Science and WikimediaMichael Peel

Jodrell Bank/Wikimedia UK22 August 2009

Wikipedia

• Largest reference site on the internet

• 3 million pages (English only)300 million edits

• 10 million editors/volunteers

• 271 editions

• Routinely first port of call for Google users

Wikipedia

• Huge numbers of articles on:

• Astronomy: >20,000 (57 “featured”)

• Biology: >20,000

• Chemistry: >10,000

• Physics: >12,000 (37 “featured”)

• etc...

Get involved!

• Continual process of improving articles, and adding new ones (around 1 per minute!)

• Anyone can edit (click on “edit”!)

• Can ask/answer questions on talk pages

• WikiProjects: groups of like-minded editors