Matt Hampshire Gene Goering Avery Hines Josh Green

 Jimmy Wales started Wikipedia in  He was a onetime options trader in Chicago.  Mr. Wales did not like the slow pace of copy- editing that was only available at the time.  Wikipedia was the first free encyclopedia that allowed multiple people to edit the same web page with its new software.  “Wiki” is Hawaiian for fast.

 Wikipedia is extremely popular with the public  Wikipedia.org is the 5 th most popular web site in the world.  It has roughly 325 million monthly visitors.  Wikipedia is known as “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.”  Wikipedia web visitors increased 20% in the 12 months ending in September.

 The Wikipedia Foundation employs a staff of 34 in San Francisco to run the sites computers, guide its planning and serve as a public face.  Wiki reported expenses of $5.6 million in its last fiscal year.  They are funded primarily through donations.  They launched a campaign to raise $7.5 million from users.

 Millions of online volunteers who write, edit and monitor are quitting.  In the first 3 months of 2009 Wikipedia suffered a net loss of 49,000 editors compared to a net loss of 4,900 during the same period a year ago.

 Many topics already have been written about.  The plethora of rules Wikipedia has adopted to bring order to its unruly universe.  Crowd sourcing is independent contributions from multiple web users. This is promoted as a new and better way for large numbers of individuals to collaborate on tasks.  As Wiki gets older it’s becoming less free willed and is becoming like organizations it set out to replace.  Many new comers who try to edit are being told that they are breaking a rule, and finding their edits deleted.

 Executives at Wikipedia acknowledge the declines, but believe they can continue to build a useful encyclopedia with a smaller pool of contributors.  Mr. Wales also acknowledges this decline and says that it still isn’t clear what the “right” number of volunteers should be.

 Mr. Wales says that his top priority is to improve the accuracy of Wikipedia’s articles.  He is pushing a new feature that would require top editors to approve all edits before they are displayed on the site.  This idea is to prevent vandalism.

 Vandals spray virtual graffiti throughout the site such as: ◦ Political views presented as facts. ◦ Jokes about their friends. ◦ Inserting marketing messages into articles.  Wikipedia came up with a new anti-vandalism feature, including “semi-protection,” which prevents newcomers from editing certain articles.

 Nina Paley, a New York cartoonist, had no luck when putting her comic strips on Wikipedia.  She deciphered the software and posted her strips and the next day they were deleted.  A Wiki editor decided that Nina's comics didn’t meet educational criteria. Another editor questioned the copyright permission for the photo of herself.  Samuel Klein intervened and restored her comics.

 The Wikipedia Foundation says its seeking to increase participation, but that growing the overall number of participants isn’t its main focus.  Wikipedia believes they will continue to be able to offer and expand the useful encyclopedia by focusing less on the total number of articles and more on the quality.