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'''''Misplaced Pages''''' is a ]-based, ] ], which is written collaboratively by volunteers. It consists of 195 independent language editions sponsored by the ] ]. Entries on traditional encyclopedic topics exist alongside those on ], ] and ] topics. Its purpose is to create and distribute, worldwide, a 💕 in as many languages as possible. ''Misplaced Pages'' is one of the most popular reference sites on the Web,{{ref|PopularityRef}} receiving around 50 million hits per day. | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' contains approximately 1.5 million articles, more than 500,000<!--DON'T CHANGE THIS TO {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}--> of which are in its ], more than 200,000 in the ] and more than 100,000 in the ] and ]. It began as a complement to the expert-written ] on ] ]. Having steadily risen in popularity,{{ref|Popularity}} it has spawned several conceptually related sister projects such as ], ] and ]. Its articles are edited by volunteers in ] fashion, meaning articles are subject to change by nearly anyone. Misplaced Pages's volunteers enforce a policy of "neutral point of view." Under this, the views presented by notable persons or literature are summarized without attempting to determine an ] truth. Because of its open nature, ] and inaccuracy are problems in Misplaced Pages. | |||
''Misplaced Pages's'' status as a ] has been controversial. It has received praise for being free, editable, and covering a wide range of topics. It has been criticized for lack of authority when compared with a traditional encyclopedia, ], and for deficiencies in traditional encyclopedic topics. Its articles have been cited by the ] and ]. ''Misplaced Pages's'' articles are available under the ]. Its German language edition has been distributed on ]s, and many of its other editions are ] or have been ] by ]s. | |||
==Characteristics== | |||
] | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' is described by its founder ] as "an effort to create and distribute a 💕 of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language."{{ref|WalesGoal}} It is created on the wikipedia.org website using a type of ] and philosophy known as 'wiki,' from the ] "wiki wiki" which means "quick." Wales intends that ''Misplaced Pages'' should achieve an " Britannica]] or better" quality and be published on physical media. | |||
Several other ] exist or have existed on the ]. Traditional editorial policies and article ownership is used in some, such as the expert-written '']'' and defunct ''Nupedia''. More casually, websites such as ] or ] serve as general guides whose articles are written and controlled by individuals. Projects such as ''Misplaced Pages'', '']'', and the '']'', are wikis, in which articles are developed by numerous authors, and there is no formal review process. ''Misplaced Pages'' has become the largest such encyclopedic wiki by article and word count. It is distinguished from many encyclopedias in licensing its content under the ]. | |||
===Free content=== | |||
]; also the GNU logo.]] | |||
The ], the license under which ''Misplaced Pages's'' articles are made available, is one of many "]" ] licenses that permit the redistribution, creation of ]s, and commercial use of content provided its authors are attributed and this content remains available under the GFDL. When an author contributes original material to the project, the ] over it is retained with them, but they agree to make the work available under the GFDL. Material on ''Misplaced Pages'' may thus be distributed to, or incorporated from, resources which also use this license. ''Misplaced Pages's'' content has been mirrored or forked by hundreds of resources from database dumps. Although all text is available under the GFDL, a significant percentage of ''Misplaced Pages's'' images and sounds are non-free. Items such as ]s, song samples or copyrighted news photos are used with a claim of ]. Material has also been given to ''Misplaced Pages'' under no-] or for-Misplaced Pages-only conditions.{{ref|NonFreeImg}} | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' has been used by the media, academics, and others as a reference or supplement. News organizations have referred to ''Misplaced Pages'' articles as sources or in sidebars containing related information on the Web, some regularly.{{ref|Lih}} According to lists maintained by ''Misplaced Pages's'' editors, its articles have been cited most frequently in the ].{{ref|UsePress}} Less frequently, it has been used in academic studies, books, conferences, and court cases. For instance, the ] website refers to ''Misplaced Pages's'' article on ] in the "further reading" list of ].{{ref|C38}} Noncomprehensive lists are maintained by Wikipedians of . | |||
===Language editions=== | |||
] | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' encompassed 92 "active" language editions in ].{{ref|LangCount}} Its five largest editions were, in descending order, ], ], ], ] and ]. In total, ''Misplaced Pages'' contained 195 language editions of varying states with a combined 1.5 million articles.{{ref|AllLangArticles}} | |||
Language editions operate independently of one another. Editions are not bound to the content of other language editions, and are only held to global policies such as "neutral point of view". Articles and images are nonetheless shared between ''Misplaced Pages'' editions, the former through pages to request translations organized on many of the larger language editions, and the latter through the ] repository. Translated articles represent only a small fraction of the articles in any edition.{{ref|LangTrans}} | |||
The following is the list of major editions in the order of article number in ].{{ref|ListOfLangEditions}} | |||
#] (546,485) | |||
#] (225,373) | |||
#] (115,191) | |||
#] (103,547) | |||
#] (72,713) | |||
#] (67,918) | |||
#] (65,356) | |||
#] (46,943) | |||
#] (42,424) | |||
#] (41,704) | |||
#] (26,574) | |||
#] (24,914) | |||
==Editing== | |||
] | |||
Nearly any visitor may edit ''Misplaced Pages's'' articles and have their changes be instantly displayed. It is built on the belief that collaboration among users will improve articles over time, in much the same way that ] develops. Its authors need not have any expertise or formal qualifications in the subjects which they edit, and users are warned that their contributions may be "edited mercilessly" by anyone who so wishes. Its articles are not controlled by any particular user or editorial group, and decision-making on the content and editorial policies of ''Misplaced Pages'' is instead done by ] and occasionally vote, though ] retains final judgment.{{ref|Despotism}} | |||
By the nature of its ], "edit wars" and prolonged disputes often occur when editors do not agree.{{ref|EditWar}} Members of its community have explained its editing process as a collaborative work of art, a ]-like ] process, or an adversarial "battlefield of ideas."{{ref|WikiExp}} Articles are always subject to editing, such that ''Misplaced Pages'' does not declare any article finished. Vandalism has been a constant problem for Misplaced Pages. In a study of the page histories of ''Misplaced Pages's'' English language edition, ] and ] researchers Viegas, Wattenberg, and Dave found the mean time to correct "mass delete" and "mass delete obscene" vandalism to be 7.7 days and 1.8 days, and the median times 2.8 minutes and 1.7 minutes respectively. In contrast, the average persistency of a revision marked "all content" was found to be 22.3 days, the median time 90.4 minutes.{{ref|VWD2004}} | |||
===Policies=== | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' requires that its contributors observe a "neutral point of view" when writing and not include original research. Neutral point of view, itself a "non-negotiable" policy,{{ref|NPOVnegot}} articulates the encyclopedia's goal as "''representing'' disputes, ''characterizing'' them, rather than engaging in them."{{ref|NPOVwp}} If achieved, ''Misplaced Pages'' would not be written from a single "objective" point of view, but rather fairly present all views on an issue, attributed to their adherents in a neutral way. It states that views should be given weight equal to their standing. This policy has been criticized as having an unattainable goal, being unnecessary with widely discredited material, and allowing the representation of "morally offensive" views.{{ref|NPOVwp2}} Opinions or theories that have not been previously published are considered "original research", which is not allowed. The "No original research" policy states that such material cannot be properly attributed under neutral point of view, and that editors' own novel ideas or perspectives are not to be introduced.{{ref|OriginalResearch}} | |||
''Misplaced Pages's'' contributors additionally maintain a variety of lesser policies and guidelines. In contrast to other wikis of its time, such as ]'s ], Wikipedians use "talk" pages to discuss changes to articles, rather than discussing changes within the article itself. ''Misplaced Pages'' contributors often modify, move, or delete articles which are felt to be inappropriate to an encyclopedia, such as ] definitions or original source texts.{{ref|Unsuitable}} Often, ''Misplaced Pages'' editions establish style conventions. | |||
===Authors=== | |||
Every user is intended to be of equal status when editing articles, and edit articles to reach consensus among editors. During ], ''Misplaced Pages'' had approximately 13,000 users which made at least five edits that month; 9,000 of these active users worked on its three largest language editions.{{ref|AuthorsCount}} A more active group of approximately 3,000 users made more than 100 edits per month, over half of these users having worked in the three largest editions. According to Wikimedia, one-quarter of ''Misplaced Pages's'' traffic comes from users without accounts, who are less likely to be editors.{{ref|WikiMediaPedia}} | |||
Maintenance tasks are performed by a group of volunteer developers, stewards, bureaucrats, and administrators, which number in the hundreds. Administrators are the largest such group, privileged with the ability to prevent articles from being edited, delete articles, or block users from editing in accordance with community policy. Many users have been temporarily or permanently blocked from editing ''Misplaced Pages''. Vandalism or the minor infraction of policies may result in a temporary block, while long-term or permanent blocks are given by Wales or, on its English edition, an Arbitration Committee for prolonged and serious infractions. | |||
Former ''Misplaced Pages'' editor-in-chief ] has said that having the ] license as a "guarantee of freedom is a strong motivation to work on a 💕."{{ref|Britannica}} In a study of ''Misplaced Pages'' as a community, Economics professor Andrea Ciffolilli argued that the low ]s of participating in wiki software create a catalyst for collaborative development, and that a "creative construction" approach encourages participation.{{ref|Ciffolilli2003}} ''Misplaced Pages'' has been viewed as a social experiment in ] or ]. Its founder has replied that it is not intended as one, though it is a consequence.{{ref|Social}} In a page on researching with Misplaced Pages, its authors argue that ''Misplaced Pages'' is valuable for being a social community. That is, authors can be asked to defend or clarify their work, and disputes are readily seen.{{ref|Researching}} ''Misplaced Pages'' editions also often contain ]s in which the community answers questions. | |||
==Evaluations== | |||
:''See also: ]'' | |||
''Misplaced Pages's'' claim to be or status as an encyclopedia has been controversial. ''Misplaced Pages'' has been criticized for a perceived lack of reliability, comprehensiveness and authority. It is considered to have no or limited utility as a ] among many ]s, ]s, and the ]s of more formally written encyclopedias. ''Misplaced Pages'' is considered to be of sufficient quality in at least some areas by others, notably winning a comparative test by '']''. Much of its praise is for being both free-content and open to editing by anyone. | |||
===Quality=== | |||
Critics argue that allowing anyone to edit makes ''Misplaced Pages'' an unreliable work. In a 2004 interview with '']'', librarian Philip Bradley said that he would not use ''Misplaced Pages'' and is "not aware of a single librarian who would. The main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, the publishers have to ensure that their data is reliable, as their livelihood depends on it. But with something like this, all that goes out the window." Similarly, '']'s'' executive editor Ted Pappas said to the ''Guardian'': "The premise of ''Misplaced Pages'' is that continuous improvement will lead to perfection. That premise is completely unproven."{{ref|Who}} Discussing ''Misplaced Pages'' as an academic source, Dana Boyd said in 2005 that "t will never be an encyclopedia, but it will contain extensive knowledge that is quite valuable for different purposes."{{ref|Boyd}} | |||
In an oft-cited 2004 piece called "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia", former ''Britannica'' editor ] criticised the wiki approach, writing "owever closely a ''Misplaced Pages'' article may at some point in its life attain to reliability, it is forever open to the uninformed or semiliterate meddler."{{ref|McHenryFBE}} Aaron Krowne wrote a rebuttal article in which he criticised McHenry's methods, and labeled it ], the marketing technique of "fear, uncertainty, and doubt."{{ref|Krowne}} Former editor-in-chief Larry Sanger criticised ''Misplaced Pages'' in late 2004 for having, according to Sanger, an "anti-elitist" philosophy of rejecting formal review which would prevent its articles from being perceived as authoritative.{{ref|SangerElitism}} | |||
''Misplaced Pages's'' editing process assumes that exposing an article to many users will result in accuracy. Referencing ] of open-source development, Sanger stated earlier: "Given enough eyeballs, all errors are shallow."{{ref|LinusSanger}} Technology figure ] wrote on ''Misplaced Pages's'' authority, "lthough it depends a bit on the field, the question is whether something is more likely to be true coming from a source whose resume sounds authoritative or a source that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people (with the ability to comment) and has survived."{{ref|Ito}} Conversely, in an informal test of Misplaced Pages's ability to detect misinformation its author remarked that its process "isn't really a fact-checking mechanism so much as a voting mechanism", and that material which did not appear "blatantly false" may be accepted as true.{{ref|HowAuth}} | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' has been accused of deficiencies in comprehensiveness because of its voluntary nature, and of reflecting the systemic biases of its contributors. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' editor-in-chief Dale Hoiberg has argued that "people write of things they're interested in, and so many subjects don't get covered; and news events get covered in great detail. The entry on ] is five times the length of that on ], and the entry on '']'' is twice as long as the article on ]."{{ref|Who2}} This statement was written on ], ]. By ], ], without counting subarticles, the Chinese art article had become three times as large as the article on Hurricane Frances, while the article on Tony Blair was 50% larger than the article on Coronation Street. Proponents of Misplaced Pages point to such statistics in arguing that bias by editor favoritism will diminish over time. | |||
Former Nupedia editor-in-chief Larry Sanger stated in 2004, "when it comes to relatively specialized topics (outside of the interests of most of the contributors), the project's credibility is very uneven."{{ref|SangerAntiElitism}} | |||
It has been praised for, as a wiki, allowing articles to be updated or created in response to current events. For example, the then-new "]" article of its English edition was cited often by the press shortly after the incident. Its editors have also argued as a website, ''Misplaced Pages'' is able to include articles on a greater number of subjects than print encyclopedias may.{{ref|TopicCount}} | |||
German computing magazine ''c't'' performed a comparison of '']'', '']'' and ''Misplaced Pages'' in ]: . Experts evaluated 66 articles in various fields. In overall score, ''Misplaced Pages'' was rated 3.6 out of 5 points ("B-"), ''Brockhaus Premium'' 3.3, and ''Microsoft Encarta'' 3.1.{{ref|Kurzidim}} In an analysis of online encyclopedias, ] professors Emigh and Herring wrote that "Misplaced Pages improves on traditional information sources, especially for the content areas in which it is strong, such as technology and current events."{{ref|EmighHerring}} | |||
===Community=== | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' has a community of users who are proportionally few, but highly active. Emigh and Herring argue that "a few active users, when acting in concert with established norms within an open editing system, can achieve ultimate control over the content produced within the system, literally erasing diversity, controversy, and inconsistency, and homogenizing contributors' voices." Editors on ], a fork of ''Misplaced Pages'', similarly argue that new or controversial editors to ''Misplaced Pages'' are often unjustly labeled "]s" or "problem users" and blocked from editing.{{ref|WikiInfoCritical}} Its community has also been criticised for expecting users who make complaints about an article's quality to fix it themselves.{{ref|SoFixItComplaint}} | |||
In a page on researching with ''Misplaced Pages'', its authors argue that ''Misplaced Pages'' is valuable for being a social community. That is, authors can be asked to defend or clarify their work, and disputes are readily seen.{{ref|Researching2}} ''Misplaced Pages'' editions also often contain ]s in which the community answers questions. | |||
===Awards=== | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' won two major awards in ]{{ref|MayAwards}}: The first was a Golden Nica for Digital Communities, awarded by ]; this came with a 10,000 ] grant and an invitation to present at the PAE Cyberarts Festival in ] later that year. The second was a Judges' ] for "Community". ''Misplaced Pages'' was also nominated for a "Best Practices" Webby. In ], the ] was awarded a Web Creation Award from the Japan Advertisers Association. This award, normally given to individuals for great contributions to the Web in Japanese, was accepted by a long-standing contributor on behalf of the project. | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' has received plaudits from sources including ], '']'', '']'', '']'', '']'', the '']'', and '']''. Awards to the ''Misplaced Pages'' project and press clippings are listed by Wikimedia contributors on . | |||
==History== | |||
{{mainarticle|History of Misplaced Pages}} | |||
]''.]] | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' began as a complementary project of '']'', a free online encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts through a formal process. ''Nupedia'' was founded on ] ] under the ownership of ], a Web portal company. Its principal figures were ], Bomis ] and final authority, and ], ] for ''Nupedia'' and later ''Misplaced Pages''. ''Nupedia'' was described by Sanger as differing from existing encyclopedias in being ]; not having size limitations, as it was on the ]; and being free of bias, due to its public nature and potentially broad base of contributors.{{ref|SangerNupediaPurpose}} ''Nupedia'' had a seven-step review process by appointed subject-area experts, but was later widely viewed as too slow for producing a limited number of articles. Funded by Bomis, there were initial plans to recoup its investment by the use of advertisements.{{ref|NupediaAds}} It was licensed under its own Nupedia Open Content License initially, switching to the GNU Free Documentation License prior to ''Misplaced Pages's'' founding at the urging of ]. | |||
], ], two and one-half months after starting.]] | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' was formally launched on ] ] as a single English-language edition at wikipedia]. It had been, from ], a feature of nupedia.com in which the public could write articles which could be incorporated into ''Nupedia'' after review. But it was re-launched off-site after ''Nupedia's'' Advisory Board of subject experts disapproved of its production model.{{ref|SangerAB}} ''Misplaced Pages'' thereafter operated as a standalone project without control from ''Nupedia''. Its policy of "neutral point of view" was codified in its initial months, though is similar to Nupedia's earlier "nonbias" policy. There were otherwise few rules initially. ''Misplaced Pages'' gained early contributors from ''Nupedia'', ] postings, and ] indexing. It grew to approximately 20,000 articles among 18 language editions by the end of its first year. It had 26 language editions by the end of 2002, 46 by the end of 2003, and 161 by the end of 2004.{{ref|HistLangCount}} ''Nupedia'' and ''Misplaced Pages'' coexisted until the former's servers went down, permanently, in ], and its text was incorporated into Misplaced Pages. | |||
Wales and Sanger attribute the concept of using a wiki to ]'s WikiWikiWeb or ]. Wales mention that he heard the concept first from Jeremy Rosenfeld, an employee of Bomis who showed him the same wiki, in ],{{ref|WalesRosenfeld}} but it was after Sanger heard of its existence from Ben Kovitz, a regular at this wiki, in ],{{ref|SangerKovitz}} and proposed a creation of a wiki for Nupedia to Wales that Wikipedias history started. Under a similar concept of free content, though not wiki production, the ] project existed alongside ''Nupedia'' early in its history. It subsequently became inactive and its creator, ] figure ], lent his support to Misplaced Pages.{{ref|Stallman}} | |||
Citing fear of commercial advertising and lack of control in a perceived English-centric Misplaced Pages, users of the ] forked from ''Misplaced Pages'' to create the '']'' in ]. Later that year, Wales announced that ''Misplaced Pages'' would not display ]s, and moved its website to wikipedia]. Projects have since forked from ''Misplaced Pages's'' content for editorial reasons, such as ], which abandoned "neutral point of view" in favor of multiple complementary articles written from a "sympathetic point of view." | |||
From ''Misplaced Pages'' and Nupedia the Wikimedia Foundation was created on ], ].{{ref|Wikimedia}} ''Misplaced Pages'' and its sister projects thereafter operated under this ]. ''Misplaced Pages's'' first sister project, "In Memoriam", had been created in ] to detail the ]; it gained ], a dictionary project, in ]; ], a collection of quotes, a week after Wikimedia launched; and ], collaboratively-written free books, the next month. Wikimedia has since started a number of other projects, detailed below. | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' has traditionally measured its status by article count. In its first two years it grew at a few hundred or less new articles per day. The English ''Misplaced Pages'' reached a 100,000 article milestone on ], ]. During 2004 its article growth rate was approximately 1,000 to 3,000 per day. In all editions, it reached 500,000 articles on ], ].{{ref|HalfMillion}} ''Misplaced Pages'' reached its one millionth article among 105 language editions on ], ].{{ref|WikimediaMillion}} | |||
==Software and hardware== | |||
] | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' is run by ] open source software on a cluster of dedicated servers located in ]. MediaWiki is Phase III of the program's software. Originally, ''Misplaced Pages'' ran on ] by ] (Phase I). At first it required ] for links; later it was also possible to use double brackets. ''Misplaced Pages'' began running on a ] ] with a ] ] in ]. This software, Phase II, was written specifically for the ''Misplaced Pages'' project by Magnus Manske. Several rounds of modifications were made to improve performance in response to increased demand. Ultimately, the software was rewritten again, this time by Lee Daniel Crocker. Instituted in ], this Phase III software was called MediaWiki. It was licensed under the ] and used by all Wikimedia projects. | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' was served from a single server until ], when the server setup was expanded into an ] distributed architecture. In ], the project ran on 39 dedicated servers located in ]. This configuration included a single master database server running ], multiple slave database servers, 21 web servers running the ] software, and 7 ] servers. | |||
Page requests are processed by first passing to a front-end layer of ] servers. Requests that cannot be served from the Squid cache are sent to two load-balancing servers running the ] software, which then pass the request to one of the Apache web servers for page-rendering from the database. The web servers serve pages as requested, performing page rendering for all the Wikipedias. To increase speed further, rendered pages for anonymous users are cached in a filesystem until invalidated, allowing page rendering to be skipped entirely for most common page accesses. Wikimedia has begun building a global network of ] with the addition of three such servers in ]. | |||
The ongoing status of ''Misplaced Pages's'' website is posted at an on ]. | |||
==Sister projects== | |||
] | |||
''Misplaced Pages'' has free-content sister projects which fulfill non-encyclopedic roles. Its largest are: ], a free ] project; ], a free ] project; ], a 💕 of ]s; ], a multilingual ] of free source texts; ], a shared media respository; and ], a free ] source. ''Misplaced Pages'' and its sister projects are administered by the ]. | |||
==See also== | |||
*] | |||
==References== | |||
<!-- LEAD --> | |||
#{{note|PopularityRef}}According to ], "" (28 March 2005). | |||
#{{note|Popularity}}See plots at "", Misplaced Pages Statistics, 1 January 2005. | |||
<!-- WIKI --> | |||
#{{note|WalesGoal}}], "", 8 March 2005, <wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org>. | |||
<!-- FREE CONTENT --> | |||
#{{note|NonFreeImg}}For example, see statistics and licenses on the English edition at "", Misplaced Pages (9 March 2005). | |||
#{{note|Lih}}Andrew Lih, "" (]), ''5th International Symposium on Online Journalism'', April 2004. | |||
#{{note|UsePress}}"", Misplaced Pages (28 March 2005). | |||
#{{note|C38}}"", LEGISINFO (28 March 2005). | |||
<!-- LANGUAGE EDITIONS --> | |||
#{{note|LangCount}}"", Meta-Wiki (28 March 2005). | |||
#{{note|AllLangArticles}}"", Misplaced Pages statistics, 21 March 2005. | |||
#{{note|LangTrans}}For example, "", Misplaced Pages (9 March 2005). | |||
#{{note|ListOfLangEditions}}"", Meta Wikimedia (28 March 2005). | |||
<!-- EDITING --> | |||
#{{note|Despotism}}"", Meta-Wiki, 10:55 4 Apr 2005. | |||
#{{note|EditWar}}"", Misplaced Pages (26 March 2005). | |||
#{{note|WikiExp}}"", Meta-Wiki, 23:30 24 Mar 2005. | |||
#{{note|VWD2004}}Fernanda B. Viegas, Martin Wattenberg, and Kushal Dave, "", CHI 2004 April 24-29 2004. Preliminary report "" available on IBM website. | |||
<!-- POLICIES --> | |||
#{{note|NPOVnegot}}Jimmy Wales, "", 5 November 2003, <wikien-l@wikimedia.org>. | |||
#{{note|NPOVwp}}"", Misplaced Pages, accessed 4 March 2005. Italics original. | |||
#{{note|NPOVwp2}}"Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view". | |||
#{{note|OriginalResearch}}"", Misplaced Pages, (4 March 2005). | |||
#{{note|Unsuitable}}"", Misplaced Pages (4 March 2005). | |||
<!-- AUTHORS --> | |||
#{{note|AuthorsCount}}Paragraph's statistics taken from "" (Misplaced Pages Statistics, 21 March 2005). | |||
#{{note|WikiMediaPedia}}"", Meta-Wiki, 08:02 30 Mar 2005. | |||
#{{note|Britannica}}], "", ], 25 July 2001. | |||
#{{note|Ciffolilli2003}}Andrea Ciffolilli, "", ] December 2003. | |||
#{{note|Social}}Jimmy Wales, "", 26 January 2005, <wikien-l@wikimedia.org>. | |||
#{{note|Researching}}"", Misplaced Pages (28 March 2005). | |||
<!-- EVALUATIONS --> | |||
<!-- QUALITY --> | |||
#{{note|Who}}Simon Waldman, "", '']'', 26 October 2004. | |||
#{{note|Boyd}}Dana Boyd, "", ], 4 January 2005. | |||
#{{note|McHenryFBE}}], "", ], 15 November 2004. | |||
#{{note|Krowne}}Aaron Krowne, "", ], 1 March 2005. | |||
#{{note|SangerElitism}}Larry Sanger, "", ], 31 December 2004. | |||
#{{note|LinusSanger}}Larry Sanger, "", Kuro5hin, 24 September 2001. | |||
#{{note|Ito}}], "", Joi Ito's Web, 29 August 2004. | |||
#{{note|HowAuth}}Anonymous ]ger, "", Dispatches from the Frozen North, 4 September 2004. | |||
#{{note|Who2}}"Who knows?" | |||
#{{note|SangerAntiElitism}}Larry Sanger, "", ], 31 December 2004. | |||
#{{note|TopicCount}}"", Misplaced Pages, 22:53 13 Apr 2005. | |||
#{{note|Kurzidim}}Michael Kurzidim: Wissenswettstreit. Die kostenlose Misplaced Pages tritt gegen die Marktführer Encarta und Brockhaus an, in: ] 21/2004, 4 October 2004, S. 132-139. | |||
#{{note|EmighHerring}}William Emigh and Susan C. Herring, "", paper presented at the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004. | |||
<!-- COMMUNITY --> | |||
#{{note|WikiInfoCritical}}"", ], 07:28 30 Mar 2005. | |||
#{{note|SoFixItComplaint}}Andrew Orlowski, "", ], 23 July 2004. | |||
# {{note|Researching2}} "", Misplaced Pages (28 March 2005). | |||
<!-- AWARDS --> | |||
#{{note|MayAwards}}"", Meta-Wiki (28 March 2005). | |||
<!-- HISTORY --> | |||
#{{note|SangerNupediaPurpose}}Larry Sanger, "", Nupedia, March 2000. | |||
#{{note|NupediaAds}}Larry Sanger, "Q & A about Nupedia", Nupedia, March 2000. | |||
#{{note|SangerAB}}Larry Sanger, "", Slashdot, 18 April 2005. | |||
#{{note|HistLangCount}}"", Misplaced Pages, 30 March 2005. | |||
#{{note|WalesRosenfeld}}Jimmy Wales, "", 20 April 2005,<wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org>. | |||
#{{note|SangerKovitz}}Larry Sanger, "The Early History of Nupedia and Misplaced Pages: A Memoir", Slashdot, 18 April 2005. | |||
#{{note|Stallman}}], "", ], 1999. | |||
#{{note|Wikimedia}}Jimmy Wales, "", 20 June 2003, <wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org>. | |||
#{{note|HalfMillion}}"", Wikimedia Foundation, 25 February 2004. | |||
#{{note|WikimediaMillion}}See "", Wikimedia Foundation, 20 September 2004. | |||
==Further reading== | |||
{{Wiktionary}} | |||
{{Wikiquote}} | |||
{{Commons|Wikimedia}} | |||
*Misplaced Pages: | |||
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==External links== | |||
*, multi-lingual portal | |||
*, ] edition | |||
*, policy-related and technical discussions regarding ] | |||
*, parent organization of ''Misplaced Pages'' | |||
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Revision as of 01:33, 5 May 2005
Misplaced Pages is a Web-based, free-content encyclopedia, which is written collaboratively by volunteers. It consists of 195 independent language editions sponsored by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Entries on traditional encyclopedic topics exist alongside those on almanac, gazetteer and current events topics. Its purpose is to create and distribute, worldwide, a 💕 in as many languages as possible. Misplaced Pages is one of the most popular reference sites on the Web, receiving around 50 million hits per day.
Misplaced Pages contains approximately 1.5 million articles, more than 500,000 of which are in its English language edition, more than 200,000 in the German language and more than 100,000 in the Japanese language and French language. It began as a complement to the expert-written Nupedia on 15 January 2001. Having steadily risen in popularity, it has spawned several conceptually related sister projects such as Wiktionary, Wikibooks and Wikinews. Its articles are edited by volunteers in wiki fashion, meaning articles are subject to change by nearly anyone. Misplaced Pages's volunteers enforce a policy of "neutral point of view." Under this, the views presented by notable persons or literature are summarized without attempting to determine an objective truth. Because of its open nature, vandalism and inaccuracy are problems in Misplaced Pages.
Misplaced Pages's status as a reference work has been controversial. It has received praise for being free, editable, and covering a wide range of topics. It has been criticized for lack of authority when compared with a traditional encyclopedia, systemic bias, and for deficiencies in traditional encyclopedic topics. Its articles have been cited by the mass media and academia. Misplaced Pages's articles are available under the GNU Free Documentation License. Its German language edition has been distributed on compact discs, and many of its other editions are mirrored or have been forked by websites.
Characteristics
Misplaced Pages is described by its founder Jimmy Wales as "an effort to create and distribute a 💕 of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language." It is created on the wikipedia.org website using a type of software and philosophy known as 'wiki,' from the Hawaiian language "wiki wiki" which means "quick." Wales intends that Misplaced Pages should achieve an " Britannica or better" quality and be published on physical media.
Several other encyclopedia projects exist or have existed on the Internet. Traditional editorial policies and article ownership is used in some, such as the expert-written Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and defunct Nupedia. More casually, websites such as h2g2 or Everything2 serve as general guides whose articles are written and controlled by individuals. Projects such as Misplaced Pages, Susning.nu, and the Enciclopedia Libre, are wikis, in which articles are developed by numerous authors, and there is no formal review process. Misplaced Pages has become the largest such encyclopedic wiki by article and word count. It is distinguished from many encyclopedias in licensing its content under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Free content
The GNU Free Documentation License, the license under which Misplaced Pages's articles are made available, is one of many "copyleft" copyright licenses that permit the redistribution, creation of derivative works, and commercial use of content provided its authors are attributed and this content remains available under the GFDL. When an author contributes original material to the project, the copyright over it is retained with them, but they agree to make the work available under the GFDL. Material on Misplaced Pages may thus be distributed to, or incorporated from, resources which also use this license. Misplaced Pages's content has been mirrored or forked by hundreds of resources from database dumps. Although all text is available under the GFDL, a significant percentage of Misplaced Pages's images and sounds are non-free. Items such as corporate logos, song samples or copyrighted news photos are used with a claim of fair use. Material has also been given to Misplaced Pages under no-derivative or for-Misplaced Pages-only conditions.
Misplaced Pages has been used by the media, academics, and others as a reference or supplement. News organizations have referred to Misplaced Pages articles as sources or in sidebars containing related information on the Web, some regularly. According to lists maintained by Misplaced Pages's editors, its articles have been cited most frequently in the news media. Less frequently, it has been used in academic studies, books, conferences, and court cases. For instance, the Parliament of Canada website refers to Misplaced Pages's article on same-sex marriage in the "further reading" list of Bill C-38. Noncomprehensive lists are maintained by Wikipedians of Misplaced Pages as a source.
Language editions
Misplaced Pages encompassed 92 "active" language editions in March 2005. Its five largest editions were, in descending order, English, German, Japanese, French and Swedish. In total, Misplaced Pages contained 195 language editions of varying states with a combined 1.5 million articles.
Language editions operate independently of one another. Editions are not bound to the content of other language editions, and are only held to global policies such as "neutral point of view". Articles and images are nonetheless shared between Misplaced Pages editions, the former through pages to request translations organized on many of the larger language editions, and the latter through the Wikimedia Commons repository. Translated articles represent only a small fraction of the articles in any edition.
The following is the list of major editions in the order of article number in May 2005.
- English (546,485)
- German (225,373)
- Japanese (115,191)
- French (103,547)
- Swedish (72,713)
- Dutch (67,918)
- Polish (65,356)
- Spanish (46,943)
- Portuguese (42,424)
- Italian (41,704)
- Chinese (26,574)
- Danish (24,914)
Editing
Nearly any visitor may edit Misplaced Pages's articles and have their changes be instantly displayed. It is built on the belief that collaboration among users will improve articles over time, in much the same way that open-source software develops. Its authors need not have any expertise or formal qualifications in the subjects which they edit, and users are warned that their contributions may be "edited mercilessly" by anyone who so wishes. Its articles are not controlled by any particular user or editorial group, and decision-making on the content and editorial policies of Misplaced Pages is instead done by consensus and occasionally vote, though Jimmy Wales retains final judgment.
By the nature of its openness, "edit wars" and prolonged disputes often occur when editors do not agree. Members of its community have explained its editing process as a collaborative work of art, a Darwinian-like evolutionary process, or an adversarial "battlefield of ideas." Articles are always subject to editing, such that Misplaced Pages does not declare any article finished. Vandalism has been a constant problem for Misplaced Pages. In a study of the page histories of Misplaced Pages's English language edition, MIT and IBM researchers Viegas, Wattenberg, and Dave found the mean time to correct "mass delete" and "mass delete obscene" vandalism to be 7.7 days and 1.8 days, and the median times 2.8 minutes and 1.7 minutes respectively. In contrast, the average persistency of a revision marked "all content" was found to be 22.3 days, the median time 90.4 minutes.
Policies
Misplaced Pages requires that its contributors observe a "neutral point of view" when writing and not include original research. Neutral point of view, itself a "non-negotiable" policy, articulates the encyclopedia's goal as "representing disputes, characterizing them, rather than engaging in them." If achieved, Misplaced Pages would not be written from a single "objective" point of view, but rather fairly present all views on an issue, attributed to their adherents in a neutral way. It states that views should be given weight equal to their standing. This policy has been criticized as having an unattainable goal, being unnecessary with widely discredited material, and allowing the representation of "morally offensive" views. Opinions or theories that have not been previously published are considered "original research", which is not allowed. The "No original research" policy states that such material cannot be properly attributed under neutral point of view, and that editors' own novel ideas or perspectives are not to be introduced.
Misplaced Pages's contributors additionally maintain a variety of lesser policies and guidelines. In contrast to other wikis of its time, such as Ward Cunningham's Portland Pattern Repository, Wikipedians use "talk" pages to discuss changes to articles, rather than discussing changes within the article itself. Misplaced Pages contributors often modify, move, or delete articles which are felt to be inappropriate to an encyclopedia, such as dictionary definitions or original source texts. Often, Misplaced Pages editions establish style conventions.
Authors
Every user is intended to be of equal status when editing articles, and edit articles to reach consensus among editors. During January 2005, Misplaced Pages had approximately 13,000 users which made at least five edits that month; 9,000 of these active users worked on its three largest language editions. A more active group of approximately 3,000 users made more than 100 edits per month, over half of these users having worked in the three largest editions. According to Wikimedia, one-quarter of Misplaced Pages's traffic comes from users without accounts, who are less likely to be editors.
Maintenance tasks are performed by a group of volunteer developers, stewards, bureaucrats, and administrators, which number in the hundreds. Administrators are the largest such group, privileged with the ability to prevent articles from being edited, delete articles, or block users from editing in accordance with community policy. Many users have been temporarily or permanently blocked from editing Misplaced Pages. Vandalism or the minor infraction of policies may result in a temporary block, while long-term or permanent blocks are given by Wales or, on its English edition, an Arbitration Committee for prolonged and serious infractions.
Former Misplaced Pages editor-in-chief Larry Sanger has said that having the GFDL license as a "guarantee of freedom is a strong motivation to work on a 💕." In a study of Misplaced Pages as a community, Economics professor Andrea Ciffolilli argued that the low transaction costs of participating in wiki software create a catalyst for collaborative development, and that a "creative construction" approach encourages participation. Misplaced Pages has been viewed as a social experiment in anarchy or democracy. Its founder has replied that it is not intended as one, though it is a consequence. In a page on researching with Misplaced Pages, its authors argue that Misplaced Pages is valuable for being a social community. That is, authors can be asked to defend or clarify their work, and disputes are readily seen. Misplaced Pages editions also often contain reference desks in which the community answers questions.
Evaluations
- See also: Criticism of Misplaced Pages
Misplaced Pages's claim to be or status as an encyclopedia has been controversial. Misplaced Pages has been criticized for a perceived lack of reliability, comprehensiveness and authority. It is considered to have no or limited utility as a reference work among many librarians, academics, and the editors of more formally written encyclopedias. Misplaced Pages is considered to be of sufficient quality in at least some areas by others, notably winning a comparative test by c't. Much of its praise is for being both free-content and open to editing by anyone.
Quality
Critics argue that allowing anyone to edit makes Misplaced Pages an unreliable work. In a 2004 interview with The Guardian, librarian Philip Bradley said that he would not use Misplaced Pages and is "not aware of a single librarian who would. The main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, the publishers have to ensure that their data is reliable, as their livelihood depends on it. But with something like this, all that goes out the window." Similarly, Encyclopædia Britannica's executive editor Ted Pappas said to the Guardian: "The premise of Misplaced Pages is that continuous improvement will lead to perfection. That premise is completely unproven." Discussing Misplaced Pages as an academic source, Dana Boyd said in 2005 that "t will never be an encyclopedia, but it will contain extensive knowledge that is quite valuable for different purposes."
In an oft-cited 2004 piece called "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia", former Britannica editor Robert McHenry criticised the wiki approach, writing "owever closely a Misplaced Pages article may at some point in its life attain to reliability, it is forever open to the uninformed or semiliterate meddler." Aaron Krowne wrote a rebuttal article in which he criticised McHenry's methods, and labeled it FUD, the marketing technique of "fear, uncertainty, and doubt." Former editor-in-chief Larry Sanger criticised Misplaced Pages in late 2004 for having, according to Sanger, an "anti-elitist" philosophy of rejecting formal review which would prevent its articles from being perceived as authoritative.
Misplaced Pages's editing process assumes that exposing an article to many users will result in accuracy. Referencing Linus's law of open-source development, Sanger stated earlier: "Given enough eyeballs, all errors are shallow." Technology figure Joi Ito wrote on Misplaced Pages's authority, "lthough it depends a bit on the field, the question is whether something is more likely to be true coming from a source whose resume sounds authoritative or a source that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people (with the ability to comment) and has survived." Conversely, in an informal test of Misplaced Pages's ability to detect misinformation its author remarked that its process "isn't really a fact-checking mechanism so much as a voting mechanism", and that material which did not appear "blatantly false" may be accepted as true.
Misplaced Pages has been accused of deficiencies in comprehensiveness because of its voluntary nature, and of reflecting the systemic biases of its contributors. Encyclopædia Britannica editor-in-chief Dale Hoiberg has argued that "people write of things they're interested in, and so many subjects don't get covered; and news events get covered in great detail. The entry on Hurricane Frances is five times the length of that on Chinese art, and the entry on Coronation Street is twice as long as the article on Tony Blair." This statement was written on October 26, 2004. By March 28, 2005, without counting subarticles, the Chinese art article had become three times as large as the article on Hurricane Frances, while the article on Tony Blair was 50% larger than the article on Coronation Street. Proponents of Misplaced Pages point to such statistics in arguing that bias by editor favoritism will diminish over time.
Former Nupedia editor-in-chief Larry Sanger stated in 2004, "when it comes to relatively specialized topics (outside of the interests of most of the contributors), the project's credibility is very uneven."
It has been praised for, as a wiki, allowing articles to be updated or created in response to current events. For example, the then-new "2004 Indian Ocean earthquake" article of its English edition was cited often by the press shortly after the incident. Its editors have also argued as a website, Misplaced Pages is able to include articles on a greater number of subjects than print encyclopedias may.
German computing magazine c't performed a comparison of Brockhaus Premium, Microsoft Encarta and Misplaced Pages in October 2004: . Experts evaluated 66 articles in various fields. In overall score, Misplaced Pages was rated 3.6 out of 5 points ("B-"), Brockhaus Premium 3.3, and Microsoft Encarta 3.1. In an analysis of online encyclopedias, Indiana University professors Emigh and Herring wrote that "Misplaced Pages improves on traditional information sources, especially for the content areas in which it is strong, such as technology and current events."
Community
Misplaced Pages has a community of users who are proportionally few, but highly active. Emigh and Herring argue that "a few active users, when acting in concert with established norms within an open editing system, can achieve ultimate control over the content produced within the system, literally erasing diversity, controversy, and inconsistency, and homogenizing contributors' voices." Editors on Wikinfo, a fork of Misplaced Pages, similarly argue that new or controversial editors to Misplaced Pages are often unjustly labeled "trolls" or "problem users" and blocked from editing. Its community has also been criticised for expecting users who make complaints about an article's quality to fix it themselves.
In a page on researching with Misplaced Pages, its authors argue that Misplaced Pages is valuable for being a social community. That is, authors can be asked to defend or clarify their work, and disputes are readily seen. Misplaced Pages editions also often contain reference desks in which the community answers questions.
Awards
Misplaced Pages won two major awards in May of 2004: The first was a Golden Nica for Digital Communities, awarded by Prix Ars Electronica; this came with a 10,000 Euro grant and an invitation to present at the PAE Cyberarts Festival in Austria later that year. The second was a Judges' Webby award for "Community". Misplaced Pages was also nominated for a "Best Practices" Webby. In September 2004, the Japanese Misplaced Pages was awarded a Web Creation Award from the Japan Advertisers Association. This award, normally given to individuals for great contributions to the Web in Japanese, was accepted by a long-standing contributor on behalf of the project.
Misplaced Pages has received plaudits from sources including BBC News, USA Today, The Economist, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, the Chicago Sun-Times, and Wired Magazine. Awards to the Misplaced Pages project and press clippings are listed by Wikimedia contributors on its website.
History
Main article: History of Misplaced PagesMisplaced Pages began as a complementary project of Nupedia, a free online encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts through a formal process. Nupedia was founded on 9 March 2000 under the ownership of Bomis, Inc, a Web portal company. Its principal figures were Jimmy Wales, Bomis CEO and final authority, and Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief for Nupedia and later Misplaced Pages. Nupedia was described by Sanger as differing from existing encyclopedias in being open content; not having size limitations, as it was on the Internet; and being free of bias, due to its public nature and potentially broad base of contributors. Nupedia had a seven-step review process by appointed subject-area experts, but was later widely viewed as too slow for producing a limited number of articles. Funded by Bomis, there were initial plans to recoup its investment by the use of advertisements. It was licensed under its own Nupedia Open Content License initially, switching to the GNU Free Documentation License prior to Misplaced Pages's founding at the urging of Richard Stallman.
Misplaced Pages was formally launched on 15 January 2001 as a single English-language edition at wikipedia.com. It had been, from 10 January, a feature of nupedia.com in which the public could write articles which could be incorporated into Nupedia after review. But it was re-launched off-site after Nupedia's Advisory Board of subject experts disapproved of its production model. Misplaced Pages thereafter operated as a standalone project without control from Nupedia. Its policy of "neutral point of view" was codified in its initial months, though is similar to Nupedia's earlier "nonbias" policy. There were otherwise few rules initially. Misplaced Pages gained early contributors from Nupedia, Slashdot postings, and search engine indexing. It grew to approximately 20,000 articles among 18 language editions by the end of its first year. It had 26 language editions by the end of 2002, 46 by the end of 2003, and 161 by the end of 2004. Nupedia and Misplaced Pages coexisted until the former's servers went down, permanently, in 2003, and its text was incorporated into Misplaced Pages.
Wales and Sanger attribute the concept of using a wiki to Ward Cunningham's WikiWikiWeb or Portland Pattern Repository. Wales mention that he heard the concept first from Jeremy Rosenfeld, an employee of Bomis who showed him the same wiki, in December 2000, but it was after Sanger heard of its existence from Ben Kovitz, a regular at this wiki, in January 2001, and proposed a creation of a wiki for Nupedia to Wales that Wikipedias history started. Under a similar concept of free content, though not wiki production, the GNUPedia project existed alongside Nupedia early in its history. It subsequently became inactive and its creator, free software figure Richard Stallman, lent his support to Misplaced Pages.
Citing fear of commercial advertising and lack of control in a perceived English-centric Misplaced Pages, users of the Spanish Misplaced Pages forked from Misplaced Pages to create the Enciclopedia Libre in February 2002. Later that year, Wales announced that Misplaced Pages would not display advertisements, and moved its website to wikipedia.org. Projects have since forked from Misplaced Pages's content for editorial reasons, such as Wikinfo, which abandoned "neutral point of view" in favor of multiple complementary articles written from a "sympathetic point of view."
From Misplaced Pages and Nupedia the Wikimedia Foundation was created on 20 June, 2003. Misplaced Pages and its sister projects thereafter operated under this non-profit organization. Misplaced Pages's first sister project, "In Memoriam", had been created in October 2002 to detail the September 11, 2001 attacks; it gained Wiktionary, a dictionary project, in December 2002; Wikiquotes, a collection of quotes, a week after Wikimedia launched; and Wikibooks, collaboratively-written free books, the next month. Wikimedia has since started a number of other projects, detailed below.
Misplaced Pages has traditionally measured its status by article count. In its first two years it grew at a few hundred or less new articles per day. The English Misplaced Pages reached a 100,000 article milestone on 22 January, 2003. During 2004 its article growth rate was approximately 1,000 to 3,000 per day. In all editions, it reached 500,000 articles on 25 February, 2004. Misplaced Pages reached its one millionth article among 105 language editions on 20 September, 2004.
Software and hardware
Misplaced Pages is run by MediaWiki open source software on a cluster of dedicated servers located in Florida. MediaWiki is Phase III of the program's software. Originally, Misplaced Pages ran on UseModWiki by Clifford Adams (Phase I). At first it required CamelCase for links; later it was also possible to use double brackets. Misplaced Pages began running on a PHP wiki engine with a MySQL database in January 2002. This software, Phase II, was written specifically for the Misplaced Pages project by Magnus Manske. Several rounds of modifications were made to improve performance in response to increased demand. Ultimately, the software was rewritten again, this time by Lee Daniel Crocker. Instituted in July 2002, this Phase III software was called MediaWiki. It was licensed under the GNU General Public License and used by all Wikimedia projects.
Misplaced Pages was served from a single server until 2004, when the server setup was expanded into an n-tier distributed architecture. In January 2005, the project ran on 39 dedicated servers located in Florida. This configuration included a single master database server running MySQL, multiple slave database servers, 21 web servers running the Apache software, and 7 Squid cache servers.
Page requests are processed by first passing to a front-end layer of Squid caching servers. Requests that cannot be served from the Squid cache are sent to two load-balancing servers running the perlbal software, which then pass the request to one of the Apache web servers for page-rendering from the database. The web servers serve pages as requested, performing page rendering for all the Wikipedias. To increase speed further, rendered pages for anonymous users are cached in a filesystem until invalidated, allowing page rendering to be skipped entirely for most common page accesses. Wikimedia has begun building a global network of caching servers with the addition of three such servers in France.
The ongoing status of Misplaced Pages's website is posted at an status page on OpenFacts.
Sister projects
Misplaced Pages has free-content sister projects which fulfill non-encyclopedic roles. Its largest are: Wiktionary, a free dictionary project; Wikibooks, a free textbook project; Wikiquote, a 💕 of quotations; Wikisource, a multilingual repository of free source texts; Wikimedia Commons, a shared media respository; and Wikinews, a free news source. Misplaced Pages and its sister projects are administered by the Wikimedia Foundation.
See also
References
- According to Alexa Internet, "Browse:Reference" (28 March 2005).
- See plots at "Visits per day", Misplaced Pages Statistics, 1 January 2005.
- Jimmy Wales, "Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia", 8 March 2005, <wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org>.
- For example, see statistics and licenses on the English edition at "Misplaced Pages:Image copyright tags", Misplaced Pages (9 March 2005).
- Andrew Lih, "Misplaced Pages as Participatory Journalism: Reliable Sources? Metrics for evaluating collaborative media as a news resource" (PDF), 5th International Symposium on Online Journalism, April 2004.
- "Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages as a press source 2005", Misplaced Pages (28 March 2005).
- "C-38", LEGISINFO (28 March 2005).
- "Complete list of language Wikipedias available", Meta-Wiki (28 March 2005).
- "All languages", Misplaced Pages statistics, 21 March 2005.
- For example, "Misplaced Pages:Translation into English", Misplaced Pages (9 March 2005).
- "Complete list of language Wikipedias available", Meta Wikimedia (28 March 2005).
- "Power structure", Meta-Wiki, 10:55 4 Apr 2005.
- "Misplaced Pages:Edit war", Misplaced Pages (26 March 2005).
- "Misplaced Pages sociology", Meta-Wiki, 23:30 24 Mar 2005.
- Fernanda B. Viegas, Martin Wattenberg, and Kushal Dave, "Studying Cooperation and Conflict between Authors with history flow Visualizations", CHI 2004 April 24-29 2004. Preliminary report "History Flow" available on IBM website.
- Jimmy Wales, "Articles about ourselves", 5 November 2003, <wikien-l@wikimedia.org>.
- "Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view", Misplaced Pages, accessed 4 March 2005. Italics original.
- "Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view".
- "Misplaced Pages:No original research", Misplaced Pages, (4 March 2005).
- "Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not", Misplaced Pages (4 March 2005).
- Paragraph's statistics taken from "Active wikipedians" (Misplaced Pages Statistics, 21 March 2005).
- "Misplaced Pages", Meta-Wiki, 08:02 30 Mar 2005.
- Larry Sanger, "Britannica or Nupedia? The Future of 💕s", Kuro5hin, 25 July 2001.
- Andrea Ciffolilli, "Phantom authority, self-selective recruitment and retention of members in virtual communities: The case of Misplaced Pages", First Monday December 2003.
- Jimmy Wales, "Re: Illegitimate block", 26 January 2005, <wikien-l@wikimedia.org>.
- "Misplaced Pages:Researching with Misplaced Pages", Misplaced Pages (28 March 2005).
- Simon Waldman, "Who knows?", The Guardian, 26 October 2004.
- Dana Boyd, "Academia and Misplaced Pages", Many-to-Many, 4 January 2005.
- Robert McHenry, "The Faith-Based Encyclopedia", Tech Central Station, 15 November 2004.
- Aaron Krowne, "The FUD-based Encyclopedia", Free Software Magazine, 1 March 2005.
- Larry Sanger, "Why Misplaced Pages Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism", Kuro5hin, 31 December 2004.
- Larry Sanger, "Misplaced Pages is wide open. Why is it growing so fast? Why isn't it full of nonsense?", Kuro5hin, 24 September 2001.
- Joi Ito, "Misplaced Pages attacked by ignorant reporter", Joi Ito's Web, 29 August 2004.
- Anonymous blogger, "How Authoritative is Misplaced Pages", Dispatches from the Frozen North, 4 September 2004.
- "Who knows?"
- Larry Sanger, "Why Misplaced Pages Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism ", Kuro5hin, 31 December 2004.
- "Misplaced Pages:Replies to common objections", Misplaced Pages, 22:53 13 Apr 2005.
- Michael Kurzidim: Wissenswettstreit. Die kostenlose Misplaced Pages tritt gegen die Marktführer Encarta und Brockhaus an, in: c't 21/2004, 4 October 2004, S. 132-139.
- William Emigh and Susan C. Herring, "Collaborative Authoring on the Web: A Genre Analysis of Online Encyclopedias", paper presented at the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2004.
- "Critical views of Misplaced Pages", Wikinfo, 07:28 30 Mar 2005.
- Andrew Orlowski, "Wiki-fiddlers defend Clever Big Book", The Register, 23 July 2004.
- "Misplaced Pages:Researching with Misplaced Pages", Misplaced Pages (28 March 2005).
- "Trophy Box", Meta-Wiki (28 March 2005).
- Larry Sanger, "Q & A about Nupedia", Nupedia, March 2000.
- Larry Sanger, "Q & A about Nupedia", Nupedia, March 2000.
- Larry Sanger, "The Early History of Nupedia and Misplaced Pages: A Memoir", Slashdot, 18 April 2005.
- "Misplaced Pages:Multilingual statistics", Misplaced Pages, 30 March 2005.
- Jimmy Wales, "Re: Sanger's memoirs", 20 April 2005,<wikipedia-l@wikipedia.org>.
- Larry Sanger, "The Early History of Nupedia and Misplaced Pages: A Memoir", Slashdot, 18 April 2005.
- Richard Stallman, "The 💕 Project", Free Software Foundation, 1999.
- Jimmy Wales, "Announcing Wikimedia Foundation", 20 June 2003, <wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org>.
- "500,000 Misplaced Pages articles", Wikimedia Foundation, 25 February 2004.
- See "Misplaced Pages Reaches One Million Articles", Wikimedia Foundation, 20 September 2004.
Further reading
- Misplaced Pages: Introduction
- Misplaced Pages: Frequently Asked Questions
- Misplaced Pages: Press releases
- Misplaced Pages: Press coverage
- Misplaced Pages: Statistics
- Misplaced Pages: Why Misplaced Pages is not so great
- Misplaced Pages: Replies to common objections
- Open Directory Project: Misplaced Pages
- OpenFacts: Copies of Misplaced Pages content
- SourceWatch: Misplaced Pages
External links
- wikipedia.org, multi-lingual portal
- en.wikipedia.org, English language edition
- Meta-Wiki, policy-related and technical discussions regarding Wikimedia
- Wikimedia Foundation, parent organization of Misplaced Pages