Wikipedia surpasses Britannica

An open-source encyclopedia gains in popularity

San Diego, CA, 9 July 2003 — According to [Alexa.com], the free and open-source [Wikipedia] has surpassed [Encyclopedia Britannica], a subscription-based site, as the most popular encyclopedia on the Net. At the moment, Britannica] is listed at number 3,054 while Wikipedia comes out ahead at number 3,012.

Wikipedia is a collaborative, volunteer undertaking to create the world's first comprehensive non-propreitary encyclopedia. Unlike Brittanica, Every Wikipedia article and the great majority of non-article pages are editable by anyone. To improve an article, a user just clicks an Edit this page button and goes to work. The system logs all changes and keeps previous versions so that users can review each others' modifications.

Since Wikipedia was started in Sept, 2001, users have created more than 130,000 articles in the English version alone (there are versions in fifteen other languages as well). "Not all of the articles are of the same quality as the Britannica," observes Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and "first among equals" in the non-hierarchical group of Wikipedia administrators. "But they started writing Brittanica in 1768. We've only been at it two-and-half years."

Wikipedia is growing rapidly, with some 300 (?) new articles and 10,000 (?) edits a day, and may soon catch up. "Wikipedia could potentially do to proprietary encyclopedias what Linux is doing to proprietary operating systems," points out Wales.

All contributions to Wikipedia are considered to be released under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). The GFDL ensures that Wikipedia will remain freely distributable forever. Users are requested not to submit copyrighted work unless they have obtained permission from the author to license it under the GFDL.

Press Contact: Bomis, Inc. Jimmy Wales, 3585 Hancock Street San Diego, CA 92110