Nature has long been linking to Wikipedia ? ?the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit? ? from its online news stories. On Aug. 25, 2005, Nature cited the Web site in a print editorial. So there was perhaps a collective sigh of relief in the journal?s offices when an in-house investigation, published on December 15, found that the site?s scientific content is not much less trustworthy than that found in tried-and-tested print encyclopedias.
Since its launch in 2001, Wikipedia has grown to 900,000 articles on the English version of the site alone. According to Alexa Web traffic rankings, it is now the world?s 32nd busiest Web site. Nature is not alone in citing it; major news outlets including The New York Times, The Economist, the BBC, and The Washington Post regularly do so, as does The Scientist.
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