English Wikipedia: History, Scope, Size, and Community

Scope and size

By article count, the English Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia in existence and has been the largest version of Wikipedia since April 2019. As an example snapshot, it contained 6,572,193 articles as of 7 November 2022. In October 2015, the combined compressed text of its articles totalled about 11.5 gigabytes.

Editing tools and monitoring

Because of its high readership and many contributors, the site can receive numerous edits in a short period. To manage this activity, editors rely on features provided by MediaWiki, for example the "watchlist" and the recent changes pages. These views can be narrowed to particular types of edits, such as those originating from IP addresses, and some contributors use automated or specialised tools to find and repair vandalism.

Related editions and community pages

There are simpler and specialized English-language versions. The Simple English Wikipedia uses a restricted vocabulary (often called simplewiki) to make content easier to read, while the Old English (Ænglisc/Anglo-Saxon) Wikipedia serves a historical language community. The English Wikipedia community also produces a community news publication known as The Signpost.

Reception and criticism

Scholars and editors outside the project have expressed mixed views about Wikipedia's suitability as a reference. Staff and contributors connected to traditional reference works such as the Encyclopædia Britannica have raised concerns about reliability and editorial standards. Studies and surveys have also highlighted participation imbalances — for example, a large majority of active contributors are reported to be male — and that imbalance is frequently cited in discussions of bias.

In 2012 the English Wikipedia's logo underwent a modest redesign; some other editions, including the Simple English Wikipedia, continued to use the previous logo for a time.