(This press release is also available online here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Commons_celeb…
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Wikimedia Commons celebrates its 10th anniversary
- *22 million+ images make Wikimedia Commons world’s largest freely
licensed educational media repository.*
(San Francisco, USA) September 5, 2014 -- This Sunday marks the 10th
anniversary of Wikimedia Commons
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page>. Its creation was officially
announced on September 7, 2004.
More than 22 million media files have been uploaded by the Wikimedia
volunteer community over the decade since Commons came into being. The
Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to have a dedicated community of
creators and institutions who continue to share their images and other
media so that the project has flourished and will continue to thrive.
Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Lila Tretikov said: “Many people
don’t know that the incredible, freely-licensed images that illustrate
Wikipedia are curated and maintained by the volunteer community of
Wikimedia Commons editors. Wikimedia Commons is the visual engine of the
Wikimedia projects, and we look forward to its next decade of
contributions, collaboration, and sharing.”
In the past ten years, creators have contributed to Commons in a variety of
ways, including the annual Wiki Loves Monuments contest, which is currently
inviting submissions through the end of September. The Guinness Book of
World Records named Wiki Loves Monuments the largest photo contest in the
world, and it has inspired more 900,000 image uploads since 2010.
On this occasion we also celebrate the partnerships with dozens of cultural
institutions (GLAM) from around the world that have donated portions of
their collections. Their contributions have allowed Wikimedia Commons to
become a vital resource for educational and historical content, and ensured
the increasing depth and richness of the illustrations for articles on
Wikipedia.
The Foundation recognizes the vibrant Wikimedia Commons community, which is
responsible for increasing the availability of freely licensed images and
information to the public. The Commons community takes its role as a
guardian of the rights of creators extremely seriously, working diligently
to confirm authorship and licensing status of the media uploaded to
Commons. This work is reflected in the low number of DMCA takedown requests
received by the Wikimedia Foundation every year.
Erik Moeller, then a volunteer Wikimedian, first proposed the Commons in
March 2004 as a common repository for the images that Wikipedians had begun
uploading to illustrate the free online encyclopedia’s growing collection
of articles. Today, Moeller is the Wikimedia Foundation’s Deputy Director
and VP of Engineering, and Commons is the world’s largest repository of
freely licensed educational media on the internet.
“The Wikimedia Commons community is the reason these freely-licensed images
exist for everyone to enjoy." said Moeller. “Our next steps are to prepare
Wikimedia Commons for the future, including support for rich, structured
metadata; a massively improved user experience for uploading media; better
tools for editing media content through the web; and better support for
video. The first decade was just the beginning.”
The Foundation is thrilled to be celebrating these and many more
achievements of the project’s first decade.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
https://wikimediafoundation.org
https://blog.wikimedia.org/
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive 413 million unique visitors per month, making them the fifth-most
popular web property world-wide (comScore, July 2014). Available in 287
languages, Wikipedia contains more than 32 million articles contributed by
a global volunteer community of roughly 80,000 people. Based in San
Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3)
charity that is funded primarily through donations and grants.
Wikimedia Foundation Press Contact:
Communications, Wikimedia Foundation
+1 415-839-6885 ext 6633kmaher[image: @]wikimedia.org
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