Wikipedia is a free and open access virtual encyclopedia.
Wikipedia is a digital encyclopedia that is available through the Internet . It is a free and open access publication, with more than 22 million articles written by volunteers in more than 200 languages.
The encyclopedia, managed by a non-profit organization called the Wikimedia Foundation , was created by Americans Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001 . Its name is a contraction of wiki wiki ( "fast" in the Hawaiian language) and encyclopedia ( "encyclopedia" in English).
Wikipedia Features
These characteristics are what have made Wikipedia currently an information tool for everyone. Thus, both students, to obtain data about a topic they address in class, and anyone who wants to know what the word in front of them means, make use of that online encyclopedia.
It is so important in our daily lives that it is currently in the "top ten" of the most visited places on the Internet. And it is really useful because it is made up of millions of articles that can be found in a total of 284 different languages.
Culture, art, history, geography, health, mathematics, technology and philosophy are some of the areas that are addressed in this encyclopedia through a huge number of interesting articles that are very useful for everyone and that are usually accompanied by the corresponding material. graphic.
Wikipedia can be accessed from computers, phones, and other electronic devices.
Generation and editing of content
The main novelty provided by Wikipedia is the possibility that any user can contribute and edit content. This democratizes the generation and dissemination of information , although it also runs the risk of the spread of false or biased data.
Wikipedia must face vandalism on a daily basis. There are activists who edit content for ideological reasons and who try to discredit those who think differently. On the other hand, some people deliberately modify articles with false information to demonstrate the unreliability of the encyclopedia.
However, Wikipedia has several tools to reverse attacks, from employees who review and block certain sensitive articles to avoid conflicts, to technological systems that are able to automatically detect acts of vandalism.
Specifically, among the most important professionals who form an essential part of this encyclopedia we would have to refer to librarians, who are in charge of preventing certain users from editing the information, or to the so-called editing suppressors. As their name suggests, these are the ones in charge of verifying user identities.
Other projects similar to Wikipedia
There are other projects managed by the Wikimedia Foundation that complement Wikipedia's proposal, such as Wiktionary (a free dictionary), Wikilibros (a collection of free access textbooks and tutorials ), Wikiquote (a compendium of famous phrases in various languages) and Wikinews (free content news).
However, we cannot forget about Wikiviajes , which is a completely free, open-access guide that allows you to obtain tourist information from multiple corners of the world, or Wikiversidad , a very useful tool for teachers.