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Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26: 30 days

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Wikipedia is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 5, 2005	Peer review	Reviewed
March 9, 2005	Peer review	Reviewed
April 4, 2005	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
April 9, 2005	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
May 4, 2005	Featured article candidate	Promoted
April 1, 2006	Articles for deletion	Speedily kept
August 1, 2006	Featured article review	Demoted
September 15, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
February 25, 2007	Peer review	Reviewed
August 12, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
August 15, 2008	Good article reassessment	Kept
July 21, 2009	Peer review	Reviewed
July 26, 2012	Peer review	Reviewed
November 7, 2012	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
August 25, 2014	Guild of Copy Editors	Copyedited
September 5, 2014	Good article reassessment	Delisted
May 21, 2021	Peer review	Reviewed
February 4, 2023	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
March 12, 2023	Peer review	Reviewed
A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on January 15, 2005.
This article was on the Article Collaboration and Improvement Drive for the week of February 7, 2007.
Current status: Former featured article

This article is the 1st Wikipedia article in the English-language Wikipedia.

900-thousandth article – not identified

800-thousandth article – not identified

700-thousandth article – not identified

600-thousandth article – Poona Bayabao

500-thousandth article – Special settlements in the Soviet Union

400-thousandth article – Eustace Percy, 1st Baron Percy of Newcastle

300-thousandth article – Rene Gagnon

200-thousandth article – Neil Warnock

100-thousandth article – Hastings, New Zealand

1st article – WikiPedia

For later article milestones, see {{Million milestones}}.

This article was nominated for deletion. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination:

Deletion discussions:

Keep (joke AFD for April Fool's Day), 1 April 2022, see discussion.
Keep (joke AFD for April Fool's Day), 1 April 2019, see discussion.
Speedy keep (joke AFD for April Fool's Day), 1 April 2017, see discussion.
Delete (joke AFD for April Fool's Day), 1 April 2016, see discussion.
Speedy keep (joke AFD for April Fool's Day), 1 April 2015, see discussion.
Speedy keep (joke AFD for April Fool's Day), 7 April 2014, see discussion.
Tedium (joke AFD for April Fool's Day), 1 April 2014, see discussion.
No consensus (joke AFD for April Fool's Day), 1 April 2011, see discussion.
Speedy keep (joke AFD for April Fool's Day), 1 April 2010, see discussion.
Speedy close (joke AFD for April Fool's Day), 1 April 2010, see discussion.
Speedy keep, 6 September 2008, see discussion.
Speedy close, 17 May 2007, see discussion.
Speedy keep (joke AFD for April Fool's Day), 1 April 2006, see discussion.

Wikipedia Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Wikipedia, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's encyclopedic coverage of itself. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page. Please remember to avoid self-references and maintain a neutral point of view, even on topics relating to Wikipedia.WikipediaWikipedia:WikiProject WikipediaTemplate:WikiProject WikipediaWikipedia
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Websites: Computing Top‑importance

	This article is part of WikiProject Websites, an attempt to create and link together articles about the major websites on the web. To participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page.WebsitesWikipedia:WikiProject WebsitesTemplate:WikiProject WebsitesWebsites
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Computing (assessed as Mid-importance).

Internet High‑importance

	Internet portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Internet, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Internet on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.InternetWikipedia:WikiProject InternetTemplate:WikiProject InternetInternet
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Internet culture Top‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Internet culture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of internet culture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Internet cultureWikipedia:WikiProject Internet cultureTemplate:WikiProject Internet cultureInternet culture

Top

This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject Internet culture To-do:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Article requests : View all requested internet culture articles
Expand : Pick an article from here or here
Photo : Category:Internet culture articles needing images
Stubs : All stubs are located here
Other : Category:Internet self-classification codes (!?); Try to get YouTube to FA; Tag all articles you find with {{WikiProject Internet culture}}
- See also Category:Internet culture articles needing attention

Brands Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Brands, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of brands on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.BrandsWikipedia:WikiProject BrandsTemplate:WikiProject BrandsBrands
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Books: Reference works

	Books portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Books. To participate in the project, please visit its page, where you can join the project and discuss matters related to book articles. To use this banner, please refer to the documentation. To improve this article, please refer to the relevant guideline for the type of work.BooksWikipedia:WikiProject BooksTemplate:WikiProject BooksBook
	This article is supported by the Reference works task force.

Spoken Wikipedia

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles that are spoken on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Spoken WikipediaWikipedia:WikiProject Spoken WikipediaTemplate:WikiProject Spoken WikipediaSpoken Wikipedia

Guild of Copy Editors

This article was copy edited by a member of the Guild of Copy Editors on September 10, 2014.Guild of Copy EditorsWikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsTemplate:WikiProject Guild of Copy EditorsGuild of Copy Editors

All Wikipedia contributors may be personally or professionally connected to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest and neutral point of view.

Other talk page banners

Text has been copied to or from this article; see the list below. The source pages now serve to provide attribution for the content in the destination pages and must not be deleted as long as the copies exist. For attribution and to access older versions of the copied text, please see the history links below.

Copied Criticism of Wikipedia (oldid, history) → Wikipedia (diff)
Copied Criticism of Wikipedia (oldid, history) → Wikipedia (diff)
Copied Criticism of Wikipedia (oldid, history) → Wikipedia (diff)
Copied Criticism of Wikipedia (oldid, history) → Wikipedia (diff)
Copied Criticism of Wikipedia (oldid, history) → Wikipedia (diff)
Copied Criticism of Wikipedia (oldid, history) → Wikipedia (diff)
Copied Wikipedia (oldid, history) → List of Wikipedia controversies (diff)

This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

Nicholson Baker (2008-04-09). "How I fell in love with Wikipedia [1]". The Guardian.
"The 50 most-viewed Wikipedia articles in 2009 and 2008". The Telegraph (UK). 2009-08-17.
Stephen McNeice (2013-05-14). "See how Wikipedia updates in real-time". Newstalk.
David Stabler (2013-05-11). "Wikipedia a passion for Portland's Jason Moore". The Oregonian.
Taleen Postian (2022-11-03). "Why So Much Hate on Wikipedia?". The Villanovan.
Mark O’Connell (2025-06-29). "I love Wikipedia so much, I hardly even minded when it killed me off". The Irish Times.

Wikipedia Reference Desk was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 27 February 2010 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Wikipedia. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in the Top 25 Report 10 times. The weeks in which this happened:

Section sizes

Section size for Wikipedia (64 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	10,196	10,196
History	45	36,191
Nupedia	3,656	3,656
Launch and rapid growth	13,859	13,859
Sister projects	3,158	3,158
Milestones	15,473	15,473
Openness	669	24,056
Restrictions	7,677	7,677
Review of changes	1,500	1,500
Vandalism	4,172	4,172
Disputes and edit warring	10,038	10,038
Policies and content	2,532	5,171
Content policies and guidelines	2,639	2,639
Governance	1,773	8,162
Administrators	1,524	1,524
Dispute resolution	2,710	4,865
Arbitration Committee	2,155	2,155
Community	8,032	14,949
Research	4,206	4,206
Diversity	2,711	2,711
Language editions	14,372	16,373
English Wikipedia editor numbers	2,001	2,001
Reception	10,333	62,569
Accuracy of content	13,979	13,979
Discouragement in education	4,782	7,410
Medical information	2,628	2,628
Coverage of topics and systemic bias	7,337	13,227
Systemic biases	5,890	5,890
Explicit content	6,902	6,902
Privacy	4,250	4,250
Sexism	6,468	6,468
Operation	17	34,663
Wikimedia Foundation and affiliate movements	9,296	9,296
Software operations and support	7,221	7,221
Automated editing	4,249	4,249
Hardware operations and support	5,760	5,760
Internal research and operational development	3,731	3,731
Internal news publications	1,868	1,868
The Wikipedia Library	2,521	2,521
Access to content	127	25,709
Content licensing	6,766	6,766
Methods of access	8,603	16,550
Mobile access	7,947	7,947
Chinese access	2,266	2,266
Cultural influence	69	47,452
Trusted source to combat fake news	2,005	2,005
Readership	2,910	7,305
COVID-19 pandemic	4,395	4,395
Cultural significance	10,737	21,784
Awards	3,966	3,966
Satire	7,081	7,081
Publishing	4,493	4,493
Research use	11,796	11,796
Related projects	3,477	3,477
See also	719	719
Notes	26	26
References	17,751	19,684
Wikipedia-affiliated and primary sources	1,697	1,697
Sources	236	236
Further reading	6,494	16,402
Academic studies	4,848	4,848
Books	4,098	4,098
Book review–related articles	962	962
External links	1,385	1,385
Total	327,184	327,184

Outdated factoid

Wikipedia is now the ninth most visited website, underneath reddit.com; however, the article still states that it is the eighth most visited. I do not have editing access, so please update it. 24.136.20.49 (talk) 03:59, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I'd be able to update it if you are able to provide a citation to a reliable source. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:12, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Recent attempts to reduce reliance on primary sources

I believe the last time this was talked about was at Talk:Wikipedia/Archive 25#Too many primary sources. I've recently aquired some books about Wikipedia that I plan to use to remedy this issue. I've spent a lot of the past hour making various edits but I don't think I'll be able to do it all in one sitting. Obviously, I'm being quite WP:BOLD here already so if anyone has any objections to anything in particular feel free to be comment here. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 18:11, 29 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 July 2025

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Review of Changes Wikipedia's Editing Interface Burkett955 (talk) 17:37, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done I don't understand what you want changed. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:15, 30 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is the openness section really overly detailed or promotional?

I've reverted the bold edit made here by Floating Orb which added maintenance tags to the openness section. I definitely think this article has issues (see the section I started above) but I don't think these tags specifically are relevant. Outside opinions are welcome. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:16, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Floating Orb: your thoughts are welcome as well! I just don't completely understand why you think this information is overly detailed. Is it because there are a few references to primary sources in there and you think that detail is extraneous? That's an issue with the article more broadly and not just that section but I'd understand your position more if that was the case. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 00:44, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking that it really talks about information that only guidelines need to say. Most people don't need to know about the "auto-confirmed" users anyway and if you really want to learn about it you should probably go to a guideline. Some of the section is cited to news, some of it is cited to primary sources (which are guidelines), and some of it is books (that's fine). If the information is primary sourced, then it doesn't actually need to be there that much if nowhere else covers it. Either way, it has over 120 primary sources. Floating Orb Talk! ^{my edits} 01:23, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Floating Orb: I agree that there's too many primary sources. However, I don't think it's just confined to that one section specifically. I do think that a lot of the content cited to primary sources right now could theoretically be replaced with stronger sourcing. There are actually several books written about Wikipedia. I've been using one of them a lot in the past 24 hours to try and improve the state of things. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 01:34, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, that's good. Floating Orb Talk! ^{my edits} 04:23, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's impossible NOT to promote Wikipedia when we are on the website looking at the article for said website. GarethBaloney (talk) 06:56, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. Floating Orb Talk! ^{my edits} 16:22, 31 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikipedia's article about itself" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Wikipedia's article about itself has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 August 5 § Wikipedia's article about itself until a consensus is reached. ArthananWarcraft (talk) 08:34, 5 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikipedia’s" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Wikipedia’s has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 August 7 § Wikipedia’s until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 02:54, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Wikiepda" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Wikiepda has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 August 7 § Wikiepda until a consensus is reached. Utopes _{(talk / cont)} 03:35, 7 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]