11 posts and columns on encyclopedia

Wikipedia’s Pledge Drive Ends — So Do Those Jarring Testimonials!

in Media on January 2 at 4:35 pm PT

The Wikimedia Foundation’s annual fundraiser ended today after the nonprofit raised $20 million from one million donors worldwide.
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Now Fits Into an App

in Personal Technology on September 28, 2011 at 6:02 pm PT

The Encyclopaedia Britannica is set to launch a slick iPad app containing its entire contents at a greatly reduced price: $2 a month.
Encyclopedia Britannica

In Effort to Boost Reliability, Wikipedia Looks to Experts

in News on May 13, 2010 at 4:29 pm PT

Wikipedia is teaming with universities in a bid to entice professors and their students to beef up its coverage of complicated public-policy topics–part of a move by the online encyclopedia to strengthen editing and fill in gaps in its articles.

You Ask, Jimmy Wales Answers: A Crowdsourced Interview With Mr. Wikipedia

in Media on March 11, 2010 at 3:51 am PT

Jimmy Wales’s Wikipedia relies almost entirely on free contributions from users to create a mammoth Web encyclopedia. What if an enterprising/lazy blogger used the same technique to interview Wales?

Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages

in News on November 23, 2009 at 8:35 am PT

Wikipedia.org is the fifth-most-popular Web site in the world, with roughly 325 million monthly visitors. But unprecedented numbers of the millions of online volunteers who write, edit and police it are quitting. That could have significant implications for the brand of democratization that Wikipedia helped to unleash over the Internet — the empowerment of the amateur.

The New Must-Have Accessory

in News on November 2, 2009 at 1:26 pm PT

A self-described iPhone freak, designer Norma Kamali spends each morning reading the day’s headlines on her gadget’s current-events application. To unwind, she plays Scrabble on a game app. When her miniature dachshund Zeke acts up, Ms. Kamali looks up her iPhone’s encyclopedia on canine ailments.

Only 13 Percent of Wikipedia Contributors Are Women, Study Says

in News on August 31, 2009 at 9:17 am PT

A broad new survey of Wikipedia users found that only 13% of the online encyclopedia’s contributors are women. The November survey, which had some 175,000 valid responses, was conducted in multiple languages by the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates the site, and United Nations University’s tech-research program MERIT. They presented the initial findings last week at Wikimania, an annual conference held this year in Buenos Aires.

Wikipedia Bans Scientology Church’s Edits

in News on June 1, 2009 at 10:32 am PT

Wikipedia’s arbitration committee ruled to permanently block contributions and edits to Scientology articles from Internet addresses originating from the Church of Scientology’s headquarters. The decision follows six months of debate among administrators of the user-edited encyclopedia, who found conflicts between Wikipedia editors who were Scientology enthusiasts and those who disliked the religion.

Wait…Encarta Is STILL Around?!?

in News on March 31, 2009 at 7:45 am PT

In January, Wikipedia claimed nearly 97 percent of the visits that Web surfers in the United States made to online encyclopedias, according to research outfit Hitwise. MSN Encarta received 1.27 percent. Little wonder, then, that Microsoft is discontinuing it. The company announced Monday it would stop selling Encarta software by June and would shut down the encyclopedia’s MSN Web sites on Oct. 31.
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