Wikipedia's Influence on the Evolution of

EncyclopediaSara LibrenjakFaculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb

Zdenko JecićThe Miroslav Krleža Lexicographic Institute, Zagreb

Damir BorasFaculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb

INFuture2009: Digital Resources and Knowledge Sharing

Background

Traditional encyclopedia:

•compiled and edited by a group of experts

•considered absolutely reliable

Wikipedia: open edited, internet accessible

50,000 http requests per second

80,000 SQL queries per second

7 million registered users

18 million page objects in the English version

1.5 terabytes of compressed data

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The Goal of the Work:

To investigate why is Wikipedia so popular among users, in what manner and why are its shortcomings ignored, is it replacing the traditional encyclopedia or is the format of encyclopedia just evolving with the social changes.

► The Survey

Online survey in form of a questionnaire was assembled, conducted and processed by the authors

Sample:

123 Wikipedia users from Croatia

Gender

52%48%

Female Male

Occupation

13%28%

59%

High school student University student

Employee

► Internet Usage Purposes of the Subjects

0 20 40 60 80 100

Internetusage

purposes

Communication Information Fun Learning

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Wikipedia Usage Habits

0 20 40 60 80 100

Wikipedia usagehabits

Have used more than ten times Well acquainted with Wikipedia

Uses English Wikipedia Uses Croatian Wikipedia

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Groups of Questions:

•Opinions on Wikipedia, its usage and role

•The comparison of Wikipedia and traditional encyclopedia

•Croatian Wikipedia

Opinions on the Wikipedia’s reliability

Absolutely reliable 26%

More or less reliable 71%

Not reliable at all 3%

The quality of the articles depend on the topic 57%

Wikipedia should be edited by professionals 52%

Open editing leads to misinformation 39%

Wikipedia’s articles are…

Appropriate for citation in papers 15%

Professional, as in traditional encyclopedia

11%

Without spelling or grammar errors 20%

When is traditional encyclopedia preferred?

When writing a school/college paper or article

46%

To check Wikipedia information 31%

In any situation 8%

Why do you use Wikipedia?

Wide choice of subjects 74%

Ability to find desired information quickly 70%

Free of cost 68%

Available in multiple languages 35%

Quality of content 26%

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Conclusion• Wikipedia is used more than traditional encyclopedia, despite the awareness of its shortcomings.

• Wide choice of topics, quick searching and free access are more important than information accuracy.

• That motivate us to think about migrating traditional encyclopedia to a digital space, and learn from Wikipedia’s positive sides.

Neuromancer: a novel by William Gibson (1984)