Wikipedia is back up for the masses after suffering a major service outage earlier this morning.
The online encyclopedia had previously confirmed multiple disruptions affecting its https services, mail, payments, Ubuntu mirror and Wikimedia blog.
A Wikimedia spokesperson attributed the down time to two accidentally cut cables in close proximity to a Florida data center, but adamantly ruled out any malicious intent to force the online encyclopedia off the ‘Net.
“Someone cut the cables going to the Tampa, Florida data centre. We have two big [centers], one in Florida and one in Virginia, and some network proxies in Amsterdam. Everyone in that data centre was affected,” Wikimedia foundation spokesperson David Gerard told the UK-based BBC.
“Things appear to have been patched up, services are being brought back and things are getting to OK now.”
Wikipedia last went “offline” in January when the site intentionally went dark for one day as part of global protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA).
Launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, Wikipedia is a free, collaboratively edited, and multilingual Internet encyclopedia supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Over 22 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world in 285 languages, with the site registering over 100,000 regularly active contributors.
