Wikipedia has become the norm ever since its launch, almost every time one wishes to know about something. First thing which comes to mind is to try to find out on Wikipedia. Even though the information may not be correct always, the online encyclopedia manages to, more often than not, quench our thirst of knowledge.
Wikipedia is celebrating its 10th Anniversary, but here’s a list of ‘10’ Wikipedia trivia, that I guess the chances are you are not aware of:Â
1). The most Wikipedia 10th anniversary events are being held in India (95 events). USA is a distant second with 52 events.
2). The English Wikipedia has over 13.76 million registered users (including 1,769 administrators) of which only about 127,000 are listed as active.
3). In January 2001 there were only 25 articles on the English Wikipedia, the only version available back then.
4). Wikipedia is available in at least 20 Indian languages (Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, Urdu, Nepali, Kannada, Sanskrit, Bhojpuri, Pali, Punjabi, Oriya, Romani, Kashmiri, Sindhi and Assamese).
5). The three millionth article on English Wikipedia was added on 17 August 2009. The 3.5 million articles milestone happened on 12 December 2010.
6). Richard Farmbrough of Stamford, England is one of the most prolific contributors to Wikipedia with over 750,000 edits.
7). Gangadhar Bhadani, a banker from Ranchi, is the most prolific Indian Wikipedian with over 192,400 edits.
8). The Wikipedia article on former US President George W Bush has been edited the most number of times; also the page was viewed 4.5 million times in 2010.
9). Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, made the first ever Wikipedia edit on January 15, 2001 when he typed “Hello, World!” on the front page.
10). The first media report about Wikipedia appeared in the Wales on Sunday published from Cardiff, UK on August 26, 2001.
To mark the occasion, Wikipedia is showcasing a special selection of content not normally featured on Wikipedia’s page.