English Wikipedia

From Freepedia

The English Wikipedia is the English language edition of the Wikipedia encyclopedia. Founded on 15 January 2001 and having surpassed 700,000 articles in August 2005, it was the first edition of Wikipedia and remains the largest. As of 2005, approximately one-third of articles in all Wikipedias belongs to the English-language edition, this share having gradually declined from over half in 2003.

Controversies

Among the controversies specific to the English Wikipedia is a debate over which national variety of the English language is to be preferred, with the most common candidates being American English and British or International English. Many suggestions have been proposed by editors, ranging from standardizing upon a single form of English to forking the English Wikipedia project. The de facto policy, however, is to prefer an appropriate form of English for articles of regional scope (e.g., Canadian English for subjects related to Canada) but otherwise to allow the use of any variety of English, as long as the variety of English is consistent throughout the text of an article.

Wikipedia Signpost

The English Wikipedia has a newspaper known as the Wikipedia Signpost, established to detail the various events and happenings of the then very large site. It is a community-written and community-edited newspaper, covering events and stories related to the English Wikipedia. Major news from other Wikimedia Foundation projects is also included as occasion permits. It is published weekly on Mondays, being first published on 10 January 2005 by Wikipedia editor Michael Snow.