Hi everyone,

We’re excited to share some new updates on plans for Wikipedia’s 15th birthday.

TL;DR: We’ve designed a mark, Wikipedia 15, to be used, remixed, and built on by the community as we celebrate Wikipedia’s 15th birthday.

Wikipedia 15 is a design concept offered to help Wikimedians across the globe celebrate Wikipedia’s 15th birthday. But it’s not just about celebrating Wikipedia. It’s about celebrating the birth of an idea, an idea that helped shape the free and open knowledge movement. In the fifteen years Wikipedia has existed, we've all come together to create something worth celebrating, something worth protecting, and even something worth arguing about. Wikipedia is a living, breathing collection of the people’s knowledge. Every day we build it, every day we protect it, and every day we enjoy it. We use it in every part of our daily lives. From looking up something we're curious about, to winning an argument, to settling a bar bet, to cramming for a test, to planning a trip, to learning a new skill. Wikipedia is a cherished public trust. It's part of how we live now. 28% of the planet has never known a world without Wikipedia.

Let's take this year to celebrate not just the fundamental ways Wikipedia has changed how we learn, but also the small, joyous ways it's enriched our lives. Knowledge is joy!

This year's mark is meant to be fun. And lighthearted. It can move! Or it can be still. You can make it what you want to be. You can add objects that are meaningful to you and where you live and what you do. You can use objects to tell a story of what Wikipedia means to you.

How to use the Wikipedia 15 mark

The mark consists of two basic elements:

-

an image/or animated group of images -

text below

Other than keeping things in that order, you can reuse, remix, and enjoy the mark in a variety of ways.

How to localize

We've provided a core set of 27 images https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Material, but we hope you add your own and mix them in. You can use this in any graphics editing program, including Inkscape https://inkscape.org/, which is free and open source. You can add multiple images and make an animated GIF https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIF! The words “Wikipedia 15” can be replaced with any localized example in any language. The typeface we used is OpenSans, free from Google Fonts and freely licensed under version 2.0 of the Apache License https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html.

Taking the Wikipedia 15 mark further

The Wikipedia 15 mark can be used to produce celebratory merchandise, identify special web pages or other digital content, make posters or banners, name tags, birthday cakes, and much more. The designers developed this sample guide (below) to show some of the possible uses of the marks. Be creative and share your concepts and ideas in the gallery on the Wikipedia 15 meta page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Material.

Please make them to share! But please do not use the name "Wikipedia" to sell any items, or for other uses without checking the trademark policy https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Trademark_policy.

The 27 images and guidelines for using the mark can be found under the material section https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Material of the Wikipedia 15 meta page. A huge thank you to our design team, Mule http://muledesign.com/, who helped design and develop this fun and inspiring creation. We can’t wait to see how you and your Wikimedia community use this mark!

Please feel free to direct any questions to Sam Lien (slien@wikimedia.org) and Joe Sutherland (jsutherland@wikimedia.org).

All the best,

Sam and Joe

(of the WMF Communications Team)

On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 3:25 PM, Katherine Maher kmaher@wikimedia.org wrote:

Hello everyone,

**Wikipedia’s 15th birthday is coming. We want to celebrate with you. Read this whole email for more information about resources and plans, and join us on the Meta page to participate and coordinate: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15**

As many of you know, the first Wikipedia was created January 15, 2001. That means that the idea of our movement is nearly 15 years old! After the celebration of Wikipedia’s 10th birthday http://ten.wikipedia.org/ five years back, we’re eager to coordinate celebrating this upcoming milestone with you on January 15, 2016.

Wikipedia’s 10th birthday https://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page resulted in 470 events across 113 countries, providing our global community with an opportunity to gather, share stories, and bake many, many cakes https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_10_cakes.

As a way to kickstart planning around the 15th, there is a page on Meta for Wikipedia 15 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15 (thanks to User:Pharos and User:JSutherland (WMF)) for coordination. Eventually, we plan for the page will have resources including:

Resources plan events and meetups locally to celebrate the 15th. 2.

More information on sharing birthday photos, videos, stories, Wikipedia content, and other media. 3.

Tips for pitching to local media to cover your event.

Many of the sections on the meta page are blank for now, but we’ll be working with you to add more information to the page over the next few months leading up to the birthday celebration in January. Please feel free to add, edit, and discuss what you’d like to see for Wikipedia’s 15th birthday!

We look forward to working with you to celebrate Wikipedia’s 15th!

-The Wikimedia Foundation Communications team

If you have any questions, please feel free to send an email to Joe Sutherland (jsutherland@wikimedia.org) and Sam Lien (slien@wikimedia.org).

-- Katherine Maher Chief Communications Officer Wikimedia Foundation 149 New Montgomery Street San Francisco, CA 94105

+1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6635 +1 (415) 712 4873 kmaher@wikimedia.org

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