The Last Best Place on the Internet

The first post to appear read simply: "hello world". Two decades later, Wikipedia has defied the usual tech trajectory of commercialization and corruption and now stands as the largest repository of human knowledge in existence, containing over 6 million articles, accessed millions times every day by users throughout the world. It has held true to its founding principles: it is still free to use, still worked on by unpaid, amateur and mostly anonymous volunteers, and still home to information as varied as it is glorious. Here, Cooke takes us inside the world of Wikpedians, exploring the major schools of thought that underpin the project (Inclusionists and Deletionists), illuminating the concept of Wikidata and the site's hidden legacy in artificial intelligence, and investigating the inevitable controversies that have arisen -- from specific pages on Jesus, Freddy Mercury, the Scots language, and Phillip Roth, to the problem of gender bias and sexism. Written with wit, humour and unrivalled access, HELLO WORLD a celebration of a singularly human, singularly collaborative endeavor in the age of the internet.