Monday, January 03, 2011

Celebrating the next 10 years of #Wikipedia

In January 2001 the first ever Wikipedia article was created. At the time it was nothing special. It was the second attempt to create an encyclopaedia on the Internet. What makes it special is that it succeeded by breaking all the rules in the book and what makes it special is that it has a global appeal.

There is so much to celebrate, 278 Wikipedias represent
277 languages and more languages are waiting in the wings. Commons has 7,980,877 freely available media files. Wiktionaries are playing tag who has the most lemmas.


With so much to be grateful over it is obvious that there is unfulfilled potential. Some of that potential is in growth waiting to happen and some represents things new. With so many languages and supporting chapters, it is great to learn about a first work shop in Sri Lanka, the many celebrations in India, the competitions in Indonesia. As all this potential is realised, the Wikimedia Foundation becomes increasingly global.

My prediction is that this globalisation will affect every project. The neutral point of view will reluctantly become increasingly global and subjects that are still considered exotic will gain the relevance that is now accepted for subjects like Eric Cartman.
Thanks,
      GerardM

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