[Foundation-l] Why "Wikipedia" and not "the Wikipedia"?

[Samuel Klein]

Wikipedia does not take an article, nor does Wikimedia.

When combined with an adjective modifying the project name, or a
common noun modified by the name, the compound noun does take an
article.

"Wikimedia is a non-profit charitable corporation." is correct; so are
 "The English Wikipedia",  "the Wikipedia cabal", "the print Wikipedia
'Wikipedia:' namespace pages", and "the Wikimedia Foundation".

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/wikipedia-the-history-of-a-name/

SJ


ps - I am confused by the first sentence on wikimedia.org [what does
'Wikimedia' mean there?], and the footer of wikimediafoundation says
"About Wikimedia Foundation" -- missing an article.


On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Jim Redmond<jim at scrubnugget.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 10:37, Michael Snow <wikipedia at verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> There are some situations where you would use the definite article for
>> singular proper nouns, such as with some geographical names, or when the
>> name is actually a combination of common and proper nouns.
>
>
> I would also use the definite article if I were referring to a specific
> language's Wikipedia - "the English Wikipedia", "the Swahili Wikipedia", et
> al. - instead of to the Wikipedia project in general.
>
> As for referring to Wikimedia, in English one would say "the Wikimedia
> Foundation" since "Wikimedia" clarifies which foundation we're talking
> about.  If the name didn't use the word "foundation" - if it were "Wikimedia
> Earth" or "Wikimedia United" - then the definite article would not be
> necessary.
>
> --
> Jim Redmond
> jim at scrubnugget.com
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