Wikipedia hit a symbolic milestone recently, with their claim of having reached 2 million english articles this week. These articles have been generated by an incredible amount of people contributing, in a sort of critical mass state:
Since the reference project started in 2001, more than 100,000 registered users have made at least 10 edits each to Wikipedia articles, according to the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit charitable organization that operates Wikipedia.
While it doesn't earn them a medal, it does show how increasingly popular the site has become and how powerful user-driven content can be. Even though they have faced much criticism over the past few years, the founders and supporters have committed to making the site more trustworthy, and even third parties have been looking to help keep the site in check. All of that and more has led to the site being one of the most popular sites on the Internet.
As the site has increasingly become used as a reference point for people doing research, third parties have gotten involved to help the site be more accurate. Last year, in fact, an independent study found overall that "experts" versus laymen found the site to be credible. While obviously there are still huge margins of error and inaccuracies exist, the Wikipedia project has done a great thing - and I hope the site continues to grow.