What is Wikipedia?
Wikipedia—the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit—is one of the largest collaborative projects in history. With millions of articles and in hundreds of languages, Wikipedia is read by hundreds of millions of people on a regular basis.
A lot of content already exists on Wikipedia, but many important topics have poor coverage and some have no article at all. Wikipedia relies on contributors like you to keep information current, expand short "stub" articles, and create new articles on topics not already covered in your language Wikipedia. Contributions you make to Wikipedia can enlighten hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people worldwide.
When you make an edit to Wikipedia, you're joining a community of hundreds of thousands of people—Wikipedians—who have freely contributed their knowledge to Wikipedia. What Wikipedians are doing has the potential to change the world. But there's still a very long way to go before we collect the sum of all knowledge. That's why we need your help.
- Why edit Wikipedia?
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Today, I'm carrying on my grandfather's life work and his passion for recording local history and heritage. The difference is I have a tool my grandfather did not — Wikipedia. -
We want a world that is more open, more educated, and more free. We want a world where knowledge is available to anyone that seeks it. -
If what you write is accurate and well written, it will be read by large numbers of people every day. (If not, it will quickly disappear.)
