Wikipedia celebrates 20th birthday

Wikipedia celebrated its 20th birthday this past week on Jan. 15, 2021.

According to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia, as we know it today, reached its height after the events of 9/11. 

Initially, the site was intended to be an online encyclopedia, edited only by professionals and experts, but as witnesses to 9/11 helped fill in the blanks about what happened, Wikipedia was established as an information source that was able to be edited by the public.

Despite its content being continually fact-checked, Wikipedia still tends to be seen as an unreliable source. However, Wikipedia contains millions of entries in 270 languages, allowing people from all across the world to have access to a huge collection of information. 

In recent times, Wikipedia has been useful in helping combat the spread of misinformation regarding COVID-19. 

According to John Jerney for The Daily Yomiuri  in 2002, “The Wikipedia, and hopefully other services similar to it, offers the possibility of everything being written into history, with all of mankind sharing knowledge and information in a way that enables everyone to profit from it.”

 Wikipedia’s goal for this year is to reach more readers. Wales once said that he would like for Wikipedia to have 100,000 articles written in every language, as well as one million writers. 

 “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing,” -Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder.