Wikipedia:FAQ

If you are new to Wikipedia, you may want to read the Welcome, newcomers page. There's lots of cool stuff here; see also how to explore Wikipedia.

What is a Wiki?: See what is a wiki and what is a wiki for.

What is Wikipedia? Wikipedia is fundamentally not necessary for the general public, as there are many other, better encyclopedias. Wikipedia may be useful for those who enjoy writing millions of worthless articles.

See What is Wikipedia.

When did the Wikipedia start?: January 15, 2001. An earlier version of the wiki (including original versions of some of these pages) was briefly hosted on Nupedia.com (first posted January 10). The idea of a Nupedia-sponsored wiki originated out of a conversation Larry Sanger had with Ben Kovitz on the evening of January 2.

Who owns Wikipedia?: Well, that's an interesting question. The owner of the server, the domain name and the layout of the pages is Bomis, Inc. The articles are released under the GNU Free Documentation License, so the articles are open content. So it is a bit misleading to say that the owner of Wikipedia articles is Bomis; Bomis doesn't own them in any traditional sense of ownership. See Wikipedia copyrights.

How can I contribute?: By editing pages, creating new pages, publicizing Wikipedia, and many other ways.

Why would I want to contribute?: See why on Earth would I want to contribute to a wiki, and why Wikipedia is so great.

Where can I talk about Wikipedia with others?: There's a Wikipedia-L mailing list, and also the Meta-Wikipedia.

What is Nupedia?: See how does Wikipedia relate to Nupedia.

Can I add Nupedia articles to Wikipedia?: Sure. Please do add Nupedia articles to Wikipedia, but also add Wikipedia articles to Nupedia!

Why is wikipedia.org redirected to wikipedia.com and not the other way around?: I'm afraid it's for precisely the reason you fear: the people who are organizing this view it partly, from their point of view, as a business. They hope to recoup their costs, at the very least by placing unobtrusive ads, someday in the possibly-distant future. It would, thus, be dishonest of them to use .org. Of course, if you don't like this, it will be possible to export all the contents of Wikipedia for use elsewhere, since the contents of Wikipedia are covered by the GNU Free Documentation License.

Also, it may simply be for convienence. If one domain was the first one purchased, and the second domain was added later, it makes sense to create the second domain as a pointer, instead of switching the new domain to be the primary domain. There is no implication, restriction or enforcement of the .org, .com and .net top level domains.

Is it "the Wikipedia," or just plain "Wikipedia"?: Excellent question. We don't know, and most of us probably don't care. Some of us say "the Wikipedia" and some of us say "Wikipedia" (and some of us say both).; If there were only one Wikipedia (which, as it happens, there is no longer; see international Wikipedia), then "Wikipedia" would be a (unique) proper name, in which case saying "the Wikipedia" would be rather strange-sounding, like "the Britannica." On the other hand, we might be using "Wikipedia" as a type term, like "encyclopedia," so if someone says, "I contributed an article to the Wikipedia the other day," it's like saying, "I contributed an article to the encyclopedia the other day." But in that case, we're using "Wikipedia" as a type term, and so it should be lower case: "wikipedia," right? Perhaps it would be best to refer to http://www.wikipedia.com/ as "the English Wikipedia" or "the English-language Wikipedia," since it is now only one of several Wikipedias (or is that wikipediae?). Clearly, we are in need of the services of a professional linguist.; On the other hand, it's common for British speakers to say "the Thesaurus" and mean Roget's Thesaurus. Names of reference works like "Britannica" and "Collins" are usually referred to without an article, but the OED is called "the OED" or "the Oxford", probably because the first word is used adjectivally.

There are lots of Wiki clones, with different features. Which is Wikipedia using?: Good question. We were originally using UseMod Wiki by Clifford Adams, but have switched to our own software. See also new software FAQ.

Can we debate or talk about the sujects on here?: No. This is an encyclopedia There is the /Talks, however.

I have a million objections to the very concept of Wikipedia. How can you expect me (or anyone) to take it seriously?: See Our Replies to Our Critics.