he English Wikipedia is the English-language edition of the free online encyclop

edia Wikipedia. Founded on 15 January 2001, it is the first edition of Wikipedia

and, as of July 2016, has the most articles of any of the editions.[2] As of Fe
bruary 2017, nearly 12.2% of articles in all Wikipedias belong to the English-la
nguage edition. This share has gradually declined from more than 50 percent in 2
003, due to the growth of Wikipedias in other languages.[3] There are 5,337,164
articles on the site (live count).[4] In October 2015, the combined text of the
English Wikipedia's articles totalled 11.5 gigabytes when compressed.[5] On 1 No
vember 2015, the English Wikipedia announced it had reached 5,000,000 articles[6
] and ran a special logo to reflect the milestone.[7]
The Simple English Wikipedia is a variation in which most of the articles use on
ly basic English vocabulary. There is also the Old English (nglisc/Anglo-Saxon) W
ikipedia (angwiki). Community-produced news publications include The Signpost.[8
]
Contents
1 Pioneering edition
2 Users and editors
2.1 Arbitration Committee
3 Controversies
3.1 Varieties of English
4 Wikiprojects, and assessments of articles' importance and quality
5 Graphics
6 Internal news publications
7 See also
8 Footnotes
9 References
10 External links
Pioneering edition
See also: Wikipedia:Milestones
The English Wikipedia was the first Wikipedia edition and has remained the large
st. It has pioneered many ideas as conventions, policies or features which were
later adopted by Wikipedia editions in some of the other languages. These ideas
include "featured articles",[9] the neutral-point-of-view policy,[10] navigation
templates,[11] the sorting of short "stub" articles into sub-categories,[12] di
spute resolution mechanisms such as mediation and arbitration,[13] and weekly co
llaborations.[14]
The English Wikipedia has adopted features from Wikipedias in other languages. T
hese features include verified revisions from the German Wikipedia (dewiki) and
town population-lookup templates from the Dutch Wikipedia (nlwiki).
Although the English Wikipedia stores images and audio files, as well as text fi
les, many of the images have been moved to Wikimedia Commons with the same name,
as passed-through files. However, the English Wikipedia also has fair-use image
s and audio/video files (with copyright restrictions), most of which are not all
owed on Commons.
Many of the most active participants in the Wikimedia Foundation, and the develo
pers of the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia, are English users.
Users and editors
English Wikipedia statistics Number of user accounts Number of articles
Number of files Number of administrators
30,250,368 5,337,164 847,908 1,274
The English Wikipedia reached 4,000,000 registered user accounts on 1 April 2007
,[15] just a little over a year since it had crossed a threshold of 1,000,000 re
gistered user accounts in late February 2006.[16]
Over 800,000 editors have edited Wikipedia more than 10 times.[17] 300,000 edito
rs edit Wikipedia every month[citation needed]; of these, over 30,000 perform mo
re than 5 edits per month, and a little over 3,000 perform more than 100 edits p
er month.[18] By 24 November 2011, a total of 500 million edits had been perform
ed on the English Wikipedia.[citation needed]
As the largest Wikipedia edition, and because English is such a widely used lang
uage, the English Wikipedia draws many users and editors whose native language i
s not English. Such users may seek information from the English Wikipedia rather
than the Wikipedia of their native language because the English Wikipedia tends
to contain more information about general subjects. Successful collaborations h
ave been developed between non-native English speakers who successfully add cont
ent to the English Wikipedia and native English speakers who act as copyeditors
for them.[citation needed]
Arbitration Committee
Main article: Arbitration Committee
The English Wikipedia has an Arbitration Committee (also known as ArbCom) that c
onsists of a panel of editors that imposes binding rulings with regard to disput
es between other editors of the online encyclopedia.[19] The Committee was creat
ed by Jimmy Wales on 4 December 2003 as an extension of the decision-making powe
r he had formerly held as owner of the site.[20][21]
When initially founded, the Committee consisted of 12 arbitrators divided into t
hree groups of four members each.[20][22] Since then, the Committee has graduall
y expanded its membership to 18 arbitrators.[23][not in citation given]
Like other aspects of the English Wikipedia, Wikipedia's sister projects have em
ulated the Arbitration Committee with their own similar versions.[24] For instan
ce, in 2007, an Arbitration Committee was founded on the German Wikipedia called
the Schiedsgericht (de).[25]
Controversies
Main article: Criticism of Wikipedia
See also: Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident and Essjay controversy
Incidents of cyberbullying on Wikipedia have been reported in the mainstream pre
ss.[26][27][28] The Glen A. Wilson High School was the subject of such a threat
in 2008,[26][27][28] and a 14-year-old teenager was arrested for making a threat
against Niles West High School on Wikipedia in 2006.[29]
A 2013 study from Oxford University concluded that the most disputed articles on
the English Wikipedia tended to be broader issues, while on other language Wiki
pedias the most disputed articles tended to be regional issues; this is due to t
he English language's status as a global lingua franca, which means that many wh
o edit the English Wikipedia do not speak English as a native language. The stud
y stated that the most disputed entries on the English Wikipedia were: George W.
Bush, anarchism, Muhammad, list of WWE personnel, global warming, circumcision,
United States, Jesus, race and intelligence, and Christianity.[30]
Varieties of English
One controversy in the English Wikipedia concerns which national variety of the
English language is to be preferred, with the most commonly advocated candidates
being American English and British English.[31] Perennial suggestions range fro
m standardizing upon a single form of English to forking the English Wikipedia p
roject. A style guideline states, "the English Wikipedia has no general preferen
ce for a major national variety of the language" and "an article on a topic that
has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate va
riety of English for that nation".[32] An article should use spelling and gramma
r variants consistently; for example, color and colour are not to be used in the
same article, since they represent American and British English, respectively.
The guide also states that an article must remain in its original national varia
nt.
There has been a similar issue in the Chinese language Wikipedia concerning regi
onal differences in writing. Efforts at a language fork for Portuguese Wikipedia
have failed, and succeeded for Norwegian Wikipedia.
Andrew Lih wrote that the English Wikipedia "didn't have the chance to go throug
h a debate over whether there should be a British English Wikipedia or an Americ
an English Wikipedia" because the English Wikipedia was the original edition.[33
][clarification needed] Editors agreed to use U.S. spellings for primarily Ameri
can topics and British spellings for primarily British topics. In 2009 Lih wrote
, "No doubt, American spellings tend to dominate by default just because of shee
r numbers."[34]
Wikiprojects, and assessments of articles' importance and quality
Main article: WikiProject
A "WikiProject" is a group of contributors who want to work together as a team t
o improve Wikipedia. These groups often focus on a specific topic area (for exam
ple, women's history), a specific location or a specific kind of task (for examp
le, checking newly created pages). The English Wikipedia currently has over 2,00
0 WikiProjects and activity varies.[35]
In 2007, in preparation for producing a print version, the English Wikipedia int
roduced an assessment scale of the quality of articles.[36] Articles are rated b
y WikiProjects. The range of quality classes begins with "Stub" (very short page
s), followed by "Start", "C" and "B" (in increasing order of quality). Community
peer review is needed for the article to enter one of the highest quality class
es: either "A", "good article" or the highest, "featured article". Of the about
4.4 million articles and lists assessed as of March 2015, a little more than 5,0
00 (0.12%) are featured articles, and fewer than 2,000 (0.04%) are featured list
s. One featured article per day, as selected by editors, appears on the main pag
e of Wikipedia.[37][38]
The articles can also be rated as per "importance" as judged by a WikiProject. C
urrently, there are 5 importance categories: "low", "mid", "high", "top", and "?
??" for unclassified/uncertain level. For a particular article, different WikiPr
ojects may assign different importance levels.
The Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team has developed a table (shown below) tha
t displays data of all rated articles by quality and importance, on the English
Wikipedia. If an article or list receives different ratings by two or more WikiP
rojects, then the highest rating is used in the table, pie-charts, and bar-chart
. The software regularly auto-updates the data.
Researcher Giacomo Poderi found that articles tend to reach featured status via
the intensive work of a few editors.[39] A 2010 study found unevenness in qualit
y among featured articles and concluded that the community process is ineffectiv
e in assessing the quality of articles.[40]
Circle frame.svg
Quality-wise distribution of over 5.5 million articles and lists on the English
Wikipedia, as of 29 January 2017[41]
Featured articles (0.11%)
Featured lists (0.04%)
A class (0.03%)
Good articles (0.50%)
 B class (2.00%)
C class (4.32%)
Start class (26.41%)
Stub class (53.01%)
Lists (3.65%)
Unassessed (9.94%)
Circle frame.svg
Importance-wise distribution of over 5.5 million articles and lists on the Engli
sh Wikipedia, as of 29 January 2017[41]
Top (0.91%)
High (3.20%)
Medium (12.21%)
Low (51.68%)
??? (32.00%)
All rated articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low ??? Total
Featured article FA 1,176 1,807 1,709 1,065 188 5,945
Featured list FL 141 562 661 600 119 2,083
A-Class article A 221 427 578 372 80 1,678
GA 2,090 4,769 9,306 10,086 1,697 27,948
B 12,053 22,872 34,968 27,849 13,686 111,428
C 10,270 29,697 66,348 91,945 43,475 241,735
Start 17,220 75,751 305,446 785,343 292,126 1,475,88
6
Stub 4,226 30,945 226,015 1,858,337 840,137 2,959,66
0
List 3,015 11,232 34,179 93,654 61,534 203,614
Assessed 50,412 178,062 679,210 2,869,251 1,253,04
2 5,029,977
Unassessed 139 406 1,776 16,255 531,921 550,497
Total 50,551 178,468 680,986 2,885,506 1,784,963
5,580,474
500,000
1,000,000
1,500,000
2,000,000
2,500,000
3,000,000
Top
High
Medium
Low
???
Featured articles
Featured lists
A-class articles
Good articles
B-class articles
C-class articles
Start-class articles
Stub articles
Lists
Unassessed articles and lists
[Note: The table above (prepared by the Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team) is
automatically updated daily by User:WP 1.0 bot, but the bar-chart and the two p
ie-charts are not auto-updated. In them, new data has to be entered by a Wikiped
ia editor (i.e. user).]
Graphics
Percentages of articles written in various language families. In March 2013,
16.76% of articles were in English.
The countries in which the English Wikipedia is the most popular language ve
rsion of Wikipedia are shown in red.[42]
Top 25 contributor countries to the English Wikipedia. Dark green: Native En
glish speaking countries; light green: countries with English as a foreign langu
age.[43]
File:Wiki feel stupid v2.ogvPlay media
In April 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation conducted a usability study on the E
nglish Wikipedia, questioning users about the editing mechanism.[44]
File:Wikipedia 5 million articles milestone video November 2015.ogvPlay medi
a
Video marking English Wikipedia's milestone of five million articles on 1 No
vember 2015
[show]Bar chart, origin of edits
Internal news publications
See also: The Signpost (Wikipedia)
WikipediaSignpostIcon.svg
Community-produced news publications include The Signpost.[8] The Signpost (prev
iously known as The Wikipedia Signpost[46]) is the English Wikipedia's newspaper
.[8][47][48] It is managed by the Wikipedia community and is published online we
ekly.[8][49] Each edition contains stories and articles related to the Wikipedia
community.[50][51] A wide range of editors contribute articles and other pieces
.[8]
The publication was founded in January 2005 by Wikipedia administrator and later
Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, Michael Snow.[8][46][52] O
riginally titled The Wikipedia Signpost, it was later shortened to simply The Si
gnpost.[46][53] The newspaper reports on Wikipedia events including Arbitration
Committee rulings,[54] Wikimedia Foundation issues,[55] and other Wikipedia-rela
ted projects.[56] Snow continued to contribute as a writer to The Signpost until
his appointment to the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation in Februar
y 2008.[57]
Investigative journalism by The Signpost in 2015 on changes to freedom of panora
ma copyright restrictions in Europe was covered by publications in multiple lang
uages including German,[58] Italian,[59] Polish,[60] and Russian.[61] Wikipedia
users Gamaliel and Go Phightins! became editors-in-chief of The Signpost in Janu
ary 2015; prior editor-in-chief The ed17 noted that during his tenure the public
ation expanded its scope by including more reporting on the wider Wikimedia move
ment and English Wikipedia itself.[62] In a letter to readers upon the newspaper
's tenth anniversary, the new co-editors-in-chief stressed the importance of mai
ntaining independence from the Wikimedia Foundation in their reporting.[63]