# When did Wikipedia become the First Stop for Information online?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 13, 2009, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070 "2009-01-13T10:45:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2009, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/1 "2009-01-13T10:45:41Z")
The [“Useful references” sticky](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=149223) at the top of this forum is somewhat staggeringly lacking a link to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) in the on the entire first page, which is, frankly, an inexcusable omission since I’d bet wiki is the number one linked site on the boards (followed by the IMDB, and then Amazon. But I digress.)
Anyway, according to Wikipedia itself, it went online in January of 2001. The “Useful References” sticky was started in October of 2002, and Wikipedia itself is not mentioned by _anyone_ in the thread until June 2003- a full two and a half years after Wikipedia went online.
The board members here are usually pretty on the ball about this sort of thing, so that tells me that Wiki obviously wasn’t quite as useful in its early days as it is now. (I’d be willing to be that a large number of the linked sites in the Sticky have been rendered obsolete or abandoned due to Wiki’s prominence nowadays, incidentally.)
So, the question I have is this: When (roughly) did Wikipedia become the standard “Go-To” place for general information on the Internet (after Google, of course)?
I’m guessing around 2005-2006, but that’s really only an educated guess…
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2009, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/2 "2009-01-13T11:02:29Z")
June 23rd, 2004
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### Author:  [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2009, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/3 "2009-01-13T12:22:32Z")
[Wikipedia itself claims:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wikipedia#Projects_and_landmarks)
> [@](#):
>
> In May 2005, Wikipedia became the most popular reference website on the Internet according to traffic monitoring company Hitwise, relegating [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) to second place.
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2009, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/4 "2009-01-13T12:33:58Z")
> [@cckerberos](#):
>
> [Wikipedia itself claims:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wikipedia#Projects_and_landmarks)
[Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) was first? There must have been a dearth of reference orientated websites!
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2009, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/5 "2009-01-13T12:40:01Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) was first? There must have been a dearth of reference orientated websites!
There were plenty of reference sites. Maybe just not as general as Wikipedia.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2009, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/6 "2009-01-13T21:29:40Z")
> [@](#):
>
> There were plenty of reference sites. Maybe just not as general as Wikipedia.
Right: Mathworld, for instance, is probably still a better resource for mathematical concepts than is Wikipedia, but most people need to look up definitions of words a lot more often than they need to look up explanations of mathematical concepts.
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### Author:  [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2009, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/7 "2009-01-13T22:01:09Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Right: Mathworld, for instance, is probably still a better resource for mathematical concepts than is Wikipedia, but most people need to look up definitions of words a lot more often than they need to look up explanations of mathematical concepts.
Judging from my mathematics students, I’d disagree, but I know what you mean. 😛
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/8 "2009-01-13T22:05:48Z")
Yeah, I dunno; on those rare cases where Wikipedia isn’t sufficient, I generally go to PlanetMath, but I can’t remember the last time I found something on MathWorld that wasn’t better explained on Wikipedia. But it may depend on what particular kinds of math one is looking at, and of course, there is a subjective aspect as well… so, whatever.
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### Author:  [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/9 "2009-01-14T00:03:24Z")
Interesting… so 2005 is about right. Kinda scary when you realise how recent that is. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2009, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/10 "2009-01-14T00:26:53Z")
I remember when [askjeeves.com](http://askjeeves.com) was the go-to site.
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### Author:  [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2009, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/11 "2009-01-14T01:34:54Z")
I thought Wikipedia really entered into it’s own when Google changed it’s ranking to put WP pages first. Or was that a result of it becoming more reliable?
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### Author:  [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/12 "2009-01-14T01:37:28Z")
> [@gaffa](#):
>
> I thought Wikipedia really entered into it’s own when Google changed it’s ranking to put WP pages first. Or was that a result of it becoming more reliable?
I believe Google ranks websites based on how many other websites link to that site. So Wiki sites became higher ranked when other people began to link to those articles.
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### Author:  [@Alex\_Dubinsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_Dubinsky)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2009, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/13 "2009-01-14T06:16:18Z")
2003 sounds about right
By 2005 it was very popular.
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### Author:  [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2009, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/14 "2009-01-14T15:17:05Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) was first? There must have been a dearth of reference orientated websites!
I feel so old, fielding a question on internet history. There were some great reference websites online in the late 90s, including print reference giants like Encyclopedia Brittanica and the Oxford English Dictionary. Most of these were subscription based (and they still are).
Professional researchers still use proprietary sites (like westlaw, proquest, etc.) because they offer more primary sources.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2009, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/15 "2009-01-14T15:28:10Z")
> [@anson2995](#):
>
> …Professional researchers still use proprietary sites (like westlaw, proquest, etc.) because they offer more primary sources.
And because their content can’t be changed by any pinhead who’s feeling ornery.
I check Wiki probably daily, on average, and it’s both fun and fascinating, but I would never rely upon it for academic or work purposes. It’s just too unreliable by its very nature.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2009, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-wikipedia-become-the-first-stop-for-information-online/481070/16 "2009-01-14T20:52:11Z")
Another point in favor of the proprietary sites is that with specialization comes better ways to organize the data. For instance, the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Data Service does synonym matching on searches, so a search for, say, “sun” will also return abstracts containing “solar” or words with the “helio-” root. A non-specialist site like Google Scholar can’t do that as easily, because they don’t know what all of the synonyms are in astronomical jargon. Google is quicker and easier to use, but when it really matters, I still get better results from sites like ADS.