List of Resident Evil 4 creatures
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For individual enemy characters, see Characters in Resident Evil 4
This article provides a list of fictional monsters featured in the video game Resident Evil 4.
Contents [hide]
1 Las Plagas
2 Ganados
2.1 Villagers
2.2 Zealots
2.3 Militia
2.4 Notable Ganados
3 Colmillos
4 Novistador
5 Garrador
6 Armadura
7 Regenerator
7.1 Iron Maiden
8 Del Lago
9 El Gigante
10 Verdugo
11 U3
12 References
[edit] Las Plagas
Main article: Las Plagas
Las Plagas (Spanish for "The Plagues" wink are the new agent of transformation in Resident Evil 4.[1] Las Plagas are parasitic creatures that grow in the body of a human, and control the behavior of the host. Humans infested with Las Plagas remain outwardly normal.
The Plagas were sealed deep under the castle by the first castellan. This first castellan had taken away the rights of the early Los Illuminados. When the Plagas were unearthed, they seemed to have been fossilized. However, they had actually been in a dormant state. The first Ganados were extremely belligerent and had contracted the parasite while mining.
Las Plagas are extremely sensitive to light, only coming out of the host's body when it has sustained a lot of damage, or if its head is destroyed. The head of the host may either be destroyed completely and replaced by the parasite, or the parasite may emerge from the mouth or neck of the Ganado; however, due to their photosensitivity, Las Plagas can be destroyed with the use of a bright light source such as a flash grenade.
Several varieties of plaga may be seen during the course of the game. Some appear as the result of damage to certain parts of the host's body, such as the head, and may be a protrusion out of its host's body, or in whole as a detached entity. It is unclear if these are actually different varieties or mutations of plaga or if they represent various levels of maturity. The following is a list of non-unique Plagas or their parts as seen in the game.
Blade plagas have a number of small tentacle-like appendages that swing erratically and are harmless, but one larger tentacle has a sharp bone at the end which is used to inflict damage by slashing at their enemy.
Centipede plagas attack by swallowing the head of their enemy whole.
Spider plagas are unique in that they are capable of completely detaching from their host. They will eventually perish after detaching. While still attached they can spit acid at their enemy. They can also strike them with their legs, either while attached or separate.Spider plagas,however,do not die with weapons such as the flash grenade,or other bright light sources.
Tentacle-like protrusions, found in Colmillos. Unlike previous forms, they are not spawned as a result of damage, but rather are simply produced when the Colmillos has engaged in combat. They attack by whipping their enemy.
Leech-like plagas, most of which can only be seen using an infrared scope, are found in Regenerators and Iron Maidens. They sustain the regenerative powers of both monsters.
[edit] Ganados
Los Ganados, from the Spanish term for 'herd' or the cattle, are the primary enemies in the game.[2] Ganados are humans who have become infested by the mind-controlling Plaga parasites.
Humans infected with Las Plagas can be controlled by anyone with a ceremonial staff; in this case, Lord Saddler. The staff appears to be fused with a fully living plaga. In one of Ada's reports, she suggests that it is possible that the staff issues commands through high frequency sound waves, unheard by human ears, but heard with a sensory organ in Las Plagas.
Three main types of Ganados are found in the game (by order of appearance): Villagers, Zealots and Militia.
[edit] Villagers
The villagers were once peaceful residents of a rural community until they were exposed to the parasites. From that point, they became ruthless zombie-like savages under Osmund Saddler's control. They continue to carry out agricultural duties, although their living conditions have deteriorated somewhat. When Leon first arrives in the village, he is immediately attacked by one of the villagers after questioning him about Ashley's whereabouts.
The Ganados' arsenal is comprised mostly of farming tools, including: pitchforks, hatchets, sickles or scythes, knives, torches, chainsaws, and dynamite. Upon completion of the game, a series of sketches in the background of the credits serve as flashbacks to the earlier days of the village. What was once a community distanced from the modern world, populated with farmers and their children, became corrupt upon the arrival of Osmund Saddler, and the workers were infected with spores during the Plaga excavation, causing families to become savage and turn against one another. Ada is seen reading a book about this in the Separate Ways mission in the beginning of the second mission. According to the booklet included with the Biohazard 4: Incubate DVD, the children of the villagers died after being injected with the Plaga parasites.
Though the Plaga parasites control the hosts' bodies, they induce no obvious alteration of the host body aside from the glowing red eyes at night and slight discoloration of the skin.
[edit] Zealots
The zealots are members of the Illuminados cult, and appear in Ramon Salazar's castle. They are dressed in robes bearing the cult's insignia.
The zealots are better equipped than the villagers, using a variety of medieval armaments. They wield weapons such as scythes, flails, crossbows and wooden shields. Their skin is much paler than that of the villagers, and all of them appear to be bald. Some have crimson lesions, tattoos or scarification from their rituals on their faces.
[edit] Militia
These Plagas-infected soldiers are members of Saddler's mercenary organization, assigned to protect his island complex. They are generally better equipped than other Ganados and can run faster. They can be seen carrying stun rods, flails, wooden shields, RPGs, dynamite and crossbows. With the exception of J.J., no Ganado carries a firearm.
[edit] Notable Ganados
Dr. Salvador (a.k.a. Chainsaw Man in the Japanese version), is a villager who wears overalls and a potato sack mask who chases after intruders with his chainsaw. He is far more durable than a regular Ganado, and is capable of decapitating his prey with a single strike. A variation of Dr. Salvador, dubbed Super Salvador in the official guide, also appears in "The Mercenaries" minigame as a sub-boss in the "Waterworld" stage.
J.J. is a giant Ganado who wields a minigun and fires it in long bursts, with brief pauses in between. He wears a red beret and an eye patch over his right eye. J.J. also appears in the Mercenaries minigame, as a mini-boss. Like Dr. Salvador, his body does not disintegrate after he is defeated.
The Bella Sisters are a pair of chainsaw-wielding Ganados. They wear bandages covering their faces, but are otherwise clothed in the same way as other female Ganados. They appear as a mini-boss enemy in The Mercenaries minigame, the left door after the fight at the cabin, and Separate Ways of the PlayStation 2, PC, and Wii port of the game.
[edit] Colmillos
Colmillos (from Spanish, meaning fangs) are wolves that have been implanted with Plaga parasites. They act like guard dogs for the Ganados. The player will meet both regular Colmillos, and Colmillos in which the plagas are more obviously developed, displaying flailing tentacles which attack with multiple strikes in succession.
[edit] Novistador
The Novistador is a large insectoid creature that was created from experiments with human specimens by Los Illuminados. Its name is a portmanteau of the Spanish words No and Vista ("No" and "View"/"Sight" wink and the noun suffix of dor. As such, the name Novistador can be translated as the "Unseen Creature", but literally means Nosighter. The name refers to the creature's ability to render itself invisible to the naked eye by changing the color of its exoskeleton. There are three types of Novistadors in the game. The first type encountered has the ability to turn invisible, while the second type may also turn invisible but differs in that it is completely white and has black eyes. The third type, encountered later in the game, does not turn invisible, but has the ability to fly. Novistadors often fight in packs and may have wings. They attack with their claws and spit acid at their enemies.
[edit] Garrador
The Garrador are Plagas-infected warriors who wear equipment resembling that worn by gladiators. The Garradors are equipped with large claws on each hand, which can be extended and retracted at will. The Garrador will indiscriminately attack anyone and anything in its path and are usually kept under restraint. Garradors are blind, and rely on their sense of hearing to track down intruders, and are easily distracted by loud noises. Garradors will become enraged when very loud noises are made, and are prone to charging in the direction of the noise and striking at its source.
The word Garrador can be literally translated into English as "Clawer" as no such word as Garrador exists in Spanish, though it can be a variation of desgarrador (Spanish for ripper).
[edit] Armadura
Armadura (literally meaning "armor" in Spanish and Portuguese) is a Plaga parasite that has taken possession of a suit of plate armor from Salazar's castle, which provides a sturdy defense. They attack with medieval weapons, such as broadswords and halberds. Their helmets are loosely attached, and once removed will expose the Plaga, which is extremely vulnerable to bright light.
Additionally, some Armaduras may attempt to ambush their victims by staying still until their target approaches, at which point they attempt to hit the target. The sudden movement causes the Armadura to disintegrate.
[edit] Regenerator
A Regenerator is a mutated humanoid created from experiments with Las Plagas and human specimens: according to the notes of Luis Sera, they are the most "clearly distinguishable" creatures born from Saddler's experiments. They can regenerate lost body parts in a matter of seconds, are extremely resistant to damage, but are unable to live without the leech-shaped Plagas which inhabit them, which are only visible using thermal imaging equipment. When a Regenerator has lost all inhabiting Plagas its tissues will begin to expand rapidly and will explode, leaving only its lower half. The Regenerators can stretch their limbs to reach opponents, pull them in, and bite them with their sharp teeth. They can slither on the ground if one of their legs has been shot off. They can also leap from a prone position. The Regenerator can range from having two to five parasites depending on difficulty level and location encountered. In Professional Mode in Resident Evil 4, all Regenerators have a fifth parasite on their back. Regenators are known for their sickly breathing sound.
[edit] Iron Maiden
An Iron Maiden is a variation of the Regenerator with the added ability to generate sharp spikes from its skin. They are able to stretch their arms, latch onto their targets and cause devastating damage by embracing and impaling them on their spikes. They have a slightly slower gait than the Regenerators; on the other hand, they can crawl much faster than normal Regenerators but also they make the same breathing sound. The difference is that Iron Maidens seem to shake uncontrollably while normal regenerators just limp.
[edit] Del Lago
Del Lago (which literally means "from the lake" wink is a massive creature that lives in a lake near the village. It attacks Leon's boat, causing the anchor to be embedded in its skin, dragging the boat along. Del Lago attempts to kill Leon by ramming into the boat, knocking Leon into the water and eating him. Leon must throw harpoons at Del Lago, until it finally dies and nearly pulls Leon underwater after the anchor's rope wraps around his leg.
[edit] El Gigante
El Gigante (literally The Giant) are huge creatures created by Los Illuminados from experiments with Las Plagas and human specimens. First encountered early in the game, these creatures are massive in size and deadly in combat. They are extremely strong and can even use trees as weapons. They contain massive Plaga parasites, but unlike the other kinds, they seem to have no form of self-defense.
[edit] Verdugo
The Verdugo (Executioner) are the bodyguards of Ramon Salazar. Underneath the robes are monstrous humanoid creatures, with insectoid exoskeletons and long, muscular tails which sport sharp sickle-like blades, used for lethal surprise attacks. The Verdugo's exoskeleton is almost completely bullet-proof, but is weakened by exposure to liquid nitrogen. The Verdugo possesses keen agility and exceptional combat capabilities.
The second Verdugo merges with Salazar, along with a mutated plant. This Verdugo forms the large snake-like head of the merged entity, while Salazar is contained within a bud-like structure. Like Salazar, it decays to sludge when defeated by Leon.
[edit] U3
The U3 (referred to as 'It' by Saddler) is a creature that was created by splicing genes from reptiles, insects and a human into one organism. It is incredibly strong, fast and agile, and its numerous limbs possess various lethal claws and tentacles. A huge pincer-equipped parasite, capable of bifurcating a human being with a single bite, lives inside it and will emerge if the U3 is injured sufficiently or a certain period of time has elapsed, increasing its lethality in combat.
[edit] References
^ Dan Birlew, "LAS PLAGAS," Resident Evil 4: Bradygames Signature Series Guide (Indianapolis: Pearson Education, 2006), 13.
^ Dan Birlew, "LOS GANADOS," Resident Evil 4: Bradygames Signature Series Guide (Indianapolis: Pearson Education, 2006), 12.
[hide]v • d • eResident Evil series
Main Series Resident Evil • Resident Evil 2 • Resident Evil 3: Nemesis • CODE: Veronica • Resident Evil Zero • Resident Evil 4 • The Umbrella Chronicles • Resident Evil 5
Survivor Series Survivor • Survivor 2 • Dead Aim
Outbreak Series Outbreak • Outbreak File #2
Mobile/Handheld Games Gaiden • Confidential Report • The Missions • Deadly Silence
Novels Zero Hour • The Umbrella Conspiracy • Caliban Cove • City of the Dead • Underworld • Nemesis • CODE: Veronica • The Umbrella Chronicles SIDE A & SIDE B
Live Action Films Resident Evil • Apocalypse • Extinction
CG Animated Films Biohazard 4D-Executer • Resident Evil: Degeneration
Characters and Creatures Characters (RE2 • RE3 • C:V • RE4 • RE:UC • Outbreak) • Creatures (RE4) • Film characters
Soundtracks Biohazard 2 Original Soundtrack • Biohazard 2 Complete Track • Biohazard 3 Original Soundtrack • Biohazard 4 Original Soundtrack • Biohazard Outbreak Original Soundtrack
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Resident_Evil_4_creatures"
Categories: Articles lacking sources from October 2006 | All articles lacking sources | Resident Evil creatures
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Wikipedia
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URL http://www.wikipedia.org
Slogan The Free Encyclopedia that anyone can edit
Alexa rank #8[1]
Commercial? No
Type of site Online encyclopedia
Registration Optional
Available language(s) 236 active editions (253 in total)[2]
Owner Wikimedia Foundation
Created by Jimmy Wales, Larry Sanger[3]
Launched January 15, 2001 (2001-01-15) (age 7)
Current status perpetual work-in-progress
Wikipedia (IPA: /ˌwɪkɨˈpiːdiə/, /ˌwiːkiˈpiːdiə/, /ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/ or /ˌwiːkiˈpeɪdiə/) (Audio (U.S.) (help·info)) is a free,[4] multilingual, open content encyclopedia project operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative website) and encyclopedia. Launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, it is the largest, fastest- growing and most popular general reference work currently available on the Internet.[5][6]
As of December 2007, Wikipedia had approximately 9.25 million articles in 253 languages, comprising a combined total of over 1.74 billion words for all Wikipedias. The English Wikipedia edition passed the 2,000,000 article mark on September 9, 2007, and as of February 4, 2008 it had over 2,210,000 articles consisting of over 961,000,000 words.[2] Wikipedia's articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and the vast majority of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet. Having steadily risen in popularity since its inception,[1] it currently ranks among the top ten most-visited websites worldwide.[7]
Critics have questioned Wikipedia's reliability and accuracy, citing its open nature.[8] The criticism is centered on its susceptibility to vandalism, such as the insertion of profanities or random letters into articles, and the addition of spurious or unverified information;[9] uneven quality, systemic bias and inconsistencies;[10] and for favoring consensus over credentials in its editorial process.[11] Scholarly work suggests that vandalism is generally short-lived.[12][13]
In addition to being an encyclopedic reference, Wikipedia has received major media attention as an online source of breaking news as it is constantly updated.[14][15] When Time Magazine recognized "You" as their Person of the Year 2006, praising the accelerating success of on-line collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, Wikipedia was the first particular "Web 2.0" service mentioned, followed by YouTube and MySpace.[16]
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Content and internal structure
3 Software and hardware
4 Language editions
5 Reliability and bias
6 Criticism
7 Cultural significance
8 Wikia and Wikimedia
9 Related projects
10 See also
11 Further reading
12 External links
13 References
History
Main article: History of Wikipedia
Wikipedia originally developed from another encyclopedia project, Nupedia.Wikipedia began as a complementary project for Nupedia, a free online English-language encyclopedia project whose articles were written by experts and reviewed by a formal process. Nupedia was founded on March 9, 2000, under the ownership of Bomis, Inc, a web portal company. Its main figures were Jimmy Wales, Bomis CEO, and Larry Sanger, editor-in-chief for Nupedia and later Wikipedia. Nupedia was licensed initially under its own Nupedia Open Content License, switching to the GNU Free Documentation License before Wikipedia's founding at the urging of Richard Stallman.[17]
Jimmy Wales
Larry SangerLarry Sanger and Jimmy Wales are the founders of Wikipedia.[3][18] While Wales is credited with defining the goal of making a publicly editable encyclopedia,[19] Sanger is usually credited with the counter-intuitive strategy of using a wiki to reach that goal.[20] On January 10, 2001, Larry Sanger proposed on the Nupedia mailing list to create a wiki as a "feeder" project for Nupedia.[21] Wikipedia was formally launched on January 15, 2001, as a single English-language edition at www.wikipedia.com,[22] and announced by Sanger on the Nupedia mailing list.[23] Wikipedia's policy of "neutral point-of-view"[24] was codified in its initial months, and was similar to Nupedia's earlier "nonbiased" policy. Otherwise, there were relatively few rules initially and Wikipedia operated independently of Nupedia.[19]
Graph of the article count for the English Wikipedia, from January 10, 2001, to September 9, 2007 (the date of the two-millionth article).Wikipedia gained early contributors from Nupedia, Slashdot postings, and search engine indexing. It grew to approximately 20,000 articles, and 18 language editions, by the end of 2001. By late 2002 it had reached 26 language editions, 46 by the end of 2003, and 161 by the closing stages 2004.[25] Nupedia and Wikipedia coexisted until the former's servers went down permanently in 2003, and its text was incorporated into Wikipedia. As of December 2007, English Wikipedia had over 2 million articles, making it the largest encyclopedia ever assembled, eclipsing even the Yongle Encyclopedia (1407), which had held the record for nearly 600 years.[26]
Citing fears of commercial advertising and lack of control in a perceived English-centric Wikipedia, users of the Spanish Wikipedia forked from Wikipedia to create the Enciclopedia Libre in February 2002. Later that year, Wales announced that Wikipedia would not display advertisements, and its website was moved to wikipedia.org. Various other projects have since forked from Wikipedia for editorial reasons. Wikinfo does not require neutral point of view and allows original research. New Wikipedia-inspired projects — such as Citizendium, Scholarpedia, Amapedia and Google's Knol — have been started to address perceived limitations of Wikipedia, such as its policies on peer review, original research and commercial advertising.
The Wikimedia Foundation was created from Wikipedia and Nupedia on June 20, 2003.[27] It applied to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademark Wikipedia® on September 17, 2004. The mark was granted registration status on January 10, 2006. Trademark protection was accorded by Japan on December 16, 2004, and in the European Union on January 20, 2005. Technically a service mark, the scope of the mark is for: "Provision of information in the field of general encyclopedic knowledge via the Internet". There are plans to license the usage of the Wikipedia trademark for some products, such as books or DVDs.[28] In October 2007 the foundation announced that it plans to move its headquarters from St. Petersburg, Florida, to San Francisco, California, in February 2008.[29]
The Wikimedia Foundation's 4th Quarter 2005 costs were $321,000 USD, with hardware making up almost 60% of the budget.[30] The Wikimedia Foundation currently relies primarily on private donations, and holds regular fundraisers;[31] the January 2007 fundraiser raised just over $1 million.[32]
Content and internal structure
Almost every article in Wikipedia may be edited anonymously or with a user account and changes are made available immediately, while only registered users may create a new article. All text in Wikipedia is covered by GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), a copyleft license permitting the redistribution, creation of derivative works, and commercial use of content while authors retain copyright of their work. Wikipedia has been working on the switch to Creative Commons licenses because the GFDL, initially designed for software manuals, is not suitable for online reference works and because the two licenses are currently incompatible.[33] Some language editions, such as the English Wikipedia, include non-free image files under fair use doctrine.
Wikimania, an annual conference for users of Wikipedia and other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.Unlike peer-reviewed encyclopedias such as Encyclopædia Britannica, Wikipedia relies on its community members, called Wikipedians,[34] to remove vandalism or identify problems such as violation of neutrality[35] and factual errors in its articles.[36] Since June 2006 vandalism-repair bots have also been in use.[13] Articles in Wikipedia are subject to several policies and guidelines;[37] they need to be on "notable" topics, contain "no original research" and only "verifiable" facts and must be written from a "neutral point of view". Materials that fail to meet those guidelines and policies are modified or get deleted.
The community has a power structure.[38] While they are welcomed by the community,[39] authors new to Wikipedia are encouraged to read policies to help them learn the ways of Wikipedia.[40] Editors in good standing in the community can run for one of many of levels of volunteer stewardship, this begins with "administrator"[41] and goes up with "steward" and "bureaucrat".[42] Administrators, the largest group of privileged users (1,442 Wikipedians for the English edition on December 23, 2007), have the ability to delete pages, lock articles from being changed in case of vandalism or editorial disputes, and deter users from editing.
The "History" page attached to each article makes its complete editing history easily accessible.[40] Much of the coordination of the editing of Wikipedia takes place on the "Talk" pages associated with each individual article.[43]
Software and hardware
The operation of Wikipedia depends on MediaWiki, a custom-made, free and open source wiki software platform written in PHP and built upon the MySQL database. The software incorporates programming features such as a macro language, variables, a transclusion system for templates, and URL redirection. MediaWiki is licensed under the GNU General Public License and used by all Wikimedia projects, as well as many other wiki projects. Originally, Wikipedia ran on UseModWiki written in Perl by Clifford Adams (Phase I), which initially required CamelCase for article hyperlinks; the present double bracket style was incorporated later. Starting in January 2002 (Phase II), Wikipedia began running on a PHP wiki engine with a MySQL database; this software was custom-made for Wikipedia by Magnus Manske. The Phase II software was repeatedly modified to accommodate the exponentially increasing demand. In July 2002 (Phase III), Wikipedia shifted to the third-generation software, MediaWiki, originally written by Lee Daniel Crocker.
Overview of system architecture, May 2006. See server layout diagrams on Meta-Wiki.Wikipedia runs on dedicated clusters of GNU/Linux servers in Florida and in two other locations.[44] Wikipedia employed a single server until 2004, when the server setup was expanded into a distributed multitier architecture. In January 2005, the project ran on 39 dedicated servers located in Florida. This configuration included a single master database server running MySQL, multiple slave database servers, 21 web servers running the Apache HTTP Server, and seven Squid cache servers. By September 2005, its server cluster had grown to around 100 servers: main servers in Tampa, Florida and the rest in Amsterdam and Seoul.
Wikipedia receives between 10,000 and 35,000 page requests per second, depending on time of day.[45] Page requests are first passed to a front-end layer of Squid caching servers. Requests that cannot be served from the Squid cache are sent to load-balancing servers running the Linux Virtual Server software, which in turn pass the request to one of the Apache web servers for page rendering from the database. The web servers deliver pages as requested, performing page rendering for all the language editions of Wikipedia. To increase speed further, rendered pages for anonymous users are cached in a distributed memory cache until invalidated, allowing page rendering to be skipped entirely for most common page accesses. Two larger clusters in the Netherlands and Korea now handle much of Wikipedia's traffic load.
Language editions
See also: List of Wikipedias
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Contributors for English Wikipedia by country as of September 2006[46]There are currently 253 language editions of Wikipedia; of these, 16 have over 100,000 articles and 145 have over 1,000 articles.[2] According to Alexa, the English subdomain (en.wikipedia.org) receives approximately 55% of Wikipedia's cumulative traffic, with the remaining split among the other languages (Spanish: 17%, Japanese 4%, German: 4%, Polish: 3%, French: 3%, Portuguese: 2%).[1] As of December 2007, the five largest language editions are (in order of article count) English, German, French, Polish and Japanese Wikipedias.[47]
Since Wikipedia is web-based and therefore worldwide, contributors of a same language edition may use different dialects or may come from different countries (as is the case for the English edition). These differences may lead to some conflicts over spelling differences, (e.g. color vs. colour)[48] or points of view.[49] Though the various language editions are held to global policies such as "neutral point of view," they diverge on some points of policy and practice, most notably on whether images that are not licensed freely may be used under a claim of fair use.[50][51][52]
Percentage of all Wikipedia articles in English (red) and top ten largest language editions (blue). As of November 2007, less than 25% of Wikipedia articles are in English.Jimmy Wales has described Wikipedia as "an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language".[53] Though each language edition functions more or less independently, some efforts are made to supervise them all. They are coordinated in part by Meta-Wiki, the Wikimedia Foundation's wiki devoted to maintaining all of its projects (Wikipedia and others). For instance, Meta-Wiki provides important statistics on all language editions of Wikipedia and maintain a list of articles every Wikipedia should have. The list concerns basic content by subject: biography, history, geography, society, culture, science, technology, foodstuffs, and mathematics. As for the rest, it is not rare for articles strongly related to a particular language not to have counterparts in another edition. For example, articles about small towns in the United States might only be available in English.
Translated articles represent only a small portion of articles in most editions,[54] in part because automated translation of articles is disallowed.[55] Articles available in more than one language may offer "InterWiki" links, which link to the counterpart articles in other editions. Images and other non-verbal media are shared among the various language editions through the Wikimedia Commons repository, a project operated by the Wikimedia foundation.
Several language versions have published a selection of Wikipedia articles on a DVD version. An English version[56] developed by Linterweb contains "1964 + articles".[57][58] The Polish version contains nearly 240000 articles.[59] There are also a few German versions.[60]
Reliability and bias
Main article: Reliability of Wikipedia
Wikipedia does not require that its contributors give their legal names or provide other information to establish their identity. A 2007 study by researchers from Dartmouth College found that anonymous and infrequent contributors to Wikipedia are as reliable a source of knowledge as those contributors who register with the site.[61] Although some contributors are authorities in their field, Wikipedia requires that even their contributions be supported by published and verifiable sources.
Wikipedia tries to address the problem of systemic bias, and to deal with zealous editors who seek to influence the presentation of an article in a biased way, by insisting on a neutral point of view.[62] The English-language Wikipedia has introduced an assessment scale against which the quality of articles is judged;[63] other editions have also adopted this. Roughly 1500 articles have passed a rigorous set of criteria to reach the highest rank, "featured article" status; such articles are intended to provide thorough, well-written coverage of their topic, supported by many references to peer-reviewed publications.[64]
In a 2003 study of Wikipedia as a community, economics Ph.D. student Andrea Ciffolilli argued that the low transaction costs of participating in wiki software create a catalyst for collaborative development, and that a "creative construction" approach encourages participation.[65]
In February 2007, an article in The Harvard Crimson newspaper reported that some of the professors at Harvard University do include Wikipedia in their syllabus, but that there is a split in their perception of using Wikipedia.[66] In June 2007, former president of the American Library Association Michael Gorman condemned Wikipedia, along with Google,[67] stating that academics who endorse the use of Wikipedia are “the intellectual equivalent of a dietician who recommends a steady diet of Big Macs with everything.” He also said that “a generation of intellectual sluggards incapable of moving beyond the Internet” was being produced at universities. He complains that the web-based sources are discouraging students from learning from the more rare texts which are either found only on paper or are on subscription-only web sites. In the same article Jenny Fry (a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute) commented on the academics who cite Wikipedia that: “You cannot say children are intellectually lazy because they are using the Internet when academics are using search engines in their research,” she said. “The difference is that they have more experience of being critical about what is retrieved and whether it is authoritative. Children need to be told how to use the Internet in a critical and appropriate way.”[67]
Speaking at a conference in Pennsylvania, Wales said he receives about ten e-mails weekly from students saying they got failing grades on papers because they cited Wikipedia. According to the Sunday Times of London, Wales told the students they got what they deserved. "For God's sake, you’re in college; don't cite the encyclopedia," he said.[68]
Criticism
Main article: Criticism of Wikipedia
Wikipedia has been accused of exhibiting systemic bias and inconsistency;[8] critics argue that Wikipedia's open nature and a lack of proper sources for much of the information makes it unreliable.[69] Some commentators suggest that Wikipedia is generally reliable, but that the reliability of any given article is not always clear.[11] The project's preference for consensus over credentials has been labeled "anti-elitism".[10] Editors of traditional reference works such as the Encyclopædia Britannica have questioned the project's utility and status as an encyclopedia.[70] Many university lecturers discourage students from citing any encyclopedia in academic work, preferring primary sources;[71] some specifically prohibit Wikipedia citations.[72] Co-founder Jimmy Wales stresses that encyclopedias of any type are not usually appropriate as primary sources, and should not be relied upon as authoritative.[73] Technology writer Bill Thompson commented that the debate was possibly "symptomatic of much learning about information which is happening in society today."[74]
In order to improve reliability, some editors have called for "stable versions" of articles, or articles that have been reviewed by the community and locked from further editing – but the community has been unable to form a consensus in favor of such changes, partly because they would require a major software overhaul.[75][76] However a similar system is being tested on the German Wikipedia, and there is an expectation that some form of that system will make its way onto the English version at some future time.[77] Software created by Luca de Alfaro and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Cruz is now being tested that will assign "trust ratings" to individual Wikipedia contributors, with the intention that eventually only edits made by those who have established themselves as "trusted editors" will be made immediately visible.[78]
John Seigenthaler Sr. has described Wikipedia as "a flawed and irresponsible research tool."[79]Concerns have also been raised regarding the lack of accountability that results from users' anonymity,[80] and that it is vulnerable to vandalism and similar problems. In one particularly well-publicized incident, false information was introduced into the biography of John Seigenthaler, Sr. and remained undetected for four months.[79] Some critics claim that Wikipedia's open structure makes it an easy target for Internet trolls, advertisers, and those with an agenda to push.[81][40] The addition of political spin to articles by organizations including the U.S. House of Representatives and special interest groups[9] has been noted,[82] and organizations such as Microsoft have offered financial incentives to work on certain articles.[83] These issues have been parodied, notably by Stephen Colbert in The Colbert Report.[84]
Wikipedia's community has been described as "cult-like,"[85] although not always with entirely negative connotations,[86] and criticized for failing to accommodate inexperienced users.[87] While praising many aspects of Wikipedia, historian Roy Rosenzweig notes: "Overall, writing is the Achilles’ heel of Wikipedia. Committees rarely write well, and Wikipedia entries often have a choppy quality that results from the stringing together of sentences or paragraphs written by different people."[88]
In August 2007, a new website developed by computer science graduate student Virgil Griffith named WikiScanner made its public debut. WikiScanner traces the source of millions of changes made to Wikipedia by editors who are not logged in, and it revealed some interesting and controversial edits in its first few days of use. Many of these edits came from corporations or sovereign government agencies about articles related to them, their personnel or their work, and were attempts to remove criticism.[89]
Wales called WikiScanner "a very clever idea," and said that he was considering some changes to Wikipedia to help visitors better understand what information is recorded about them. "When someone clicks on ‘edit,’ it would be interesting if we could say, ‘Hi, thank you for editing. We see you’re logged in from The New York Times. Keep in mind that we know that, and it’s public information,’" he said. "That might make them stop and think."[89]
Cultural significance
An xkcd strip entitled "Wikipedian Protester."In addition to logistic growth in the number of its articles,[90] Wikipedia has steadily gained status as a general reference website since its inception in 2001.[91] According to Alexa and comScore, Wikipedia is among the ten most visited websites world-wide.[7][92] Of the top ten, Wikipedia is the only non-profit website. The growth of Wikipedia has been fueled by its dominant position in Google search results; about 50% of search engine traffic to Wikipedia comes from Google,[93] a good portion of which is related to academic research.[94] In April 2007 the Pew Internet and American Life project found that one third of US Internet users consulted Wikipedia.[95] In October 2006 the site was estimated to have a hypothetical market value of $580 million if it ran ads.[96]
Wikipedia's content has also been used in academic studies, books, conferences, and court cases.[97][98] The Parliament of Canada's website refers to Wikipedia's article on same-sex marriage in the "related links" section of its "further reading" list for the Civil Marriage Act.[99] The encyclopedia's assertions are increasingly used as a source by organizations such as the U.S. Federal Courts and the World Intellectual Property Organization[100] — though mainly for supporting information rather than information decisive to a case.[101]
Wikipedia has also been used as a source in journalism,[102] sometimes without attribution, and several reporters have been dismissed for plagiarizing from Wikipedia.[103][104][105] In July 2007, Wikipedia was the focus of a 30 minute documentary on BBC Radio 4[106] which argued that, with increased usage and awareness, the number of references to Wikipedia in popular culture is such that the term is one of a select band of 21st century nouns that are so familiar (Google, Facebook, YouTube) that they no longer need explanation and are on a par with such 20th century terms as Hoovering or Coke. Many parody Wikipedia's openness, with characters vandalizing or modifying the online encyclopedia project's articles. Notably, comedian Stephen Colbert has parodied or referenced Wikipedia on numerous episodes of his show The Colbert Report and coined the related term "wikiality".[84] Websites such as Uncyclopedia have also been set up parodying Wikipedia; its Main Page claims that it is the "content-free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,"[107] parodying the English Wikipedia's welcome message on its Main Page.
Wikipedia has also created an impact upon forms of media. Some media sources satirize Wikipedia's susceptibility to inserted inaccuracies, such as a front-page article in The Onion in July 2006 with the title "Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years of American Independence",[108] while others may draw upon Wikipedia's statement that anyone can edit, such as "The Negotiation", an episode of The Office, where character Michael Scott said that "Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information", and a select few parody Wikipedia's policies, such as the xkcd strip named "Wikipedian Protester", that also included the joke "Semi-protect the Constitution!"
The first documentary film about Wikipedia, entitled Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story, is scheduled for 2008 release. Shot on several continents, the film will cover the history of Wikipedia and feature interviews with Wikipedia editors around the world.[109][110]
On 28 September 2007, Italian politician Franco Grillini raised a parliamentary question with the Minister of Cultural Resources and Activities about the necessity of freedom of panorama. He said that the lack of such freedom forced Wikipedia, "the seventh most consulted website" to forbid all images of modern Italian buildings and art, and claimed this was hugely damaging to tourist revenues.[111]
On September 16, 2007, The Washington Post reported that Wikipedia has become a focal point in the 2008 election campaign, saying, "Type a candidate's name into Google, and among the first results is a Wikipedia page, making those entries arguably as important as any ad in defining a candidate. Already, the presidential entries are being edited, dissected and debated countless times each day."[112] An October 2007 Reuters article, entitled "Wikipedia page the latest status symbol", reported the recent phenomenon of how having a Wikipedia article vindicates one's notability.[113]
Wikipedia won two major awards in May 2004.[114] The first was a Golden Nica for Digital Communities of the annual Prix Ars Electronica contest; this came with a €10,000 (£6,588; $12,700) grant and an invitation to present at the PAE Cyberarts Festival in Austria later that year. The second was a Judges' Webby Award for the "community" category.[115] Wikipedia was also nominated for a "Best Practices" Webby. In September 2004, the Japanese Wikipedia was awarded a Web Creation Award from the Japan Advertisers Association. This award, normally given to individuals for great contributions to the Web in Japanese, was accepted by a long-standing contributor on behalf of the project.
In a 2006 Multiscope research study, the Dutch Wikipedia was rated the third best Dutch language site, after Google and Gmail, with a score of 8.1.[116] On January 26, 2007, Wikipedia was also awarded the fifth highest brand ranking by the readers of brandchannel.com, receiving 15% of the votes in answer to the question "Which brand had the most impact on our lives in 2006?"[117] Jimmy Wales was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine in 2006.[118] In 2006 and 2007, the Russian Wikipedia won the "Science and education" category of the "Runet Prize" (Russian: Премия Рунета) award, supervised[119] by the Russian government agency FAPMC.
In November 2006, Turkish Wikipedia was nominated under the Science category for the Altın Örümcek Web Ödülleri (Golden Spider Web Awards), which are commonly known as the "Web Oscars" for Turkey. In January 2007, Turkish Wikipedia was given the award for "Best Content" in this competition. The award was given in a ceremony on January 25, 2007 at Istanbul Technical University.
Wikia and Wikimedia
The Wikimedia Foundation shares hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, Inc. The Wikimedia Foundation received some donated office space from Wikia Inc. during the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006."[120]
Related projects
Find more about Wikipedia on Wikipedia's sister projects:
Dictionary definitions
Textbooks
Quotations
Source texts
Images and media
News stories
Learning resources
A number of interactive multimedia encyclopedias incorporating entries written by the public existed long before Wikipedia was founded. The first of these was the 1986 BBC Domesday Project, which included text (entered on BBC Micro computers) and photographs from over 1 million contributors in the UK, and covering the geography, art and culture of the UK. This was the first interactive multimedia encyclopedia (and was also the first major multimedia document connected through internal links), with the majority of articles being accessible through an interactive map of the UK. The user-interface and part of the content of the Domesday Project have now been emulated on a website.[121] One of the most successful early online encyclopedias incorporating entries by the public was h2g2, which was also created by the BBC. The h2g2 encyclopedia was relatively light-hearted, focusing on articles which were both witty and informative. Both of these projects had similarities with Wikipedia, but neither gave full editorial freedom to public users.
Wikipedia has also spawned several sister projects. The first, "In Memoriam: September 11 Wiki",[122] created in October 2002,[123] detailed the September 11, 2001 attacks; this project was closed in October 2006. Wiktionary, a dictionary project, was launched in December 2002;[124] Wikiquote, a collection of quotations, a week after Wikimedia launched, and Wikibooks, a collection of collaboratively written free books, the next month. Wikimedia has since started a number of other projects.[125]
A similar non-wiki project, the GNUPedia project, co-existed with Nupedia early in its history; however, it has been retired and its creator, free software figure Richard Stallman, has lent his support to Wikipedia.[17]
Other websites centered on collaborative knowledge base development have drawn inspiration from or inspired Wikipedia. Some, such as Susning.nu, Enciclopedia Libre, and WikiZnanie likewise employ no formal review process, whereas others use more traditional peer review, such as the expert-written Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, h2g2 and Everything2.
Jimmy Wales, the de facto leader of Wikipedia,[126] said in an interview in regard to the online encyclopedia Citizendium which is overviewed by experts in their respective fields:[127] "We welcome a diversity of efforts. If Larry's project is able to produce good work, we will benefit from it by copying it back into Wikipedia."[128]
See also
Meta has related information at:
List of WikipediasUSA Congressional staff edits to Wikipedia
Googlepedia
List of encyclopedias
List of wikis
Open content
User-generated content
Wikipedia:About
Wikipedia razz ress coverage
Further reading
Ulrike Pfeil, Panayiotis Zaphiris, and Chee Siang Ang (2006). "Cultural differences in collaborative authoring of Wikipedia". Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (1).
Joseph M. Reagle Jr. (2005). Do as I do: leadership in the Wikipedia. Wikipedia Drafts.
External links
Listen to this article (info/dl)
This audio file was created from a revision dated 2005-06-25, and may not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)
More spoken articlesYour wiki entry counts, Cnaan Liphshiz, Haaretz, December 25, 2007.
Wikipedia - multilingual portal (contains links to all language editions of the project)
Wikipedia at the Open Directory Project
CBC News: I, editor
Help Edit Wikipedia A wikiHow article.
Class assignment: Write an original Wikipedia article
Essay about wikipedia
References
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^ Some language versions such as English one contains non-free images.
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^ Fernanda B. Viégas, Martin Wattenberg, Jesse Kriss, Frank van Ham (2007-01-03). "Talk Before You Type: Coordination in Wikipedia". Visual Communication Lab, IBM Research. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
^ Wikimedia servers at wikimedia.org. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
^ "Monthly request statistics", Wikimedia. Retrieved on 2007-02-03.
^ Edits by project and country of origin (2006-09-04). Retrieved on 2007-10-25.
^ Wikipedia:Multilingual statistics. English Wikipedia. Retrieved on 2007-12-23.
^ spelling. Manual of Style. Wikipedia. Retrieved on 2007-05-19.
^ Countering systemic bias. Retrieved on 2007-05-19.
^ Fair use. Meta wiki. Retrieved on 2007-07-14.
^ Images on Wikipedia. Retrieved on 2007-07-14.
^ Fernanda B. Viégas (2007-01-03). "The Visual Side of Wikipedia". Visual Communication Lab, IBM Research. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
^ Jimmy Wales, "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia", March 8 2005, <wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org>
^ For example, "Translation into English", Wikipedia. (March 9, 2005)
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^ "List of Mirrors Hosting the CD Iso." Wikipedia on DVD. Linterweb. Accessed 1 June 2007
^ "Wikipedia on DVD". Linterweb. Accessed 1 June 2007. "Linterweb is authorized to make a commercial use of the Wikipedia trademark restricted to the selling of the Encyclopedia CDs and DVDs."
^ "Wikipedia 0.5 Available on a CD-ROM". Wikipedia on DVD. Linterweb. Accessed 1 June 2007. "The DVD or CD-ROM version 0.5 was commercially available for purchase."
^ Polish Wikipedia on DVD.
^ Wikipedia biggrin VD.
^ "Wikipedia "Good Samaritans Are on the Money", Scientific American, 2007-10-19.
^ Eric Haas (2007-10-26). Will Unethical Editing Destroy Wikipedia's Credibility?. AlterNet.org.
^ Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. Retrieved on 2007-10-28.
^ Fernanda B. Viégas, Martin Wattenberg, and Matthew M. McKeon (2007-07-22). "The Hidden Order of Wikipedia" (pdf). Visual Communication Lab, IBM Research. Retrieved on 2007-10-30.
^ Andrea Ciffolilli, "Phantom authority, self-selective recruitment and retention of members in virtual communities: The case of Wikipedia", First Monday December 2003.
^ Child, Maxwell L.,"Professors Split on Wiki Debate", The Harvard Crimson, Monday, February 26, 2007.
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^ Hart, Hugh (March 11, 2007). Industry Buzz. SFGate.com.
^ Comunicato stampa. On. Franco Grillini. Wikipedia. Interrogazione a Rutelli. Con "diritto di panorama" promuovere arte e architettura contemporanea italiana. Rivedere con urgenza legge copyright (12 October 2007).
^ Jose Antonio Vargas. "On Wikipedia, Debating 2008 Hopefuls' Every Facet", The Washington Post, 2007-09-17.
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^ "Trophy Box", Meta-Wiki (March 28, 2005).
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^ Nederlandse Wikipedia groeit als kool (Website in Dutch Language), Recovered December 27, 2006
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^ (Russian)Major award of Russian Internet became a state one — Lenta.Ru, August 29 2005
^ Wikimedia Foundation 2006-2007 Audit page 9 says "The Organization shares hosting and bandwidth costs with Wikia, Inc., a for-profit company founded by the same founder as Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Included in accounts receivable at June 30, 2007 is $6,000 due from Wikia, Inc. for these costs. The Organization received some donated office space from Wikia Inc. during the year ended June 30, 2006 valued at $6,000. No donation of the office space occurred in 2007. Through June 30, 2007, two members of the Organization’s board of directors also serve as employees, officers, or directors of Wikia, Inc."
^ Web-based emulator of the Domesday Project User Interface and data from the Community Disc (contributions from the general public) -- most articles can be accessed using the interactive map
^ sep11memories.org/. Retrieved on 2007-02-06.
^ First edit to the wiki In Memoriam: September 11 wiki (October 28, 2002),
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^ Lyman, Jay. "Wikipedia Co-Founder Planning New Expert-Authored Site", LinuxInsider, September 20, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-06-27.
[show]v • d • eProjects of the Wikimedia Foundation
Wikibooks (Wikijunior) · Wikimedia Commons · Wikinews · Wikipedia · Wikiquote · Wikisource · Wikispecies · Wikiversity · Wiktionary · Meta-Wiki
[show]v • d • eHistory of Wikipedia
Main articles Bomis · Nupedia · Wikipedia · Wikimedia Foundation · Wikimania · MediaWiki
People Jimmy Wales · Larry Sanger · Tim Shell · Florence Devouard · Angela Beesley
Events and individuals Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China · Congressional staffer edits to Wikipedia · Essjay controversy · Seigenthaler controversy · WikiScanner · Chris Benoit controversy · Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story
Wikimedia projects Wikibooks · Wikimedia Commons · Wiktionary · Wikisource · Wikiquote · Wikinews · Wikiversity
Related projects and forks Citizendium · Enciclopedia Libre · Interpedia · Veropedia · Wikia · WikiZnanie · Wikinfo · Wikiweise
[show]v • d • eLanguage editions of Wikipedia by number of articles
more than 2,000,000 English en:
more than 500,000 German de: · French fr:
more than 300,000 Polish pl: · Japanese ja: · Dutch nl: · Italian it: · Portuguese pt: · Spanish es:
more than 100,000 Swedish sv: · Russian ru: · Chinese zh: · Norwegian (Bokmål) no: · Finnish fi: · Volapük vo: · Romanian ro: · Catalan ca: · Turkish tr:
more than 50,000 Esperanto eo: · Slovak sk: · Czech cs: · Ukrainian uk: · Hungarian hu: · Danish da: · Indonesian id: · Hebrew he: · Lithuanian lt: · Serbian sr: · Slovenian sl:: · Korean ko: · Bulgarian bg: · Arabic ar:
more than 10,000 Albanian sq: · Asturian ast: · Azerbaijani az: · Basque eu: · Bengali bn: · Bishnupriya Manipuri bpy: · Bosnian bs: · Breton br: · Cebuano ceb: · Croatian hr: · Estonian et: · Galician gl: · Georgian ka: · Greek el: · Hindi hi: · Icelandic is: · Ido io: · Latin la: · Latvian lv: · Lombard lmo: · Macedonian mk: · Malay ms: · Neapolitan nap: · Norwegian (Nynorsk) nn: · Persian fa: · Piedmontese pms: · Sicilian scn: · Simple English simple: · Serbo-Croatian sh: · Sundanese su: · Tagalog tl: · Tamil ta: · Telugu te: · Thai th: · Vietnamese vi: · Welsh cy:
more than 1,000 Afrikaans af: · Amharic am: · Cantonese zh-yue: · Classical Chinese zh-classical: · Cornish kw: · Dutch Low Saxon nds-nl: · Haitian Creole ht: · Irish ga: · Kashubian csb: · Ladino lad: · Maltese mt: · Māori mi: · Northern Sámi se: · Pennsylvania German pdc: · Quechua qu: ·
Samogitian bat-smg: · Scottish Gaelic gd: · Swahili sw: · Tajik tg: · Tongan to: · Urdu ur: · Walloon wa: · Yiddish yi: · Yoruba yo:
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