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{{Delete|See [[Consumer Rights Wiki talk:Moderators' noticeboard#Appeal request for Wikipedia article]].}}
{{InfoboxCompany
{{ProductCargo
| Name = Wikipedia
|ArticleType=Product
| Type = Private, although under non-profit Wikimedia Foundation
|Category=Education
| Founded = 2001
|Company=Wikimedia Foundation
| Industry = Web encyclopedia
|Description=Internet encyclopedia following the "wiki" philosophy of collaborative editing.
| Official Website = https://wikipedia.org/
|InProduction=Yes
|Logo=Wikipedia.svg
|ProductLine=
|ReleaseYear=2001
|Website=https://wikipedia.org/
}}
}}
'''Wikipedia''' is a digital encyclopedic platform which was founded in 2001 and is currently operated by American non-profit organization Wikimedia Foundation.
==Consumer impact summary==
The encyclopedia is a major destination for readers to access information about any given topics, ranging from natural sciences to political fields. Theoretically, the encyclopedia is open for editing by anyone, meaning that readers can become producers and editors at any time.<ref>{{Cite web |last=McGrady |first=Ryan |title=What Attacks on Wikipedia Reveal about Free Expression |url=https://www.techpolicy.press/what-attacks-on-wikipedia-reveal-about-free-expression/ |website=Tech Policy Press |date=14 May 2025 |access-date=21 November 2025 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250514214522/https://www.techpolicy.press/what-attacks-on-wikipedia-reveal-about-free-expression/ |archive-date=14 May 2025}}</ref>


'''Wikipedia''' is a digital encyclopedic platform which was founded in 2001 and is currently operated by American non-profit organization Wikimedia Foundation.
===Monopoly===
Although Wikipedia formally enshrines the right to fork contents from them in order to start a new encyclopedia, it has been reported that Wikipedia effectively operated as a ''de facto'' monopoly among online encyclopedias for a long time, and Wikipedia had received privileged positions by various search engines such as [[Google]] on their search results. Social media service [[TikTok]] included similar information from Wikipedia in their search results. Besides that, Wikipedia is one of the top sources for AI chatbots.<ref>{{Cite web |author= |title=Wikipedia:Content forks |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:PROJFORK |website=Wikipedia |date=16 October 2025 |access-date=21 November 2025 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251019182549/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_forks#Project-level_content_forks |archive-date=19 Oct 2025}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Tezuka |first=Shuichi |title=Introducing Justapedia |url=https://quillette.com/2023/12/11/introducing-justapedia/ |website=Quillette |date=11 December 2023 |access-date=21 November 2025 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20260114054827/https://quillette.com/2023/12/11/introducing-justapedia/ |archive-date=14 Jan 2026}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Sato |first=Mia |title=TikTok has quietly been inserting Wikipedia snippets into search results |url=https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/13/23871880/tiktok-search-engine-wikipedia-snippets-google |website=The Verge |date=13 Sep 2023 |access-date=21 Nov 2025 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20260101232819/https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/13/23871880/tiktok-search-engine-wikipedia-snippets-google |archive-date=1 Jan 2026}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Schaul |first1=Kevin |last2=Chen |first2=Szu Yu |last3=Tiku |first3=Nitasha |title=Inside the secret list of websites that make AI like ChatGPT sound smart |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/ai-chatbot-learning/ |website=The Washington Post |date=19 Apr 2023 |access-date=15 Feb 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230419120558/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/ai-chatbot-learning/ |archive-date=19 Apr 2023}}</ref>


==Consumer-impact summary==
Consequently, Wikipedia's monopoly had generated significant downstream effects where Wikipedia had played crucial roles in shaping medical decisions, economic outcomes, scientific publications, and perhaps judicial rulings.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Beck |first=Julie |title=Doctors’ #1 Source for Healthcare Information: Wikipedia |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/doctors-1-source-for-healthcare-information-wikipedia/284206/ |website=The Atlantic |date=5 Mar 2014 |access-date=21 Nov 2025 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20260202220730/https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/03/doctors-1-source-for-healthcare-information-wikipedia/284206/ |archive-date=2 Feb 2026}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Hinnosaar |first1=Marit |last2=Hinnosaar |first2=Toomas |last3=Kummer |first3=Michael |last4=Slivko |first4=Olga |title=Wikipedia matters |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jems.12421 |url-access=limited |website=Journal of Economics & Management Strategy |date=10 Mar 2021 |access-date=15 Feb 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240709001458/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jems.12421 |archive-date=9 Jul 2024 |pages=657–669 |doi=10.1111/jems.12421 |format=PDF
The encyclopedia is a major destination for consumers/readers to access information about any given topics, ranging from natural sciences to political fields. Theoretically, the encyclopedia is open for editing by anyone, meaning that consumers/readers can become producers/editors at any time.<ref>https://www.techpolicy.press/what-attacks-on-wikipedia-reveal-about-free-expression/</ref>
}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Neil |first1=Thompson |last2=Douglas |first2=Hanley |title=Science Is Shaped by Wikipedia: Evidence From a Randomized Control Trial |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3039505 |website=Social Science Research Network |date=13 Feb 2018 |access-date=21 Nov 2025 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180601232442/https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3039505 |archive-date=1 Jun 2018 |doi=10.2139/ssrn.3039505}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Thompson |first1=Neil |last2=Flanagan |first2=Brian |last3=Richardson |first3=Edana |last4=McKenzie |first4=Brian |last5=Luo |first5=Xueyun |display-authors=2 |title=Trial by Internet: A Randomized Field Experiment on Wikipedia’s Influence on Judges’ Legal Reasoning |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4174200 |website=Social Science Research Network |date=1 Aug 2022 |access-date=21 Nov 2025 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251120010359/https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4174200 |archive-date=20 Nov 2025}}</ref> Wikipedia is even included among long-termist knowledge preservation initiatives such as the Arch Mission's The LEO (Low Earth Orbit) library, The Lunar Library I on the failed Beresheet lunar lander, The Lunar Library II on the failed Astrobotic Peregrine lander, The Galactic Legacy Archive on a successful Intuitive Machines moon lander mission, and The Pyramid Library on the successful Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander mission.<ref>{{Cite web |author= |title=The LEO Library: Constellation 1 |url=https://www.archmission.org/leo-library-1 |website=Arch Mission Foundation |date= |access-date=15 Feb 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250930044527/https://www.archmission.org/leo-library-1 |archive-date=30 Sep 2025}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |author= |title=The Lunar Library: Genesis |url=https://www.archmission.org/spaceil |website=Arch Mission Foundation |date= |access-date=15 Feb 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20260215212645/https://www.archmission.org/spaceil |archive-date=15 Feb 2026}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |author= |title=Lunar Library II |url=https://www.archmission.org/lunar-library-2 |website=Arch Mission Foundation |date= |access-date=15 Feb 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241224161609/https://www.archmission.org/lunar-library-2 |archive-date=24 Dec 2024}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |author= |title=Galactic Legacy Archive |url=https://www.archmission.org/galactic-legacy-archive |website=Arch Mission Foundation |date= |access-date=15 Feb 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20260217175117/https://www.archmission.org/galactic-legacy-archive |archive-date=17 Feb 2026}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |author= |title=Galactic Legacy Archive |url=https://www.archmission.org/galactic-legacy-archive |website=Arch Mission Foundation |date= |access-date=21 Nov 2025 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240113231855/https://www.archmission.org/galactic-legacy-archive |archive-date=13 Jan 2024}}</ref>


==Incidents==
==Incidents==
This is a list of all incidents, especially those related to consumer protection, that this platform is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the [[:Category:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}} category]].
This is a list of all incidents, especially those related to consumer protection, that this platform is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the [[:Category:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}} category]].


===Deletionism===
===Orangemoody scandal===
Wikipedia has been reported by some sources to be grappled by deletionism, causing the absence of coverage of many obscure and niche topics and a decline of participation activities among experts and high-value editors.<ref>https://gwern.net/inclusionism</ref><ref>https://boingboing.net/2017/02/14/watching-wikipedias-extincti.html</ref>
In September 2015, Wikipedia was hit by the Orangemoody blackmail scandal, as it came to light that hundreds of businesses and minor celebrities had faced demands for payment from rogue editors to publish, protect or update Wikipedia articles on them.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Merrill |first=Jamie |last2=Owen |first2=Jonathan |title=Wikipedia rocked by 'rogue editors' blackmail scam targeting small businesses and celebrities |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/wikipedia-rocked-by-rogue-editors-blackmail-scam-targeting-small-businesses-and-celebrities-10481993.html |website=The Independent |date=2 Sep 2015 |access-date=15 Feb 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150913220528/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/wikipedia-rocked-by-rogue-editors-blackmail-scam-targeting-small-businesses-and-celebrities-10481993.html |archive-date=13 Sep 2015}}</ref>
==="Name and shame" pages===
 
On Wikipedia, there are publicly-visible "name and shame" pages such as "Sockpuppet investigation" casepages (SPI) and Long-term abuse pages (LTA) whose ostensible aims are for assisting anti-vandalism purposes.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse</ref> Pages in the latter category often contain personally-identifiable attributes of users who're branded as "long term abusers" (LTA) for supposedly engaging in disruptions against the Wikipedia over a long period, including IP addresses, full legal names. In at least one case where a user accused of being an LTA is an apparent juvenile, no special measures to consider their privacy rights (i.e. hiding LTA pages to only audiences with Wikipedia accounts) are apparently observed. <ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Long-term_abuse/Archive_6#Should_we_really_be_including_personal_information_in_LTA_reports?</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Ananny</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Bambifan101</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Tirgil34</ref> Such practices may risk violating GDPR as there's also a case where scientific researchers based in Czech Republic and Slovakia were doxxed that way due to accusations that they had engaged in self-promoting edits on Wikipedia. At a glance, little to no fact-checking and quality checking processes were observed in the LTA page creation process, which may mean that some or all accusations in some if not all of LTA pages may be inaccurate and could therefore constitute defamation/libel.<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/Europeanhematology</ref><ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long-term_abuse/DEATH_TO_COVID</ref>
===Scots Wikipedia scandal===
In August 2020, a [[Reddit]] user publicized that a prolific Scots Wikipedia administrator did not speak the Scots language; tens of thousands of articles were in fact English with eye dialect spellings to suggest a Scottish accent, or word-by-word machine translations of articles from the English Wikipedia. Wikimedia users debated recruiting fluent speakers of Scots to repair the articles, reverting all edits from the administrator in question, or — as the latter would entail removing nearly half the articles in the encyclopedia — even deleting and restarting Scots Wikipedia afresh. ''The Guardian'' attributed the problem to systemic issues in Wikipedia culture, suggesting that some administrators are afforded effectively unchecked power based on sheer volume of edits (rather than the quality of their work). Robyn Speer, chief scientist at Luminoso, expressed concern that artificial intelligence corpora which used Wikipedia for language-training data had been corrupted by the pseudo-Scots.<ref name="inews">{{Cite web |last=McDonald |first=Karl |title=Scots Wikipedia taken over by American teenager who wrote thousands of 'very odd' articles without learning language |url=https://inews.co.uk/news/scotland/scots-wikipedia-language-articles-native-speaker-mistakes-610689 |website=The i Paper |date=26 Aug 2020 |access-date=15 Feb 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200826132225/https://inews.co.uk/news/scotland/scots-wikipedia-language-articles-native-speaker-mistakes-610689 |archive-date=26 Aug 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last1=Brooks |first1=Libby |last2=Hern |first2=Alex |date=26 Aug 2020 |title=Shock an aw: US teenager wrote huge slice of Scots Wikipedia <!-- sic. --> |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/26/shock-an-aw-us-teenager-wrote-huge-slice-of-scots-wikipedia |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200826163024/https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/26/shock-an-aw-us-teenager-wrote-huge-slice-of-scots-wikipedia |archive-date=26 Aug 2020 |access-date=15 Feb 2026 |website=The Guardian}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=McCarthy |first=Kieren |title=Um, almost the entire Scots Wikipedia was written by someone with no idea of the language – 10,000s of articles |url=https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/26/scots_wikipedia_fake/ |website=The Register |date=26 Aug 2020 |access-date=15 Feb 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20260211102214/https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/26/scots_wikipedia_fake/ |archive-date=11 Feb 2026}}</ref>


==References==
==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Reflist}}


[[Category:Wikipedia]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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