Working on the Largest Encyclopedia in the World

Andrew Lih's article describes an internet-based, volunteer-contributed encyclopedia, "Wikipedia," initiated in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales. The purpose of its creation was to make an encyclopedia to be shared, copied, and changed. Wikipedia's name is derived from the Hawaiian word "wikiwiki" which means 'quick'. Each page could be edited and according to Lih, "What would surely seem to create chaos has actually produced surprisingly credible content which has been evaluated and revised by the thousands of visitors to the site over time..."

Jimmy Wales was seeking for for a way to ensure that content did not stagnate. By offering visitors the opportunity to edit or add to the collection, he created a phenomenon. According to the article, in the first year there were 20,000 articles posted to the web. The second year there were 100,000 articles and in the third year, 500,000 articles. Lih writes, "while Wikipedia has recorded impressive accomplishments in three years, its articles have a mixed degree of quality because they are, by design, always in flux, and always editable."

Andrew Lih poses the question,"What could possibly allow this completely open editing system to work? His article suggests a number of reasons. The material is kept social and neutral and there is the ability to track the status of articles, review individual changes, and discuss issues. In essence it functions as "social software, acting to foster communication and collaboration with other users." Also the Wiki is described as having these functions: it can track and store every version ever edited. "In a wiki it takes much more effort to vandalize a page than to revert an article back to an acceptable version. While it may take five or ten seconds to deface one article, it can be quickly undone by others with just one click of a button... This
crucial asymmetry tips the balance in favor of productive and cooperative members of the wiki community, allowing quality content
to emerge."

Wiki is designed with a guiding principle and editorial process referred to as a "neutral point of view" (NPOV). According to the

creator, Wales, "NPOV is an absolute non-negotiable requirement of everything that we do," he says, and according to Wikipedia's

guidelines, "The neutral point of view attempts to present ideas and facts in such a fashion that both supporters and opponents can

agree." And according to Lih, "inspired by this policy, the grassroots project has confronted the same great issues facing modern

newsrooms -- sticking to the facts, attributing sources, maintaining balance and applying them uniformly, such as when to use the

word 'terrorist', or evaluating what constitutes a cult or a religion."

According to Lih, Wikipedia started out as an English language project, but it has supported the development of multilingual

content and translations. "The Chinese language Wikipedia is still relatively small, with just over 6,500 articles...and "given the

number of Chinese speakers worldwide, it is intriguing the number of dedicated contributors is quite small..." Wikipedia's

software supports Unicode, which enabled the mixed use of both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Lih's article refers to the Wikipedia as a "valuable teaching tool" at the University of Hong Kong Journalism and Media Studies
Centre where he works. It is used for undergraduate and graduate journalism classes to teach the skill of writing in a fair and balanced manner for an international audience. Lih points out, "By collaborating online with others, students can interact with each other when writing, and receive advice and corrections from complete strangers around the world within minutes of making contributions."

Lih's article ends with the suggestion that one of the challenges faced by Wikipedia is how to manage its own success.