Hi, everyone.

I'm working with Steven Walling and the WikiX team to help get ready for the coming celebrations. As you know, Wikipedia’s 10-year birthday is coming up really soon! We’ve got scores of events planned—at least two on every continent so far[1]—and we’re hoping for more. Now, we just need to make sure the rest of the world knows about this amazing milestone, too.

Most people outside of the community don’t fully realize we’re a mission-driven, non-profit movement run by real, everyday people. Often, Wikipedia is thought to be a static product or service, not a living, breathing community of people, from all walks of life, who care about providing a free public service to the world.  We want the rest of the world to know and understand us as a people-driven movement, appreciate what we’re doing and --most importantly-- join us.  To help, we're asking volunteers [2]  passionate about Wikipedia to take a few minutes to write a bit about what it means to be a Wikipedian.  Telling your own story about your personal connection to Wikipedia is about being proud of the time you’ve spent working on an international pubic resource and vital necessity to over 400 million people all over the world. It’s about thanking the thousands of people who work alongside you to keep this amazing project going.

In addition, we're compiling information about Wikipedia in the form of a historical timeline [3] , curating interesting data in the form of top 10 lists [4][5] and searching for long-time Wikipedians who might also be celebrating their 10th birthday as editors [6].  If you have anything to add [7], please share!

As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, let us know.

Cheers,

Moka Pantages Wikimedia Foundation Communications

[1] http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Communications_Kit [2] http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Stories [3] http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_timeline [4] http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_by_the_numbers [5] http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%27s_Top_Ten [6] http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedians_celebrating_their_tenth_WikiBirthd... [7] http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share#Wikipedians_celebrating_their_tenth_Wiki...