[[quoteright:300:http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Wikipedia-logo-en-big.png]]
[[quoteright:300:[[center:[=~That's no moon~=]!]]]]
->''"At three in the morning I looked at my clock and thought, 'Good god! What on earth have I been doing for four hours?!' I looked at my screen. 'Plot summaries of PowerRangers episodes.' Damn."''
--> --'''Anonymous Wikipedia addict'''

->''"Information wants to be WRONG!"''
--> --'''Bluster Blaster''', ''[[SamAndMaxFreelancePolice Sam & Max: Moai Better Blues]]''

TOW. TheOtherWiki. The wiki that most people are familiar with. The one that isn't [[ThisWiki us]].

Wikipedia is probably the most famous wiki out there, and is mostly responsible for inspiring the creation of other wikis ([[{{Older Than They Think}} although it was not the first]]) It presents its information as an encyclopedia, [[WallBanger though by definition anyone can edit it,]] and focuses mainly on real-life information. Because of this, it has attracted a bit of controversy for deleting what they find non-notable, which has turned a few people off of contributing. Nonetheless, it has a vast range of subjects, which has shown a steady rate of growth as time has gone on.

As a consequence of Wikipedia's fame and scale, it's where people put knowledge when they don't know where it should go. This perception is actually at odds with the project's goals: to create a tertiary reference for information and viewpoints published elsewhere (TheWikiRule, for "encyclopedia"). Problem is, they've ended up with more information on subjects such as ''StarTrek'' than, say, linguistics or finance -- and that's not [[SeriousBusiness how they wanted it]].

Here at TVTropes, we only care about history to the extent that it applies to fiction, and we're ''cool'' with that. ''Don't'' just tell us the facts; tell us the memes, tell us the archetypes, tell us the catchy ideas and symbolic roles that get planted in people's heads. Got the kernel of an idea bouncing about your head? Throw it down here and see what grows. If we're lucky, our {{neologism}} for it will catch on.

Wikipedia has [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia an entry on itself]] and its history, for further reading.

Due to its nature as being open for editing by anyone, Wikipedia has spawned a rather large camp of people who swear on their lives that absolutely every piece of information in Wikipedia is wrong. There are quite frequently flame wars (on both the Internet and in real life) between this camp and the fans of Wikipedia.
----
!!'''Wikipedia provides examples of: '''

* AnthropomorphicPersonification: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipe-tan Wikipe-tan]], specifically MoeAnthropomorphism.
* ArchiveBinge: Occurs as per the page quote, and [[http://xkcd.com/214/ referenced]] by {{xkcd}}.
* ArchivePanic: Its goal is to be an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are often upwards of twenty volumes. Most encyclopedias don't have over three million articles, many of them very, very, ''very'' long.
* BiasSteamroller: Many academics still dismiss the validity of Wikipedia entirely, regardless of the fact that most of the information on the site is verifiable and peer reviewed. Most of the disdain that many academics have for the site comes only from the fact that non-academics can contribute to the site.
* BookOfShadows
* BluenoseBowdlerizer: Correctness sometimes is sacrificed, even if that's against their policy (see DistractedByTheSexy).
* BrowserNarcotic: Losing time and opening ''way'' too many tabs is awfully common.
* ConversationInTheMainPage: Averted hard and fast - this usually survives minutes, at most.
* CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: Anyone can add anything, whether it's correct or not. Depending on the subject it may be corrected within minutes or it may stay for quite a while before it's noticed and corrected.
* {{Defictionalization}}: Wikipedia has proven ''itself'' correct [[http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/10/2211220 at least once]].
* DistractedByTheSexy: Some pages are decidedly NotSafeForWork.
* DriveByUpdater: In an odd twist, even useful drive-by-edits are sometimes reverted.
* DrPediaAndMrTrope
* [=~Dude, Where's My Changes?~=]: One of the common complaints.
* EditWar: Due to its size, these are just as likely to occur between administrators as between regular users.
* EncyclopediaExposita
* {{Fancruft}}: [[http://xkcd.com/446/ Referenced]] by {{XKCD}} (again), and occurs in reality on some pages. The page for Earth used to have "DO NOT REPLACE THIS PAGE WITH '[[HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Mostly harmless.]]' EVER." hidden in the markup.
* {{Fannage}}: They have, for instance, plot summaries of every single ''StarTrek'' episode - ''all'' series. Their coverage of ''TheSimpsons'' is also impressive, with about the half of the articles on that series rated either "good article" or "featured article".
*FauxtivationalPoster: [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Findyoursources.jpg Here you go]].
* FollowTheLeader: The wiki craze started here, but this was not the first wiki.
* HomePage: In ''many'' languages.
* HypeAversion
* IconicLogo
* InternetBackdraft
* LockedPages: Several forms, often involving different levels of user access required to edit.
* {{Meido}}: The various maintenance bots are sometimes personified as such.
* OrwellianEditor.
* OurSuperStrictLanguagePolicy: Very similar, minus funny being acceptable.
* PotHole: [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sometimes Sometimes]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taken taken]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To to]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludicrous ludicrous]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremes extremes]] - at least early in an article about a complex topic.
* SeriousBusiness: The major two factions on wikipedia are the Inclusionists and the Encyclopedists. Inclusionists will spend tens of thousands of hours to create, say, the most comprehensive and verifiable set of articles ever written on (say) Penguin Racing, while the Encylopedists will spend two weeks to get enough "delete" votes into an Article For Deletion to delete all their work summaraially. Then the Inclusionists will just get back to creating it again.
** Reading discussion pages on ''any'' topic is likely to result in a lot of SeriousBusiness.
* SmallNameBigEgo: Notably, the "[[OrwellianEditor sole founder of Wikipedia]]", Jimbo Wales.
* SockPuppet
* SomedayThisWillComeInHandy: Has been known to cause attempts to invoke this trope.
* TakeItToTheForums: Averted - Wikipedia has no official forums. At best, discussion pages can be used.
* TheInternetIsForPorn: Look up any of their "anatomy" pages.
* TheOmniscientCouncilOfVagueness
* TheWikiRule: Tries to follow this for "encyclopedia", but is known to fail (often per {{Fannage}}).
* ThereIsNoSuchThingAsNotability: ''Utterly'' inverted.
* ThreadMode: Averted hard, per ConversationInTheMainPage.
* TropeOverdosed
* TVTropesInOtherWikis: We have [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Tropes a page]].
* WikiMagic: Sometimes played straight, sometimes ''inverted'' with an editor's pet page. Inversions of this have rapidly become a common criticism as Wikipedia's tendency to focus on cutting as much content as possible, instead of adding new content, has increased.
* WikiVandal: Overt vandalization is reverted rapidly - but subtle vandalization has been known to last months on less-travelled pages. One of the common complaints about accuracy aimed at Wikipedia.
* WikiWalk: {{xkcd}} [[http://xkcd.com/214/ sums it up very well]]
* WikipediaSyntaxer: The original and trope namer.
* [[TvTropesWillRuinYourLife Wikipedia Will Ruin Your Life]]

----
<<|WikiTropes|>>
<<|OtherSites|>>
<<|TropeOverdosed|>>