The Wikipedia community, collectively and individually known as Wikipedians, is an

online community An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members engage in computer-mediated communication primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, on ...

of volunteers who create and maintain

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

, an

online encyclopedia An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, is a digital encyclopedia accessible through the Internet. Some examples include pre-World Wide Web services that offered the '' Academic American Encyclopedia'' beginning in 1980, Enc ...

. Wikipedians may or may not consider themselves part of the Wikimedia movement, a global network of volunteer contributors to Wikipedia and other related projects hosted by the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...

Demographics

In April 2008, writer and lecturer

Clay Shirky Clay Shirky (born 1964) is an American pundit, writer, and consultant on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies and journalism. In 2017 he was appointed Vice Provost of Educational Technologies of New York University (NYU), aft ...

and computer scientist Martin Wattenberg estimated the total time spent creating Wikipedia at roughly 100 million hours. As of August 2023, there are approximately 109 million registered user accounts across all language editions, of which around 120,000 are "active" (i.e., made at least one edit in the last thirty days). WMF Strategic Plan Survey

A study published in 2010 found that the contributor base to Wikipedia "was barely 13% women; the average age of a contributor was in the mid-20s". A 2011 study by researchers from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

found that females comprised 16.1% of the 38,497 editors who started editing Wikipedia during 2009. In a January 2011 ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' article, Noam Cohen observed that 13% of Wikipedia's contributors are female according to a 2008 Wikimedia Foundation survey.

Sue Gardner Sue Gardner (born May 11, 1967) is a Canadian journalist, not-for-profit executive and business executive. She was the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation from December 2007 until May 2014, and before that was the director of the C ...

, a former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, hoped to see female contributions increase to 25% by 2015. Linda Basch, president of the National Council for Research on Women, noted the contrast in these Wikipedia editor statistics with the percentage of women currently completing bachelor's degrees, master's degrees and PhD programs in the United States (all at rates of 50% or greater). In response, various universities have hosted

edit-a-thon An edit-a-thon (sometimes written editathon) is an event where some editors of online communities such as Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap (also known as a " mapathon"), and LocalWiki edit and improve a specific topic or type of content. The events typ ...

s to encourage more women to participate in the Wikipedia community. In fall 2013, 15 colleges and universities—including Yale, Brown, and Penn State—offered college credit for students to "write feminist thinking" about technology into Wikipedia. A 2008 self-selected survey of the diversity of contributors by highest educational degree indicated that 62% of responding Wikipedia editors had attained either a high school or undergraduate college education. In August 2014, Wikipedia co-founder

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known as Jimbo Wales, is an American List of Internet entrepreneurs, Internet entrepreneur and former Trader (finance), financial trader. He is a Founders of Wikipedia, co-founder of the non-profi ...

said in a BBC interview that the Wikimedia Foundation was "... really doubling down our efforts ..." to reach 25% of female editors (originally targeted by 2015), since the Foundation had "totally failed" so far. Wales said "a lot of things need to happen ... a lot of outreach, a lot of software changes".

Andrew Lih Andrew Lih (; born 1968)Andrew Lih
"

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg T ...

in December 2016 as supporting Wales's comments concerning shortfalls in Wikipedia's outreach to female editors. Lih states his concern with the question indicating that: "How can you get people to participate in an ditingenvironment that feels unsafe, where identifying yourself as a woman, as a feminist, could open you up to ugly, intimidating behavior". In October 2023, a representative survey of 1,000 adults in the U.S. by

YouGov YouGov plc is a international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm headquartered in the UK with operations in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. History 2000–2010 Stephan Shakespeare and Nadhim ...

found that 7% had ever edited Wikipedia, 20% had considered doing so but had not, 55% had neither considered editing Wikipedia nor done it, and 17% had never visited Wikipedia.

Motivation

In a 2003 study of Wikipedia as a community, economics Ph.D. student Andrea Ciffolilli argued that the low

transaction cost In economics, a transaction cost is a cost incurred when making an economic trade when participating in a market. The idea that transactions form the basis of economic thinking was introduced by the institutional economist John R. Commons in 1 ...

s of participating in

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

software create a catalyst for collaborative development, and that a "creative construction" approach encourages participation. A paper written by Andrea Forte and

Amy Bruckman Amy Susan Bruckman (born 1965) is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology affiliated with the School of Interactive Computing and the GVU Center. She is best known for her pioneering research in the fields of online communities and t ...

in 2005, called "Why Do People Write for Wikipedia? Incentives to Contribute to Open-Content Publishing", discussed the possible motivations of Wikipedia contributors. It applied Latour and Woolgar's concept of the cycle of credit to Wikipedia contributors, suggesting that the reason that people write for Wikipedia is to gain recognition within the community. Oded Nov, in his 2007 paper "What Motivates Wikipedians", related the motivations of volunteers in general to the motivations of people who contribute to Wikipedia. Nov carried out a survey using the six motivations of volunteers, identified in an earlier paper. The survey found that the most commonly indicated motives were "fun", "ideology", and "values", whereas the least frequently indicated motives were "career", "social", and "protective". The six motivations he used were: * Values – expressing values to do with altruism and helping others * Social – engaging with friends, taking part in activities viewed favourably by others * Understanding – expanding knowledge through activities * Career – gaining work experience and skills * Protective – e.g., reducing guilt over personal privilege * Enhancement – demonstrating knowledge to others To these six motivations he also added: * Ideology – expressing support for what is perceived to be the underlying

ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or values attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely about belief in certain knowledge, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones". Form ...

of the activity (e.g., the belief that knowledge should be free) * Fun – enjoying the activity The

has carried out some surveys of Wikipedia contributors and users. In 2008, the Wikimedia Foundation, which, alongside the Collaborative Creativity Group at UNU-Merit, launched a survey of readers and editors of Wikipedia. The results of the survey were published two years later on 24 March 2010. The Wikimedia Foundation began a process in 2011 of semi-annual surveys in order to understand Wikipedia editors more and better cater to their needs. "Motivations of Wikipedia Content Contributors", a paper by Heng-Li Yang and Cheng-Yu Lai, hypothesised that, because contributing to Wikipedia is voluntary, an individual's enjoyment of participating would be the highest motivator. This paper suggests that although people might initially start editing Wikipedia out of enjoyment, the most likely motivation for continuing to participate is

self-concept In the psychology of self, one's self-concept (also called self-construction, self-identity, self-perspective or self-structure) is a collection of beliefs about oneself. Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to the question ''"Who am I? ...

-based motivations such as "I like to share knowledge which gives me a sense of personal achievement." A study in 2014 by Cheng-Yu Lai and Heng-Li Yang explored the reasons why people continue editing Wikipedia's content. The study used authors of the English-language version of the site and received 288 valid online survey responses. Their results indicated and confirmed that subjective task value, commitment, and

procedural justice Procedural justice is the idea of fairness in the processes that resolve disputes and allocate resources. One aspect of procedural justice is related to discussions of the administration of justice and legal proceedings. This sense of procedura ...

affected satisfaction of Wikipedians; and satisfaction influenced an author's continued intention to edit Wikipedia's content. Editors of Wikipedia have given personal testimonials of why they contribute to Wikipedia's content. A theme of these testimonials is the enjoyment that editors may get from contributing to Wikipedia's content and being part of the Wikipedia community. Also mentioned is the potential addictive quality of editing Wikipedia. Gina Trapani of ''

Lifehacker ''Lifehacker'' is a weblog about life hacks and software that launched on 31 January 2005. The site was originally launched by Gawker Media and is owned by Ziff Davis. The blog posts cover a wide range of topics including Microsoft Windows, M ...

'' said "it turns out editing an article isn't scary at all. It's easy, surprisingly satisfying and can become obsessively addictive."

has also commented on the addictive quality of Wikipedia, saying "The main thing about Wikipedia ... is that it's fun and addictive". Wikipedians sometimes award one another " barnstars" for good work. These personalized tokens of appreciation reveal a range of valued work extending beyond "simple editing" to include social support, administrative actions, and types of articulation work. The barnstar phenomenon has been analyzed by researchers seeking to determine what implications it might have for other communities engaged in some collaborations. Since 2012, the Wikipedia page curation interface has included a tab offering editors a "Wikilove" option for giving barnstars and other such awards to other editors "as a reward for carefully curated work". Wikilove has been described as "an immaterial P2P reward mechanism" that substitutes for a formal reputation-valuing system on the site.

Media

Wikipedia has spawned a number of community news publications. An online newsletter, '' The Signpost'', has been published since 10 January 2005. Professional cartoonist Greg Williams created a webcomic called ' which ran in ''The Signpost'' from 2006 to 2008. A podcast called ''Wikipedia Weekly'' was active from 2006 to 2009, while a series of conference calls titled "Not the Wikipedia Weekly" ran from 2008 to 2009.

Socializing

Offline activities are organized by the

or the community of Wikipedia. These include conference and social events like Wikimania and Wiknic.

Wikimania

Wikimania is an annual international conference for users of the

projects operated by the

(such as Wikipedia and other sister projects). Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia Foundation projects, other wikis,

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

, free knowledge and free content, and the different social and technical aspects which relate to these topics. Since 2011, the winner of the Wikimedian of the Year award (known as the "Wikipedian of the Year" until 2017) has been announced at Wikimania. The first Wikimania was held in

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

, in 2005. Wikimania is organized by a committee supported usually by the local national chapter, with support from local institutions (such as a library or university) and usually from the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikimania has been held in cities such as

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

Haifa Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the List of cities in Israel, third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area i ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

Taipei , nickname = The City of Azaleas , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Taiwan#Asia#Pacific Ocean#Earth , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, Esino Lario,

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

, and

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

. The 2020 conference scheduled to take place in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estim ...

was canceled due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, along with those of 2021 and 2022, which were held online as a series of virtual, interactive presentations. The in-person conference returned in 2023 when it was held in Singapore, at which

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

joined as a partner organization.

Wiknics and conferences

The annual Great American Wiknic was a social gathering that took place in some cities of the United States during the summer. The Wiknic concept allowed Wikipedians to bring picnic food and to personally interact. There is a yearly WikiConference North America organized by and for

editors, enthusiasts, and volunteers. The first two events were held at

New York Law School New York Law School (NYLS) is a private, American law school in the Tribeca neighborhood in Manhattan, New York City. The third oldest law school in New York City, its history predates its official founding in 1891 by Theodore William Dwight, T ...

and Washington, D.C.'s

National Archives Building The National Archives Building, known informally as Archives I, is the headquarters of the United States National Archives and Records Administration. It is located north of the National Mall at 700 Pennsylvania Avenue (Washington, D.C.), Penn ...

in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Staff from the Wiki Education Foundation, which co-sponsored the 2015 event,Wiki Education Foundation, 2015: * * and the

also attend each year. There is WikiConference India which is a national conference organised in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. The first conference was held in November 2011, in

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

, the capital of the Indian state of

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

. It was organised by the

Wikipedia community in partnership with Wikimedia India Chapter. The conference focus is on matters concerning India on Wikipedia projects and other sister projects in English and other Indian folk languages. WikiConference India 2023 took place in

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

from 28 to 30 April 2023. Additionally, there is Wiki Indaba which is the regional conference for African Wikimedians. The conference includes Wikimedia projects such as

, other

, free knowledge, free content and how these projects affect the African continent.

Criticism

The Seigenthaler and Essjay incidents caused criticism of Wikipedia's reliability and usefulness as a reference. Complaints related to the community include the effects of users' anonymity, attitudes toward newcomers, abuses of privileges by administrators, biases in the social structure of the community (in particular

gender bias Gender bias is the tendency to prefer one gender over another. It is a form of unconscious bias, or implicit bias, which occurs when one individual unconsciously attributes certain attitudes and stereotypes to another person or group of people ...

and lack of female contributors) and the role of the project's co-founder

in the community. One particular controversy with regards to paid contributors to Wikipedia prompted the Wikimedia Foundation to send a

cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent by one party, often a business, to warn another party that they believe the other party is committing an unlawful act, such as copyright infringement, and that they will take legal action if the oth ...

letter to the Wiki-PR agency. Wikipedia's co-founder

Larry Sanger Lawrence Mark Sanger (; born July 16, 1968) is an American Internet project developer and philosopher who co-founded Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales. Sanger coined Wikipedia's name, and provided initial drafts for many of its early guidelines, ...

(who later founded rival project

Citizendium Citizendium ( ; "the citizens' compendium of everything") is an English language, English-language wiki-based free content, free online encyclopedia launched by Larry Sanger, co-founder of Nupedia and Wikipedia. Larry Sanger had worked as paid ...

) characterized the Wikipedia community in 2007 as ineffective and abusive, stating that "The community does not enforce its own rules effectively or consistently. Consequently, administrators and ordinary participants alike are able essentially to act abusively with impunity, which begets a never-ending cycle of abuse." Oliver Kamm of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' expressed skepticism toward Wikipedia's reliance on consensus in forming its content: "Wikipedia seeks not truth but consensus, and like an interminable political meeting the end result will be dominated by the loudest and most persistent voices."Wisdom? More like dumbness of the crowds , Oliver Kamm – Times Online (archive version 2011-08-14)
)

Recognition

A Wikipedia Monument by sculptor Mihran Hakobyan was erected in Słubice, Poland, in 2014 to honor the Wikipedia community. The 2015 Erasmus Prize was awarded to the Wikipedia community for promoting the dissemination of knowledge through a comprehensive and universally accessible encyclopedia. To achieve that, the initiators of Wikipedia have designed a new and effective democratic platform. The prize specifically recognizes Wikipedia as a community—a shared project that involves tens of thousands of volunteers around the world."

References

External links

Definition of word "Wikipedian"
at ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP), a University of Oxford publishing house. The dictionary, which published its first editio ...

''
"Analyzing the Creative Editing Behavior of Wikipedia Editors Through Dynamic Social Network Analysis"
*
Wikimania: Meet the Wikipedians. Those "persnickety," techy types who keep your favorite Internet information website brimming with data
" ''

60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who distinguished it from other news programs by using a unique style o ...

'': Morley Safer interviewing

. First aired on 5 April 2015. Rebroadcast on 26 July 2015.
Listen to and view site edits by Wikipedians as they occur
{{Authority control Articles containing video clips Virtual communities

Community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...