and editors whose native language is not English

As the largest Wikipedia edition, and because the English language is such a widely used language, the English Wikipedia draws many users and editors whose native language is not English.

Users whose native language is not English may nevertheless seek information from the English Wikipedia rather than the Wikipedia of their native language simply because the English Wikipedia contains more information. This is especially often true for obscure topics which may not have articles at all in Wikipedia editions for other languages.

Sometimes, editors whose native language is not English have been criticized by editors whose native language is English for making edits with poor grammar or other language mistakes. However, many successful collaborations have developed between non-native English speakers who add content to English Wikipedia and native English speakers who act as copy editors for those adding content.

[edit] Non-English sources

English sources are preferred, but non-English sources are allowed with the extra requirement that the original non-English text is cited in the references.

[edit] Wikipedia Signpost

The English Wikipedia has a newspaper known as the Wikipedia Signpost, established to detail various events and happenings of the now very large site. It is a community-written and community-edited newspaper, covering events and stories related to the English Wikipedia. Major news from other Wikimedia Foundation projects is also included as occasion permits. It is published weekly on Mondays, being first published on 10 January 2005 by Wikipedia editor Michael Snow. <ref>Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/From the editor. Retrieved on February 25, 2006.</ref>