Rory Cellan-Jones BBC News
Technology correspondent
@BBCRoryCJ
On 15 January 2001, two American entrepreneurs – Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger – launched an online encyclopedia.
It was called Wikipedia. Despite much criticism early on about inaccuracies, it has gone on to be hugely successful. It is the 15th most popular destination on the web, is available in more than 300 languages and is maintained by a community of volunteer editors. At least, I think that is accurate – I found all those facts in the online encyclopedia’s own entry on Wikipedia. It is where everyone from students, to politicians to yes, journalists, turn for a quick briefing on any subject, although even Wikipedia says it should not be used as a primary source.
But here are five Wikipedia articles that tell the story of this phenomenon.