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Group of global contributors to Wikimedia projects
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Wikimedia movement
Wikimania 2024
group photograph
Type
Informal organization
of individual contributors, chapters, user groups and thematic organizations
Focus
Free,
open-content
wiki
-based Internet projects
Region served
Worldwide
Services
Authoring and editing
Wikipedia
Wikibooks
Wikidata
Wikimedia Commons
Wikinews
Wikiquote
Wikisource
Wikispecies
Wikiversity
Wikivoyage
Wikifunctions
and
Wiktionary
Developing
MediaWiki
software
Website
wikimedia
.org
The
Wikimedia movement
is the global community of contributors to the
Wikimedia projects
, including
Wikipedia
This community directly builds and administers these projects
with the commitment of achieving this using
open standards
and
software
First created around and by
Wikipedia's community
of volunteer editors (Wikipedians), it has since expanded to other projects like
Wikimedia Commons
and
Wikidata
and volunteer software engineers and developers contributing to the software used to power Wikimedia,
MediaWiki
Projects
edit
Further information:
Wikimedia Foundation § Projects and initiatives
Content projects
edit
As of 2023,
[update]
Wikimedia's content projects include:
Wikipedia
– an online encyclopedia
Meta-Wiki
– a Wikimedia wiki project idea discussion and coordination location
Wikibooks
– a repository for educational textbooks
Wikidata
– a shared repository of structured data, accessible by the other projects
Wikifunctions
– a catalog of functions and source code. It is designed to support Abstract Wikipedia, a language-independent version of Wikipedia using structured data.
Wikimedia Commons
– a shared repository of free-to-use media like images, videos and sounds, accessible by the other projects
Wikinews
– a repository for news articles
Wikiquote
– a collection of quotations
Wikisource
– a library of source texts and documents
Wikispecies
– a taxonomic catalogue of species
Wikiversity
– a repository of educational materials
Wikivoyage
– a travel guide
Wiktionary
– a dictionary
Infrastructure and interface projects
edit
Other supporting projects in the Wikimedia movement include:
Kiwix
– a community project for offline access to the content projects
MediaWiki
– the open source platform for the projects
Toolforge
– a community space for hosting software projects that need access to the cluster
Volunteer Response Team
– community handling email inquiries
Wikimedia cloud services
– a space for shared cloud computing, built on
OpenStack
Wikitech
– a community of developers with a wiki and mailing list
Organizations
edit
Project communities
edit
The Wikimedia community includes a number of communities devoted to single wikis:
Meta community
edit
A multilingual cross-project community developed on the
Meta-Wiki
meta.wikimedia.org
) where translation and governance discussions happen.
Wikipedia community
edit
Main article:
Wikipedia community
The Wikipedia community, known as
Wikipedians
, is the community of contributors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. It consists of editors, some operating
Wikipedia bots
, and
administrators
. The
Arbitration Committee
(or ArbCom) is a court of last resort for disputes on Wikipedia.
Wikipedians in residence
edit
Wikipedians in residence
are Wikipedians and Wikimedians who collaborate with a cultural institution to help integrate its work into the projects.
Thematic organizations
edit
Thematic organizations are charities, similar to chapters, founded to support Wikimedia projects in a subject focal area. As of 2021
[update]
there are two such organizations.
WikiPortraits, started in 2024, is a group of photographers, funded by the WMF, working to improve Wikipedia's access to freely-licensed photos of notable people.
10
Wikimedia chapters
edit
See also:
List of Wikimedia chapters
Wikimedia chapters (blue)
Wikimedia user groups with a geographic focus (green)
National and regional community groups have incorporated chapters, charitable organizations that support Wikimedia projects and their participants in specified countries and geographical regions. As of 2021
[update]
there are 39 chapters.
11
Over time the agreements between chapters and WMF became more formalized.
12
Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE) is the oldest chapter, holding its first meeting in 2004. As of 2016, it had a budget of €20 million.
11
13
Some chapters such as WMDE get some of their funds directly from grants and supporting memberships. Some others get their funds primarily from annual plan grants from WMF. As of 2019, roughly 10% of the WMF budget is distributed in this way to chapters and thematic organizations.
Wikimedia Foundation
edit
Main article:
Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is an American non-profit and charitable organization headquartered in
San Francisco
. It owns the
domain names
and maintains most of the movement's websites.
14
According to WMF's 2015 financial statements, in 2015 WMF had a budget of US$72 million, spending US$52 million on its operation, and increasing its reserves to US$82 million.
15
WMF is primarily funded by donations with the average donation being $15.
16
WMF was founded in 2003 by
Jimmy Wales
so that there would be an independent charitable entity responsible for the domains and trademarks, and so that Wikipedia and its sister projects could be funded through non-profit means in the future. Its purpose was "... to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."
17
18
19
Wikimedia user groups
edit
There are over 800 language editions of different Wikimedia projects, each with groups of editors working on areas of shared interest. Some have Wikiprojects
20
with their own project pages, membership lists, and open task trackers. Some also register as community user groups to participate in movement governance, use community logos outside of the wikis, and receive grants for events and projects. As of 2023
[update]
, there are over 140 user groups.
21
References
edit
Koerner, Jackie; Reagle, Joseph (October 13, 2020).
Wikipedia @ 20: Stories of an Incomplete Revolution
MIT Press
. p. 273.
ISBN
9780262360609
The Wikimedia movement has always been a movement of writers (and curators) rather than readers.
Maher, Katherine (2020-10-15),
"22 Capstone: Making History, Building the Future Together"
::Wikipedia @ 20
, PubPub,
ISBN
978-0-262-53817-6
archived
from the original on 2021-10-16
, retrieved
2021-09-06
{{
citation
}}
: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (
link
Kosseff, Jeff (April 15, 2019).
The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet
Cornell University Press
ISBN
9781501735790
Archived
from the original on April 29, 2023
. Retrieved
March 20,
2023
Proffitt, Merrilee (April 2, 2018).
Leveraging Wikipedia: Connecting Communities of Knowledge
American Library Association
. p. 13.
ISBN
9780838916322
Cohen, Noam (June 7, 2009).
"The Wars of Words on Wikipedia's Outskirts"
The New York Times
Archived
from the original on March 28, 2014
. Retrieved
June 9,
2009
"Template:APG navigation"
Meta-Wiki
Archived
from the original on 2016-08-07
. Retrieved
2016-09-24
"Wikimedia movement affiliates/Frequently asked questions"
Meta-Wiki
Archived
from the original on 2015-12-08
. Retrieved
2016-09-24
"Wikimedia thematic organizations"
Meta-Wiki
Archived
from the original on 2020-08-13
. Retrieved
2021-08-25
Roscoe ·, Jules (10 March 2025).
"Photographers Are on a Mission to Fix Wikipedia's Famously Bad Celebrity Portraits"
404 Media
. Retrieved
10 July
2025
Fraser, Graham (29 March 2025).
"The amateur photographers fixing Wikipedia's 'terrible' pictures"
BBC
. Retrieved
10 July
2025
"Wikimedia chapters"
Meta-Wiki
Archived
from the original on 2016-09-17
. Retrieved
2016-09-24
"Wikimedia chapters/Creation guide – Meta"
Meta.wikimedia.org
Archived
from the original on 2016-11-30
. Retrieved
2016-09-24
"Jahresplan 2016 – Wikimedia Deutschland"
Wikimedia.de
(in German). 2015-11-28. Archived from
the original
on 2019-07-05
. Retrieved
2016-09-24
"GuideStar – WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION, INC"
Archived
from the original on 2021-01-21
. Retrieved
2020-02-11
"WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION, INC. Financial Statements, June 30, 2015 and 2014"
(PDF)
Upload.wikimedia.org
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on January 12, 2016
. Retrieved
April 20,
2016
"Frequently Asked Questions"
WikiMedia Foundation
Archived
from the original on 22 November 2013
. Retrieved
23 September
2017
Jimmy Wales
(June 20, 2003).
"Announcing Wikimedia Foundation"
mail:wikipedia-l
Archived
from the original on March 30, 2013
. Retrieved
November 26,
2012
Neate, Rupert (October 7, 2008).
"Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales goes bananas"
The Daily Telegraph
Archived
from the original on November 10, 2008
. Retrieved
October 25,
2009
The encyclopedia's huge fan base became such a drain on Bomis's resources that Mr. Wales, and co-founder Larry Sanger, thought of a radical new funding model – charity.
"Bylaws"
. Wikimedia Foundation.
Archived
from the original on 2017-02-25
. Retrieved
2016-09-24
"WikiProjects – Meta"
meta.wikimedia.org
Archived
from the original on 2021-08-14
. Retrieved
2021-09-06
"Wikimedia user groups – Meta"
Meta-Wiki
. Archived from
the original
on April 13, 2023
. Retrieved
May 3,
2023
External links
edit
Wikimedia home page
Wikimedia movement structure
description at Meta-Wiki
Wikimedia Foundation
People
Projects
Wikipedia community (Wikipedians)
Current
Bernadette Meehan
Lisa Seitz-Gruwell
Dariusz Jemielniak
Rebecca MacKinnon
Raju Narisetti
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Esra'a Al Shafei
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