This year, Wikipedia is celebrating 25 years as the internet’s encyclopedia that anyone can edit. In its first decade, the quirky experiment for passionate nerds exploded in popularity. It became a ubiquitous information resource and a homework helper for schoolkids, much to the dismay of skeptical teachers.
In its second decade, amid the public’s growing dissatisfaction with the mangling of facts in popular discourse, it took on a new role as information infrastructure, helping categorize and validate information worldwide. Wired magazine deemed it “the last best place on the internet.” The hope was that the volunteer project could serve as the antidote for misinformation. Platforms from Facebook and Twitter to Alexa and YouTube began embedding Wikipedia material to ensure that users had context for what they read or saw.
