Tag Archives: Wikipedia

Wikipedia is not the only free online encyclopedia, but

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it is by far the most used with Scholarpedia a distant 2nd “with only… 5% of the number of papers referencing Wikipedia.”

All other free online encyclopedias tallied less than 50 papers referencing them in 2011.

  • Citizendium: “an English-language free encyclopaedia project launched by Wikipedia’s co-founder.”
  • Knol: “Knol is a Google project including user-written articles on a range of topics.”
  • PlanetMath: “a collaborative encyclopaedia focussing on mathematics.”
  • Scholarpedia: “peer-reviewed open-access encyclopedia, where knowledge is curated by communities of experts.”
  • Wikibooks: “a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit.”
  • Wikipedia: “a free, collaborative, multilingual Internet encyclopedia.”
  • Wikisource: “Wikisource is an online library of free content publications, collected and maintained by the Wikisource community.”

    • Data from Scopus.  Reference from: Research Trends (bibliometrics newsletter) Issue 27, March 2012.  “The influence of free encyclopedias on science”, by Sarah Huggett.

    Wikipedia – a 24-hour protest blackout January 18th!

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    “Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States — the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate — that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.”

    Thanks to Library purchases & subscriptions, including those to many online encyclopedias, we should survive!

    From: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-SOPA_blackout