Kendra Mayfield, Wired News, writes:

Last week, the English-language version of Wikipedia, a free multilingual encyclopedia created entirely by volunteers on the Internet, published its 100,000th article. More than 37,000 articles populate the non-English editions.

Unlike traditional encyclopedias, which are written and edited by professionals, Wikipedia is the result of work by thousands of volunteers. Anyone can contribute an article — or edit an existing one — at any time.

The site runs on Wiki software, a collaborative application that allows users to collectively author Web documents without having to register first.

“People from very diverse backgrounds can agree on what can be in an encyclopedia article, even if they can’t agree on something else,” said Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales.

Wikipedia topics range from Internet terms, such as spamming and trolling, to more mundane subjects, such as unicycling.

Each page on the site contains an “Edit this page” link, which users can click on to edit, reposition and revise passages created by other writers. Once a user has made an edit, those changes are posted immediately.

Users can also view older versions of a page, discuss the page, view links on a page or see related changes. These options allow contributors to constantly refine and comment upon entries.

All articles are covered by the Free Software Foundation’s GNU Free Documentation License, which allows anyone to reuse the entries for any purpose, including commercially, as long as they preserve that same right to others and provide proper credit to Wikipedia. This open-content license ensures that Wikipedia’s content will always remain free.

“It’s a guarantee to contributors that their work is non-proprietary,” Wales said. “It’s not something that any one person or organization can take and restrict in any way. It really encourages people to contribute.”

The project employs a Neutral Point of View policy, which encourages contributors to write articles without bias, represent all views fairly and to attribute controversial opinions, rather than stating them as fact.

“This makes it possible for political and philosophical foes to work together, often with excellent results,” agreed Larry Sanger, co-founder and former chief organizer of Wikipedia.

But since neutrality is hard to maintain, “it’s understandable if a sizeable number of articles have noticeable biases,” said Sanger, who is also editor in chief of the free online, peer-reviewed encyclopedia Nupedia.

Ensuring accuracy is also difficult. A core group of regular contributors help monitor the site’s recent changes page to quickly correct any errors and ensure that entries aren’t vandalized.

“Because (Wikipedia) is a radically free, open project, it attracts an anarchistic element,” Sanger admits. “Fortunately, most of us are willing to take a definite stand against vandalism … and to get rid of it instantly.”

Unlike Usenet newsgroups or other online discussion lists, Wikipedia participants try to collaborate, rather than deliberate, about a topic.

“The biggest difference is that this group of people is building something rather than debating with each other,” Sanger said.

That spirit of collaboration attracted Ed Poor to Wikipedia. A software engineer and a frequent contributor to Wikipedia, Poor said he was turned off by the bias he found on newsgroups like Usenet. Initially, he thought the project wouldn’t work, but soon discovered that communal knowledge reigned over anarchy.

“I decided to contribute because I think I have a lot of general knowledge, and I like being part of an online community,” he said. “I was astounded to discover that anybody could change any page, at any time.”

Poor quickly learned that some contributors were “passionate about defending (the site’s) sanctity, its freedom and openness.”

In Wikipedia’s second year, editors have added 80,000 entries to the English version and 33,000 more to the other language editions. The surge in growth has made it the world’s largest and fastest growing open-content encyclopedia, according to its founders.

The community is so popular that a website exists for self-proclaimed Wikipediholics. The project has also spawned a sister project called Wiktionary, a free multilingual dictionary and thesaurus.

Wikipedia’s founders attribute the project’s success to the legions of highly educated, volunteer contributors called Wikipedians, who write and edit articles for the site. More than 600 contributors confess to making additions, although Wikipedia’s website cites more than 7,000 user accounts and an unknown number of anonymous contributors.

“The idea of making a serious encyclopedia, particularly in such a radically collaborative format, excited a lot of people,” Sanger said. “That’s a huge part of the draw for new contributors — working with others.”

Still, Wikipedia remains a work in progress, especially in specialized fields with few entries, like metaphysics.

“We’re only now beginning to mature,” Wales said. “Even with 100,000 articles, there are curious holes in our coverage.”

Wikipedia still pales in size compared to behemoth Encyclopedia Britannica, founders admit.

“If you compare the products side by side … we’re not there yet,” Wales said. “But a good encyclopedia article is going to be essentially the same today and 15 years from now. We’ll catch up. We’re not chasing a moving target.”

Poor, for one, predicts Wikipedia will continue to grow.

“I think that over the next few years, it’s going to develop into a world-class encyclopedia that will rival the Britannica.”