Old Fashioned News

From The Verge by Josh Dzieza

Wikipedia is the largest compendium of human knowledge ever assembled, with more than 7 million articles in its English version, the largest and most developed of 343 language projects. Started nearly 25 years ago, the site was long mocked as a byword for the unreliability of information on the internet, yet today it is, without exaggeration, the digital world’s factual foundation. It’s what Google puts at the top of search results otherwise awash in ads and spam, what social platforms cite when they deign to correct conspiracy theories, and what AI companies scrape in their ongoing quest to get their models to stop regurgitating info-slurry — and consult with such frequency that they are straining the encyclopedia’s servers. Each day, it’s where approximately 70 million people turn for reliable information on everything from particle physics to rare Scottish sheep to the Erfurt latrine disaster of 1184, a testament both to Wikipedia’s success and to the total degradation of the rest of the internet as an information resource.

Wikipedia is a gift and the best-of creation of the World Wide Web. Every user, and company that deals with information, owes much to the many, many editors and Wikipedia contributors.

Bonus: See Molly White’s video on becoming a Wikipedia editor. I edit articles from time to time — it’s fun and contributes to the larger project. I call it a good use of your volunteer time, and adding to high-quality information. This also teaches you something about providing good information to the public.

Try Wikipedia’s app, too — millions of collective truth at your finger tips.