by Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said Friday that the online encyclopedia aspires to be a higher-quality source of information but added that mainstream publications could learn from its disclaimers and community features.
“Our goal is to make Wikipedia as high-quality as possible. Britannica or better quality is the goal,” he said during a question-and-answer session at the ad:tech conference in New York.
by Jimmy Wales, Internet Entrepreneur, Co-Founder of Wikipedia
The world is rich with languages and cultures, and because of this some contemporary thinkers doubt the possibility of any genuine collaboration in pursuit of truth. Humans are portrayed as irrational captives to their background and identity, unable to be objective. I do not share this view. Seven years ago, I founded Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia in which any reasonable person can join us in writing and editing entries on any encyclopedic topic.
by Gwenda Bond, Contributing Writer, Publishers Weekly
In late 2002, millennia after its inspiration was destroyed by fire, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina opened its doors near the original site of ancient Egypt’s Library of Alexandria. The new institution launched with the heady goal of matching its predecessor’s standing as the ultimate source of knowledge in its time. The project came with controversy, both for its $220-million price tag and relatively modest collection of 500,000 volumes. It’s ironic, then, that Wikipedia, another contender to be the ancient library’s modern-day successor, debuted almost two years earlier, on January 15, 2001, with no controversy and only a paltry 600 articles generated in its first month
With about 300 million page views a day, Wikipedia by some estimates could be worth many hundreds of millions of dollars if it sold advertising space. It doesn’t. Wikipedia’s business plan is, basically, to hold out a tin cup whenever it runs low on funds, which is very often. When it comes to money, “we are about as unsophisticated as we could possibly be,” Executive Director Sue Gardner said as she swept up Styrofoam packing nuts in the office in San Francisco, the foundation’s home since it relocated in January from St. Petersburg, Fla. “It’s time for us to grow up a little bit.”
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