Introduction

The introduction shall give you an overview of our topic and the most important facts about Wikipedia.

Main information

 * URL: http://wikipedia.org/
 * Type of site: Internet encyclopedia project
 * Name origin: „wiki“ Hawaiian for “quick” and the name of a technology for creating collaborative websites and “pedia” as short form of „Encyclopedia“
 * Slogan: The free encyclopedia (that anyone can edit.)
 * Available languages: 240 active editions (272 in total)
 * Owner: Wikimedia Foundation (non-profit) working together with independent wikimedia projects in other countries
 * Launched: January 15, 2001 (9 years ago)
 * Founders: Larry Sanger (American philosopher, focused on epistemology, the theory of knowledge) and Jimmy Wales (studied finance but is now internet entrepreneur)

Importance
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 * largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet
 * several problems → a lot of criticism[[Problems|
 * success → some awards for Wikipedia from 2004 to 2008

Read on

 * History