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The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia Hardcover – March 17, 2009

by Andrew Lih (Author)

23 customer reviews

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"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."

--Jimmy Wales

With more than 2,000,000 individual articles on everything from Aa! (a Japanese pop group) to Zzyzx, California, written by an army of volunteer contributors, Wikipedia is the #8 site on the World Wide Web. Created (and corrected) by anyone with access to a computer, this impressive assemblage of knowledge is growing at an astonishing rate of more than 30,000,000 words a month. Now for the first time, a Wikipedia insider tells the story of how it all happened--from the first glimmer of an idea to the global phenomenon it's become.

Andrew Lih has been an administrator (a trusted user who is granted access to technical features) at Wikipedia for more than four years, as well as a regular host of the weekly Wikipedia podcast. In The Wikipedia Revolution, he details the site's inception in 2001, its evolution, and its remarkable growth, while also explaining its larger cultural repercussions. Wikipedia is not just a website; it's a global community of contributors who have banded together out of a shared passion for making knowledge free.

Featuring a Foreword by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and an Afterword that is itself a Wikipedia creation.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Since Wikipedia was launched online in 2001 as "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," it has blossomed to more than a billion words spread over 10 million articles in 250 languages, including 2.5 million articles in English, according to Wikipedia cofounder Wales in the foreword. Lih, a Beijing-based commentator on new media and technology for NPR and CNN, researched Wikipedia and collaborative journalism as a University of Hong Kong academic, and he has been a participating "Wikipedian" himself for the past five years. He notes the site has "invigorated and disrupted the world of encyclopedias... yet only a fraction of the public who use Wikipedia realize it is entirely created by legions of unpaid and often unidentified volunteers." Other books have surfaced (How Wikipedia Works; Wikinomics), but Lih's authoritative approach covers much more, from the influence of Ayn Rand on Wikipedia cofounder Jimmy Wales and the "burnout and stress" of highly active volunteer editor-writers to controversies, credibility crises and vandalism. Wales's more traditional earlier encyclopedia, the peer-reviewed Nupedia, began to fade after he saw how Ward Cunningham's software invention, Wiki (Hawaiian for "quick"), could generate collaborative editing. Tracing Wikipedia's evolution and expansion to international editions, Lih views the encyclopedia as a "global community of passionate scribes," attributing its success to a policy of openness which is "not so much technical phenomenon as social phenomenon." (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* A subject that is long overdue in receiving its very own solo-book treatment is Wikipedia, the Internet version of the encyclopedia, named after wiki, the Hawaiian word for quick. How it started—and proliferated, despite human foibles and scandals—is the focus of academic and Wiki expert Lih. It is fitting, too, that a Beijing-based technologist chronicle the amazing growth of this knowledge phenomenon, fueled by volunteers across the world, which allows anyone to openly edit any page of the Web site. Its different beginnings, via alternate sites and dedicated geek hosts, are documented, as is the fascinating process of how an entry is entered, edited, and transformed—with Lih’s metaphor, the Piranha Effect, particularly apt. With its international standing now ranked number eight among Web sites, containing two million individual articles, the Wikipedia, nonetheless, has encountered its share of issues, whether generated by trolls (those troublemakers who drag issues through the community) or the more serious vandals, such as Essjay, whose claim to be a well-known professor appeared in a New Yorker article. An easy, nontech, intriguing read about a Web miracle that today rivals Encyclopaedia Britannica, according to well-respected publications, in the quality of many of its articles. --Barbara Jacobs

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Product details

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Hyperion (March 17, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1401303714
ISBN-13: 978-1401303716
Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 23 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #889,829 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #109 in Books > Computers & Technology > Web Development & Design > User Generated Content
- #852 in Books > Reference > Encyclopedias & Subject Guides > Business
- #1037 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Reference > History

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A good book if you are interested in how Wikipedia's rules came out to be what they are

March 28, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Notice that this book has been written in 2009 which obviously means that the latest developments have not been covered! But I bought this book in order to learn about the beginnings of Wikipedia and how its rules came into being. And this text is perfect for this purpose!

It describes what were the preconditions (logistics) for Wikipedia: the technology that had to be invented and repurposed, the very specific community that started to develop it, the freedom of cyberspace ideas& computer hacker ethic that underlined those attempts. The author provides both this information and some broader context - phenomena that developed before or in parallel to that of Wikipedia (such as Usenet, Netnews). I wasn't previously aware of several false starts (Nupedia; Wikipedia editing problems etc.), the specific policies that were developed (such as "neutral point of view"; a policy regarding automatons; soft code of conduct etc.) and the ways how the conflicts had been solved when someone is in disagreement on some point about the content of articles (for example, inclusionists and deletionists; Gdansk/Danzig story and the way in which the compromise was reached) or is there to vandalize. It was also nice to learn a new useful term - stigmergy!

What I found most useful about this book: the description on how the rules of Wikipedia were created and then developed throughout the years and the cultural differences in setting or applying them (English vs Japanese vs German version).

Two ideas that most stuck in my mind having read the book: 1) generally people intend to help and can be relied on; 2) Vote-aversion of this community: "Don't vote on everything, and if you can help it, don't vote on anything!"

I learned so much from this book so, although it is dated, I easily give it 5 stars.

5 people found this helpful6 people found this helpful

J. Steve Miller

Shows the Value of Wikipedia and How It Works

December 22, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Helped me to see the value of Wikipedia and the changes they've had to go through in order to make entries more authoritative. I tell my college students that while they shouldn't typically quote Wikipedia as a primary or even secondary source, it's becoming an important place, for many topics, to begin your research, since it often directs readers to the primary sources. It should certainly be consulted as one of many types of encyclopedias/websites, having its own set of advantages and disadvantages. For example, many supposedly authoritative medical sites rely on outdated information and don't tend to document their sources. The Wiki method allows people worldwide to include some of the latest studies, allowing readers to find some of the most important peer-reviewed studies.

One person found this helpful2 people found this helpful

Stephen Balbach

March 22, 2009

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

`The Wikipedia Revolution` (2009) is probably the first serious attempt at a book-length history of Wikipedia. Unfortunately Andrew Lih is not a trained historian, it is a journalistic account with more reporting and synthesis than original interpretation. However it is still a quick and interesting read, even if Lih is a devout Wikipedian. Certain sections stand out: the history of Ward Cunningham who invented the Wiki software; the history of Larry Sanger and his role as "co-founder" (or not, depending, but it is not resolved here). The role of Usenet, Hypercard, Slashdot and MeatballWiki in the formation of early Wikipedia. A glimpse into the vastly different cultures of Japanese, Chinese, German and other foreign language Wikipedias. An overview of some (in)famous incidents such as Seigenthaler and Essjay. Lih appears to have researched the book mostly using archival sources - I was disappointed not to find new interviews with Wales, Sanger or any number of others - it takes away from the books value in the long term as a primary source, a missed opportunity to add to the historical record.

There is a short Introduction by Jimmy Wales which is a standard stump speech heard many times before. The Afterword contains a crowd-sourced essay on the future of Wikipedia and it does contain a meaty examination of the difficult issues facing Wikipedia now and in the future. I found it to be surprisingly good. The Afterword is released under a Creative Commons BY license so it's freely available to copy - it's odd Lih did not point to where it can be found online. [UPDATE: see "Comments" below for a URL]

I would recommend this book for anyone who has been a long time member of Wikipedia and wants to learn more about 'a history experienced' over the past 8 years or so. There is so much that could be said about Wikipedia this book just grazes the surface but it's a good entry into what will certainly becoming a growing library of books about Wikipedia in the future.

19 people found this helpful20 people found this helpful

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