研究生学位英语课文及翻译-Unit Three

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Who knows

1、There have been no shortage of/缺少/ insane/疯狂/, over ambitious/过于野心勃勃的/ ideas on the Internet. Most of them never make it further/更远的/ than the pub/酒吧/ they are conceived/想出/ in. Some generate hype/产生炒作，红火一时/ but quickly fall flat/完全失败/ on their face/栽了跟头/'. Others survive, but prove/证明/ to be minnows/小鱼 / rather than the giants/巨人/ they set out to be/动身去/. However, every so often, one sneaks/溜/ through/然而，偶有不动声色者却能顺利过关/.

2、Wikipedia is one of the rare/罕见/ ones that made it. Even by the admission of its founder, the 38-year-old technology entrepreneur/科技企业家/ Jimmy Wales, it was a "completely insane idea/疯狂透顶的想法/”: a free online encyclopedia/百科全书/ that anyone can contribute/贡献/ to and anyone can edit/任何人都可以添加内容并进行编辑/. There is no editor, no army of proofreaders/校对/ and fact checkers/也没有专人检查内容是否属实/; in fact, no full-time staff at all/没有专职人员/. It is, in other words, about as far from/远远地/ the traditional/传统的/ idea of an encyclopedia/百科全书/ as you can get.

3、There are dozens/几十，许多，一打/ of reasons why it shouldn't work/玩不转/, and it is sill far form/差得远/ perfect, but in less than/少于，不到/ four years, it has grown to have more than 1 million/100万/ entries/条目/ in 100 languages from Albanian to Zulu/阿尔巴尼亚祖鲁/.

4、To its fans/粉丝/, it is a fantastic/极好的/ research resource-albeit/尽管/ one that you should use with caution/谨慎，注意安全/; and an incredible/简直不可思议/ example of what can be achieved/实现/ by collaboration and cooperation/协作与合作/ over the Internet. To its detractors-mostly/大多批评者/ those from the traditional world of encyclopedias and librarianship/图书管理学界/, it is barely worthy of the label/称谓/ "encyclopedia".*

5、To put Wikipedia's achievements/成果/ in numerical context/数值语境/, at the same time it was celebrating the publishing/出版/ of its one millionth entry/第100万个词条发布之际/ in less than four years, the Oxford/牛津/ Dictionary of National Biography/传记，档案/launched its latest edition/推出其最新版本/. It had taken 12 years to complete, yet contained a comparatively/比较的，相当的/ tiddly/微不足道的/ 55,000 biographies/传记/. It also cost some 25m/2500万英镑/ to create. Wikipedia has so far been bankrolled/资助/ by Wales, but the total cost so far is still around f300, 000/30万英镑/.

6、The current/最近的，最新的/ Encyclopedia Britannica/大英百科全书/ has 44m words/4400万字/ of text. Wikipedia already has more than 250m/2.5亿/ words in it. Britannica's most recent edition/最新版本/ has 65,000 entries in print and 75,000 entries online. Wikipedia's English site/英文网站/ has some 360,000 entries and is growing every day.

7、But numbers mean nothing if the quality is no good. And this is where the arguments start./争论的起因/

8、"Theoretically/理论上说/, it's a lovely idea/不错的想法/," says librarian/图书管理员/ and Internet consultant/互联网顾问/ Philip Bradley, "but practically/实际上/, I wouldn’t use it; and I’m not aware of a single librarian who would/我觉得任何图书管理员都不会使用这个网站/. The main problem is the lack of authority/权威性/. With printed publications/对于印刷出版物来说/, the publishers have to ensure that their data is reliable/可靠地/, as their livelihood/生计，饭碗/ depends on it. But with something like this, all that goes out the window./过一阵就完了/"

9、Wales responds/回应/ by acknowledging/承认/ that Wikipedia's model leaves it anything but error free/维基百科模式所带来的结果决不会没有错误/ (something they make clear on the site) but he also points to an article in a German technology magazine this month, which compares Wikipedia with two established/已建立的/, traditional digital/数字/ encyclopedias: Brockhaus and Microsoft's/微软的/ Encarta. All three were tested on breadth, depth, and comprehensibility/广度，深度，和可理解性/ of content/内容/, ease of searching, and quality of multimedia content./多媒体


内容/ Wikipedia won hands down/轻松胜出/.

10、Dan Gillmor, the Silicon Valley commentator/硅谷评论员/ and author of We the Media/我们媒体/, is one of many independent fans/自由迷/:”I don’t think anyone is saying Wikipedia is an absolute replacement/绝对替代品/ for a traditional encyclopedia. But in the topics I know something about/但是就我所了解的题目而言/, I’ve found Wikipedia to be as accurate/准确的/ as any other source I’ve found”

11、The truth is that Wikipedia is continuously evolving/不断的发展/. There are now around 3,000 new entries being added each day (about 700-800 of which are in English); and as the site has got bigger/规模扩大/, so has the amount of editing that takes place/发生/ on it. In September this year, there was an average/平均/ of 11 edits per article. The entry on the Israel-Palestinian conflict/巴以冲突/ has been edited more than 250 times this year alone.

12、The truth is that Wikipedia reveals/揭示了/ what is normally hidden/鲜为人知，通常隐藏/ in an encyclopedia: the countless/无数的/ decisions that lie/位于/ behind each entry. The only difference is that in Wikipedia, the decision-making never stops and the debates/辩论/ are often robust/精力充沛的，激烈的/ to say the least.

13、Wales says an entry in his encyclopedia is "like a sausage/香肠/: you might like the taste of it, but you don't necessarily want to see how it's made".

14、It might seem like anarchy/无政府状态/. And, given/鉴于/ the lack of central control/中央控制/, it technically is/严格说来，它确实处于无政府状态/. However, there are three elements/因素/ that make it work.

15、The first is its ownership/所有权/, and lack of commercial imperative/没有商业需求的压力/. The site is manned/操控/" by volunteers, and now owned by a foundation/基金会/, which means people willingly give their time and intellectual property/知识财产/ to the venture/事业/. It manages to run on less than $100,000/10万美元/ a year.

17、The third-and perhaps most critical/最重要的/-has been the evolution /形成/of an incredibly intricate/令人难以置信的错综复杂/ and democratic/民主/ social order/社会秩序/ to keep this vast sprawling/庞大而复杂/ project in order.

18、There are hundreds of thousands of "Wikipedians" who have contributed/贡献/ or edited articles. But the core/核心/ community, according to Wales, is about 200 people who, by now, know each other quite well. Outside this inner-inner circle/内圈/ is a core of about 2,000 people who make more than 100 edits each in the last month. Beyond this/在这个核心之外/, you have around 10,000 people who will have made more than five edits. There are administrators/管理员/, bureaucrats/政府官员/, stewards/行政人员/ and developers/开发人员/ all with different levels of technical and administrative authority./管理权限/

19、This entire order/整个体系/ is all there for everyone to see online. Policies and strategies/编辑方针及策略/ are posted online, discussed and voted on/投票和讨论/. While the content/内容/ develops automatically/自动/ and anarchically/无序/, nothing happens to the social structure/社会结构，构成/ of Wikipedia without the consent/准许，应允/ of the core community.

20、Wales and his community of volunteers are not resting/静止不动的/ on their laurels/桂冠/. He is in negotiations/协商/ to print part of the content, and distribute it in Africa as part of their ambition/抱负，夙愿，追求的目标/ to "put a free encyclopedia in the hands of every person on the planet/每个地球人/". Insane and overambitious? Definitely./疯狂透顶吗？野心勃勃吗？绝对是/ But after everything they have achieved in the last three-and-a-half years, you would be equally insane/同样疯狂/ to bet/打赌/ against/反对/ them.

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