Top 10 facts about Wikipedia

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Tomorrow will be the 10th anniversary of the launch of Wikipedia. To honour the ever changing online font of knowledge, we give you the top 10 facts about one of the world’s most popular websites.

1. Articles

There are a massive 17 million articles on Wikipedia, with the number increasing everyday.

2. Languages

There are 262 different language versions of the website, although the English, German and French versions have the most articles.

3. English

Of the 17 million articles, 3.5 million of them are written in the English language.

4. Record breaker

On 9 September 2007, the English version of Wikipedia surpassed two million articles. It made it the largest encyclopaedia ever put together and took the record from the Yongle encyclopaedia, which had held it for 600 years.

5. Readership

Wikipedia claims to have roughly 325 million readers, meaning there are 21 users to every article on the website.

6. Edits

There have to date been over one billion edits on Wikipedia, again with the number growing all the time – and being positively encouraged by founder Jimmy Wales.

7. Wiki

The word “wiki” is the Hawain word for “quick” but now has its own definition as “a web application that allows anyone visiting a website to edit content on it.”

8. Person becomes people

In 2006 the users of Wikipedia who edited the site were named as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.

9. Hosted state

The servers for Wikipedia are hosted in Florida, therefore content on the site is subject to the US state’s laws.

10. Google gives it a hit

Many of us may go straight to Wikiepdia.org, however 50 per cent of the website’s traffic actually comes from Google.

Happy birthday Wikipedia, from everyone at IT PRO!

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