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

Area 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.[1][2] This community directly builds and administers these projects[3] with the commitment of achieving this using open standards and software.[4]

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.

## Contents

* 1 Projects
* 1.1 Content projects
* 1.2 Infrastructure and interface projects
* 2 Organizations
* 2.1 Project communities
* 2.1.1 Meta community
* 2.1.2 Wikipedia community
* 2.1.3 Wikipedians in residence
* 2.2 Thematic organizations
* 2.3 Wikimedia chapters
* 2.4 Wikimedia Foundation
* 2.5 Wikimedia user groups
* 3 References
* 4 External links

## Projects

### Content projects

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

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

### Project communities

The Wikimedia community includes a number of communities devoted to single wikis:

#### Meta community

A multilingual cross-project community developed on the Meta-Wiki (meta.wikimedia.org) where translation and governance discussions happen.

#### Wikipedia community

Main article: Organization: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.[5]

#### Wikipedians in residence

Wikipedians in residence are Wikipedians and Wikimedians who collaborate with a cultural institution to help integrate its work into the projects.

### Thematic organizations

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.[6][7][8] 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.[9][10]

### 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.[6]

### Wikimedia Foundation

Main article: Organization: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

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

1. ↑ 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."
2. ↑ Maher, Katherine (2020-10-15), "22 Capstone: Making History, Building the Future Together" (in en), ::Wikipedia @ 20 (PubPub), ISBN 978-0-262-53817-6, https://wikipedia20.pubpub.org/pub/4d61w771/release/2, retrieved 2021-09-06
3. ↑ Kosseff, Jeff (April 15, 2019). The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet. Cornell University Press. ISBN 9781501735790. https://books.google.com/books?id=faZzDwAAQBAJ&dq="wikimedia"&pg=PT193. Retrieved March 20, 2023.
4. ↑ Proffitt, Merrilee (April 2, 2018). Leveraging Wikipedia: Connecting Communities of Knowledge. American Library Association. p. 13. ISBN 9780838916322. https://books.google.com/books?id=hYZ8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA13.
5. ↑ Cohen, Noam (June 7, 2009). "The Wars of Words on Wikipedia's Outskirts". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/technology/internet/08link.html.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Template:APG navigation". https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:AGP_navigation.
7. ↑ "Wikimedia movement affiliates/Frequently asked questions". https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_movement_affiliates/Frequently_asked_questions#What_are_Wikimedia_thematic_organizations.3F.
8. ↑ "Wikimedia thematic organizations". https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_thematic_organizations#existing.
9. ↑ Roscoe ·, Jules (10 March 2025). "Photographers Are on a Mission to Fix Wikipedia's Famously Bad Celebrity Portraits" (in en). 404 Media. https://www.404media.co/photographers-are-on-a-mission-to-fix-wikipedias-famously-bad-celebrity-portraits/.
10. ↑ Fraser, Graham (29 March 2025). "The amateur photographers fixing Wikipedia's 'terrible' pictures". BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqly43k3d45o.
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Wikimedia chapters". https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters.
12. ↑ "Wikimedia chapters/Creation guide – Meta". https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Creation_guide.
13. ↑ "Jahresplan 2016 – Wikimedia Deutschland" (in de). 2015-11-28. https://wikimedia.de/wiki/Jahresplan_2016.
14. ↑ "GuideStar – WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION, INC.". https://www.guidestar.org/profile/20-0049703.
15. ↑ "WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION, INC. Financial Statements, June 30, 2015 and 2014". https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/0/0b/Audit_Report_-_FY_14-15_-_Final.PDF.
16. ↑ "Frequently Asked Questions". https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/en#How_is_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_funded.3F.
17. ↑ Jimmy Wales (June 20, 2003). "Announcing Wikimedia Foundation". mail:wikipedia-l. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-June/010743.html.
18. ↑ Neate, Rupert (October 7, 2008). "Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales goes bananas". The Daily Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/3399843/Wikipedia-founder-Jimmy-Wales-goes-bananas.html. "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."
19. ↑ "Bylaws". Wikimedia Foundation. https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#ARTICLE_II_-_STATEMENT_OF_PURPOSE.
20. ↑ "WikiProjects – Meta" (in en). https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiProjects.
21. ↑ "Wikimedia user groups – Meta". Archived from the original on April 13, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230413164654/https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups.

## External links

* Wikimedia home page
* Wikimedia movement structure description at Meta-Wiki

* v
* t
* e

Wikimedia Foundation

People|

| Current|

* Aaron Halfaker
* James Heilman
* Dariusz Jemielniak
* Katherine Maher
* Jimmy Wales

|

Past|

* Hampton Catlin
* Danese Cooper
* Bishakha Datta
* Florence Devouard
* Oscar van Dillen
* Sue Gardner
* Arnnon Geshuri
* Mike Godwin
* Guy Kawasaki
* Erik Möller
* Lila Tretikov
* Luis Villa
* Patricio Lorente

Content projects|

* Wikipedia
* List of Wikipedias
* Wiktionary
* List of Wiktionaries
* Wikimedia Commons
* Wikidata
* Wikiquote
* Wikibooks
* Wikisource
* Wikispecies
* Wikinews
* Wikiversity
* Wikivoyage

Other|

* Wikimedia movement
* List of Wikimedia chapters
* Wikimania
* Wiki Indaba
* MediaWiki
* Litigation
* Wikimedia v. NSA
* Knowledge Engine

Related|

* The Signpost
* Wikipedia Monument

* v
* t
* e

Wikipedia

Overview
(Outline)|

* Censorship
* Conflict-of-interest editing
* Criticism
* gender bias
* ideological bias
* racial bias
* Deletionism and inclusionism
* MediaWiki
* Notability
* Reliability
* Vandalism
* Predictions of the project's end

Community|

* Administrators
* AfroCrowd
* Arbitration Committee
* Citation needed
* Edit-a-thon
* "Ignore all rules" policy
* List of Wikipedias
* The Signpost
* Wikipedian in residence
* WikiConference North America
* Wikimania
* WikiProject
* Women in Red

People|

* Florence Devouard
* Sue Gardner
* James Heilman
* Katherine Maher
* Magnus Manske
* Erik Möller
* Ira Brad Matetsky
* Larry Sanger
* María Sefidari
* Lila Tretikov
* Jimmy Wales
* Wikipedians
* Wikimedian of the Year

History|

* Bomis
* Logo
* Controversies
* U.S. Congressional staff edits
* Essjay controversy
* Seigenthaler biography incident
* Henryk Batuta hoax
* Jar'Edo Wens hoax
* Internet Watch Foundation
* Scientology
* Italian Wikipedia blackout
* English Wikipedia blackout
* Hillsborough Wikipedia posts
* MyWikiBiz
* Lsjbot
* VisualEditor
* Art+Feminism
* #1Lib1Ref

Honors|

* 2008 Quadriga award
* Wikipedia Monument
* 2015 Erasmus Prize
* 2015 Princess of Asturias Award

References
and analysis|

* Cultural
* Bibliography
* Films
* Academic studies
* Listen to Wikipedia
* Wiki-Watch
* Wikipediocracy
* WikiScanner
* Wikipedia Review

Mobile access|

* Apps
* QRpedia
* Wapedia
* WikiNodes
* Wikipedia Zero
* Wikiwand

Content use|

* Books LLC
* Boundless (company)
* DBpedia
* Deletionpedia
* Kiwix
* WikiReader
* Science information
* Health information

Similar projects|

* Interpedia
* Nupedia
* Citizendium
* Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español
* Everipedia
* Veropedia
* List of online encyclopedias
* List of wikis

Related|

* Wikimedia Foundation
* Wikimedia movement
* The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs
* Print Wikipedia
* Magna Carta (An Embroidery)
* 274301 Wikipedia
* Viola wikipedia

* List
* Category

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