[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia reaches 3 millionth article

[Michael Peel]

On 18 Aug 2009, at 18:34, Carcharoth wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 6:19 PM, Michael Peel<email at mikepeel.net>  
> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> All of them are better reads than the article in the Christian  
>> Science
>> {{citation needed}} Monitor.
>
> Really?
>
> The Telegraph one was poor.
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/wikipedia/6042931/Wikipedia- 
> reaches-three-million-articles.html
>
> I agree with the first comment:
>
> "This piece contains 12 sentences, of which at least 5 are false or
> misleading [...] Wikipedia was launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry
> Sanger, not by Ward Cunningham and Richard Stallman."
>
> And so on.

hmm; let's see:

* According to its edit history, the Eriksen article was posted at  
0533 GMT, not "4:04 am"

Not true; the oldest edit in the history is at 04:04, 17 August 2009.

* Wikipedia was launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, not by Ward  
Cunningham and Richard Stallman.

True, but this is Wikipedia's fault. "The pioneering concept and  
technology of Wiki comes from Ward Cunningham, the concept of a free  
online encyclopedia from Richard Stallman. It was formally launched  
on 15 January 2001." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia

* The article says that there are Wikipedias in 271 "other" langauges  
apart from English. In fact there are 271 Wikipedias in total,  
meaning there can be at most 270 "other" languages. And, unless you  
consider "simple English" to be different from English, there are at  
most 269 "other" languages.

This one's mostly my fault - I told them "Wikipedia currently exists  
in 271 languages". Oops.

* The article implies that Wikipedia has only now surpassed the  
Yongle Encycloopedia in size. In fact it surpassed it a few years ago.

That depends on how you read the phrase. I don't read it that way.

* The article describes Britannica as "the oldest English language  
encyclopedia". In fact, it is the oldest continuously published  
English language encyclopedia.

Interesting. What was the oldest English language encyclopaedia, then?

Mike