Overview
- Launched on January 15, 2001 by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales, the online encyclopedia marks a quarter‑century of community governance under the Wikimedia Foundation.
- Wikipedia reports roughly 65 million articles across more than 300 languages produced and maintained by about 250,000 volunteers.
- The platform operates without mandatory membership or traditional advertising and says it does not sell personal data, relying primarily on reader donations.
- French coverage notes an 8% drop in visits to the francophone site last year as 44% of people in France tried generative AI tools, with about 20,000 monthly contributors emphasizing collective deliberation over automated editing.
- Historical assessments, including a Nature comparison with Encyclopædia Britannica, found broadly similar error rates, with Wikipedia’s open editing enabling rapid corrections after issues are flagged.