Congratulations to Wikipedia for reaching another milestone—it now has three million articles in English! As a free encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to or edit, it has articles in more than 260 languages that number into the 13 millions.Â
So what was the magic three millionth article, posted today? Read Write Web reports that it’s a biography of a Norwegian actress and director named Beate Eriksen. It’s available in several other languages too, but the English version was the one that tipped the scales to three million.
Since we know you’re curious now, the two millionth was about a Spanish television show, and their first million was completed with an article about a train station in Scotland. So though they’re all in English, these articles span topics of interest to people around the globe.
If you go to Wikipedia.com, you’ll see how many articles have been posted in each language. Coming in a distant second place with over 943,000 articles is German, followed closely by French with over 843,000 articles. Then comes Polish and Japanese in the 600,000’s, followed by Italian, Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese, all in the 500,000 range. Russian has over 423,000. At the bottom of the page, it lists how many articles are available in the various languages. We wonder if this is an accurate representation of the digital divide.Â
Apparently articles are added at quite a rate and with internet speed , so it took a bot written by a Wikipedia editor to determine which article was the three millionth. But just as with any other posted, the bio of Norway’s Beate Eriksen may end up being deleted, as so many are, if they don’t comply with the site’s standards. If that were to happen, the “runner-up” would be an article entitled “Portuguese Fireplace”.
Tags: Internet Speed