The project was initiated by [[atheism|atheist]] and [[entrepreneur]] [[Jimmy Wales]] and the [[agnosticism|agnostic]] [[philosophy]] [[professor]] [[Larry Sanger]] on January 15, 2001.<ref>http://www.nndb.com/lists/288/000092012/</ref> An irony of internet history is that Jimmy Wales, despite being an atheist, refers to himself as Wikipedia's "spiritual leader".<ref>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/09/wikimedia_pron_purge/</ref> Despite its official "neutrality policy," [[Examples of Bias in Wikipedia|Wikipedia has a strong liberal bias.]] In his article entitled ''Wikipedia lies, slander continue'' [[journalism|journalist]] [[Joseph Farah]] stated Wikipedia "is not only a provider of inaccuracy and bias. It is wholesale purveyor of lies and slander unlike any other the world has ever known."<ref>http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=83640</ref> Mr. Farah has repeatedly been the victim of defamation at the Wikipedia website.<ref>http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=83640</ref> In December of 2010, [[Christian apologetics|Christian apologist]] [[JP Holding]] called Wikipedia "the abomination that causes misinformation".<ref>http://tektonticker.blogspot.com/search/label/Wikipedia</ref>
Wikipedia has millions of entries on topics ranging from an explanation for "duh"<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duh (only after Conservapedia criticized the entry on the English word "duh" did Wikipedia eventually remove it)</ref> to singles by obscure rock bands<ref>such as ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honk_If_You_Love_Fred_Durst Honk If You Love Fred Durst]'' (accessed April 1, 2007)</ref> to arcane British nobility.<ref>Part of the article about [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Liddell Henry Liddell], a 19th-century Vice-chancellor of Oxford University and author, includes that his grandfather was the youngest son of the 8th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, and that his daughter was the child ''Alice in Wonderland'' was written for (accessed April 1, 2007)</ref> There are editions of Wikipedia in 250 languages, and 130 have more than 1000 articles.<ref>[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias List of Wikipedias - Wikimedia], accessed April 1, 2007.</ref> After about four years Wikipedia had about 450,000 entries,<ref>Aaron Weiss, The Unassociated Press, N.Y. Times, Feb. 10, 2005, at G5.</ref> and after six years it had about 1.7 million entries.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics English Wikipedia statistics] accessed April 1, 2007</ref> Four years later this number had more than doubled again: in November 2011, there are more than 3.8 million content pages.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics English Wikipedia statistics] accessed May 6, 2011</ref> On However, the quality of these articles is up for dispute, given the [[Wikipedia#Leftist_bias|evidence of systematic bias]].
==Origins==
==GFDL License Issue==
Wikipedia's practice of complete deletion of articles<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Brian+Peppers</ref> without reference to the original article, the author(s)/publisher(s) of the article, and the history and title(s) of the article, including modification history, description and appropriate dates, is a direct violation of at least GFDL version 1.2. Additionally, the GFDL License states that if the article/document contains Copyright notices, that said notices must be preserved at all times. If those notices are removed, then they are in violation of Copyright Law, as well as the terms of the GFDL license. Furthermore, the question of them removing anything outright at all comes into quite a grey area. If one reads the GFDL License literally, then it implies that once the article document is posted, it is in distribution, and technical measures are not allowed to be taken to prevent the use of the document in question, and that no other conditions whatsoever can be added by you to those of the GFDL license.<ref>http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Wikipocalypse:GF'DL</ref><ref>http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html#TOC1</ref>
==Cyberbullying==
The press have reported on incidents of [[cyberbullying]] on Wikipedia.<ref name="LATimes">{{cite news| url=http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/29/local/me-wikipedia29 | work=Los Angeles Times | first=Molly | last=Hennessy-Fiske | title=Wikipedia threats went unchecked – Los Angeles Times | date=29 April 2008}}</ref><ref name="ABCLocal">[http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local&id=6087243 Hacienda Heights school receives possible threat | abc7.com<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref name="LATimes2">{{cite news |title=Student arrested for violent threats on Wikipedia |first= |last= |url=http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/04/wiki.html?cid=6a00d8341c630a53ef011571abd811970b |work=[[Los Angeles Times]] |date=29 April 2008}}</ref> An editor threatened the [[Glen A. Wilson High School]] in 2008,<ref name="LATimes" /><ref name="ABCLocal" /><ref name="LATimes2" /> and a 14-year-old boy was arrested for making a threat against [[Niles West High School]] on Wikipedia in 2006.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.pantagraph.com/news/article_baef01f3-e56f-52e1-b9af-e90eb83e811b.html|title=Teen charged after threat to school on Wikipedia|date=31 October 2006|agency=Associated Press |publisher=Pantagraph.com|accessdate=26 January 2011|location=Bloomington, IL}}</ref>
== Humorous quotes concerning Wikipedia ==