1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Live TV
Latest audioLatest videos
In focus
India electionsIranIsrael-Hamas war

Wikipedia's 15 years old

Roger DitterJanuary 12, 2016

Wikipedia was started 15 years ago. Today, the online encyclopedia features over five million English articles and nearly 1.9 million German articles. It's one of the internet‘s most frequently requested sites.

https://p.dw.com/p/1HboM
Screenshot Wikipedia Logo
Image: DW

Wikipedia's 15 years old

The collective reference work has become globally established with over 37 million articles in some 280 languages. In terms of reliability, too, the collaborative project is improving its record compared with conventional print encyclopedias. But there are problems: the volunteer editorial staff is dwindling. And Wikimedia, the organization behind Wikipedia, has been criticized for its aggressive funding drives, yet the non-profit project is actually doing quite nicely financially.