Wikipedia (online encyclopedia)

Wikipedia is a free, free, open-content collaborative encyclopedia project with participants from all over the world. The site uses a Wiki, which means that anyone can edit any article and entry in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is run by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization. Wikipedia started on January 15, 2001 with Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger, and a few enthusiastic English-speaking participants. About 3 years later, in March 2004, there were already about 6,000 active participants writing 600,000 entries in 50 languages. All of the text in Wikipedia, as well as most of the images and other content, is published under the GNU Free Documentation License, which ensures that the content is free and open. All articles written here by everyone will follow the copyleft protocol, and all content can be freely distributed and copied.