The following outline is provided as an overview of and a topical guide to Wikipedia:
Wikipedia [a] is a free-content online encyclopedia, written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on January 15, 2001, Wikipedia has been hosted since 2003 by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization funded mainly by donations from readers. [1] Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history. [2] [3]
Initially available only in English, Wikipedia now exists in more than 300 languages. The English Wikipedia, with over 6 million articles, remains the largest of the editions, which together comprise more than 64 million articles and attract more than 1.5 billion unique device visits and 13 million edits per month (about 5 edits per second on average) as of April 2024 [update] . [4] As of March 2025 [update] , over 25% of Wikipedia's traffic comes from the United States, followed by Japan at 6.38%, the United Kingdom at 5.81%, Germany at 4.97%, Russia at 4.86%, and the remaining 52.25% split among other countries. [5]History of Wikipedia – Wikipedia was formally launched on 15 January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, using the concept and technology of a wiki pioneered by Ward Cunningham. Initially, Wikipedia was created to complement Nupedia, an online encyclopedia project edited solely by experts, by providing additional draft articles and ideas for it. Wikipedia quickly overtook Nupedia, becoming a global project in multiple languages and inspiring a wide range of additional reference projects.
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ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)The article mentions WikiNodes, while discussing the Britannica app, noting that "This kind of visual array of related items isn't a new idea. In fact, there is an iPad app called WikiNodes which does something similar for Wikipedia content."
Those who express this view are on the far right of American politics (Though they often describe themselves as defenders of "traditional" American Values). The Website Conservapedia for example...
unsuccessfully ran in a Republican congressional primary in 1992 and also volunteered for [gubernatorial candidate] Steve Lonegan in 2009.
What were some ways to troll and cause trouble? Create an article about something extremely controversial and offensive, but otherwise adhere to every rule of Wikipedia and use the system against itself. This was the case with creating an article that had an intentionally offensive name, the Gay Niggers Association of America. GNAA was a name that caused immediate alarm in anyone with a semblance of good taste. It was a phenomenon for many years in the online tech communities, as legions of trolls attempted to have an article in Wikipedia about the mischievous group. It's not clear a defined group ever existed as GNAA. Supposed GNAA "members" were simply troublemakers online who unified under a common moniker in an effort to disrupt Wikipedia for amusement.