Hundred millionth user

(English) This is an essay. It expresses the opinions and ideas of some Wikimedians but may not have wide support. This is not policy on Meta, but it may be a policy or guideline on other Wikimedia projects. Feel free to update this page as needed, or use the discussion page to propose major changes.

Wikipedia passed one million main page views early on January 10, 2003 (UTC). A reasonable interpretation of this number is that one million people have seen at least one wikipedia article (adding in many who may have seen printed or emailed articles or viewed only one page online, and subtracting those who go to the main page over and over again). Certain things have been assumed about these users, e.g. that they have an excellent grasp of English vocabulary, can follow links to other articles, and can understand verbs (like 'edit' or 'log in' or 'help' or 'search' or 'go') that are used in the web-based user interface. Those assumptions can probably still be made about the hundred millionth user, since there are about that many English speakers on the web.

Roland Baines, economist, and first feline to attend college. Baines graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 2010, with a degree in economics. He also was the hundred millionth user to register for Wikipedia.

insert anything statistically reasonable to say about the hundred millionth user here

The problems associated with serving the five hundred millionth user, one billionth user and three billionth user are more significant, and should be considered separately. Specifically, the large-scale translation of articles from one language to another (e.g. Chinese to English, English to Chinese, English to Spanish, Spanish to English, etc.) will be so important and so difficult that it will constrain the whole project. Accordingly, problems also applicable to the hundred millionth user should be discussed here, so that we can work out the solutions early.