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I was editing Wikipedia when all of a sudden, BAM! I got the multilingual error message. Wikipedia was experiencing technical difficulties.
But that was only the beginning of our story. The error message mentions the #wikipedia channel on irc.freenode.net, which is where users should go to get up-to-date status apparently (although they could go to this page to get it). As a regular on the IRC channel, I find this annoying. Here's why:
Instantly, the channel floods with people! Someone had the good idea to set the channel to +m (moderated, which means that users must be explicitly voiced by a channel operator to be able to talk). This helped for a little while, however after an hour or so the channel was 80% join and part messages. Our peak (confirmed) user count inside #wikipedia was 956, where normally we don't go much above 200. I was one of the 20 people with +o (operator) status, and it was hectic keeping the peace. Honestly, it was the first time I saw the #wikipedia channel at +m.
It was basically a time in which tension was mounting. The developers were rushing to contact the ISP (a power outage apparantly happened at the datacenter) and restore the database servers, etc. And people were yelling at each other. The channel stopped being about Wikipedia (although admittedly, it was rarely exactly about Wikipedia anyways) and the size of the channel became a novelty. People started counting users, and others started yelling at them for doing so.
People often joke about being addicted to Wikipedia, and yet some people were exhibiting near-withdrawal symptoms. After about 6 hours, Wikipedia was back and everyone heaved an enormous sigh. It was all just another day in writing for Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia written entirely by its users. Its parent company, the Wikimedia Foundation, is a non-for-profit entity and operates many other Wiki projects such as Wiktionary and WikiBooks. Donations can be made to the Wikimedia Foundation here.
UPDATE: An explaination straight from one of the developers is here.
