Happy 20th Anniversary, Wikipedia!

Ryan BourneToday marks the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia ’s website going live. The online, collaboratively sourced encyclopedia is one of the internet’s biggest success stories, but one that, on the face of it, conventional economic analysis would suggest was the least plausible.The free, volunteer ‐​edited site today hosts 55 million articles in 300 languages, including 6.2 million individual content pages in English that have been subject to almost 100 million edits. TheWikipedia page about Wikipedia itself cites articles claiming it is the 13th most popular site on the internet, with 1.7 billion unique visitors and 20 billion page views per month.Some academics remain snooty about an encyclopedia that can be “edited by anyone,” but Wikipedia is often a go‐​to website for even established researchers looking for a quick overview of conventional wisdom or to double‐​check a fact cited elsewhere. The site has been adopted by companies such as Amazon and Apple to answer factual questions in v oice assistants and smart speakers, and by social media companies such as Facebook to provide information links on posts.There is good reason for this.A  2005 Nature study found that Wikipedia had decent accuracy compared to the expert ‐​writtenEncyclopedia Britannica. Why? Aggregating information from a  wide and diverse editor and reader base helps quickly correct obvious errors, especially on contentious and highly read topics. The articles that are most r...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 15, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Ryan Bourne Source Type: blogs