This press release is also available online here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikipedia_celebrates_15…
And as a blog post here:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/14/wikipedia-15-foundation-endowment/
For more information, see our commemorative website:
https://15.wikipedia.org/
Wikipedia celebrates 15 years of free knowledge
Community celebrates Wikipedia and sister projects with nearly 150
events on six continents
Wikimedia Foundation announces endowment to sustain Wikipedia for the future
San Francisco, CA. January 14, 2016 -- This Friday marks the 15th
anniversary of Wikipedia <https://www.wikipedia.org/>, the world’s free
encyclopedia that anyone can edit. This week, we celebrate not just
Wikipedia, but the birth of an idea: that anyone can contribute to the
world’s knowledge. Globally, readers and editors are coming together to
celebrate, with nearly 150 events across six continents. From editing
marathons
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Events/Bangladesh>in
Bangladesh and lectures
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Events/Lugano,_Switzerland>in
Switzerland, to picnics
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Events/South_Africa>in
South Africa and a conference
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Events/Mexico_City>in
Mexico, the world is celebrating the joy of knowledge
<https://15.wikipedia.org/>.
As part of this milestone, the Wikimedia Foundation is pleased to
announce the Wikimedia Endowment
<https://15.wikipedia.org/endowment.html>, a permanent source of funding
to ensure Wikipedia thrives for generations to come. The Wikimedia
Endowment will empower people around the world to create and contribute
free knowledge, and share that knowledge with every single human being.
Our goal is to raise $100 million over the next 10 years. The Endowment
has been established, with an initial contribution by the Wikimedia
Foundation, as a Collective Action Fund at the Tides Foundation
<https://www.tides.org/>.
Wikipedia launched on January 15, 2001 with a bold vision: a world in
which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all
knowledge.At the time, the idea that people around the world would
collaborate to build an encyclopedia—for free—seemed unbelievable. Since
then, Wikipedia has grown to more than 36 million articles in hundreds
of languages, used by hundreds of millions of people all over the world.
Wikipedia and its sister projects are still built by volunteers around
the world: each month, roughly 80,000 volunteer editors contribute to
Wikimedia sites.
"Wikipedia challenged us to rethink how knowledge can be gathered and
shared." said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, "Knowledge is no longer
handed down from on high, instead it is freely shared by everyone
online. Wikipedia seemed like an impossible idea at the time—an online
encyclopaedia that everyone can edit. However, it has surpassed
everyone's expectations over the past 15 years, thanks to the hundreds
of thousands of volunteers around the world who have made Wikipedia
possible."
We're celebrating Wikipedia's global community with a commemorative
website <https://15.wikipedia.org>and week-long campaign, collecting and
sharing the stories of individuals and organizations that have helped
develop Wikipedia into the world's largest collection of collaboratively
created free knowledge. These stories show the truly global nature of
the Wikimedia community: from Ziyad Alsufyani
<https://15.wikipedia.org/people/ziyad-alsufyani.html>, a medical
student at Taif University in Ta’if, Saudi Arabia who has been editing
the Arabic Wikipedia <https://ar.wikipedia.org/>since 2009, to Susanna
Mkrtchyan <https://15.wikipedia.org/people/susanna-mkrtchyan.html>, a
professor and devoted grandmother working to giveArmenian students
better educational opportunities. We will continue to collect stories
throughout the month of January.
Today, we celebrate all of the projects, partnerships, events, and joy
the Wikimedia movement has inspired over the past 15 years, with many
still to come. Wikipedia is much more than a website. Wikipedia and its
sister Wikimedia projects represent a global, ever-expanding resource
and community for free knowledge. Here are just a few examples:
*
Wikipedia started in January 2001 in English, but soon expanded to
other languages—within the first year, it grew to 18 languages.
Today, it is available in nearly 300.
*
Volunteers constantly edit and improve Wikipedia. Every hour,
roughly 15,000 edits are made to Wikipedia. Every day, around 7,000
new articles are created.
*
Wikipedia became one of the top 10 websites in the world in 2007,
and the only non-profit website anywhere near the top.
*
It’s not just Wikipedia. There are 11 other Wikimedia free knowledge
projects, including Wikimedia Commons
<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/>, with more than 30 million
freely licensed images, as well as Wiktionary
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/>, Wikisource
<https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page>, Wikivoyage
<https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Main_Page>, and more.
*
The Wikimedia community supports global projects that spread the joy
of knowledge. Wiki Loves Monuments
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Monuments>, a global
photo competition, launched in 2010 to document images of cultural
heritage. In 2011, the contest was named the largest photo
competition in the world. Companion projects like Wiki Loves Earth
<http://wikilovesearth.org/>, Wiki Loves Africa
<appreciation mode on> it gives me happiness to see Wiki Loves Africa
mentionned</on>
Florence
<http://wikilovesafrica.org/>, and even Wiki
Loves Cheese
<https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Essen_und_Trinken/Wiki_Loves_Cheese>document
more knowledge from around the globe.
*
Volunteers around the world have built hundreds of partnerships with
galleries, libraries, museums to make institutional collections more
broadly available. These partnerships have contributed to more than
1.5 million images of cultural works on the Wikimedia projects.
If you’d like to help celebrate Wikipedia’s 15th anniversary, you can
share on social media what Wikipedia means to you by tagging @Wikipedia
<https://twitter.com/Wikipedia>and using the hashtag #wikipedia15. To
learn more about Wikipedia and the joy it inspires, visit
15.wikipedia.org <http://15.wikipedia.org>.
About Wikipedia
Wikipedia is the world’s free knowledge resource. It is a collaborative
creation that has been added to and edited by millions of people from
around the globe since it was created in 2001: anyone can edit it, at
any time. Wikipedia is offered in hundreds of languages containing a
total of more than 36 million articles, and visited by nearly half a
billion people every month. Wikimedia and its sister projects are the
largest collection of free knowledge in human history.
About the Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that supports
and operates Wikipedia and its sister projects. Wikipedia attracts more
than 15 billion page views each month. Every month roughly 80,000 people
edit Wikipedia and its sister projects, collectively creating,
improving, and maintaining its more than 35 million articles across
hundreds of languages -- this all makes Wikipedia one of the most
popular web properties in the world. Based in San Francisco, California,
the Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily
through donations and grants.
About the Wikimedia Endowment
The purpose of the Wikimedia Endowment is to serve as a perpetual source
of support for the operation and activities of Wikipedia and its sister
projects. It will empower people around the world to create and
contribute free knowledge, and share that knowledge with every single
human being. The Endowment has been established, with an initial
contribution by Wikimedia Foundation, as a Collective Action Fund at
Tides Foundation. Tides is a public charity with a 40-year track record
of holding and managing charitable funds for nonprofit organizations. An
Advisory Board, nominated by the Wikimedia Foundation and appointed by
Tides, will make recommendations to Tides related to the Endowment.
Tides or the Wikimedia Foundation may choose to transfer the Endowment
from Tides to the Wikimedia Foundation, or other charities identified by
the Wikimedia Foundation. At that point, the Endowment would continue to
be a permanent, income-generating fund to support the Wikimedia projects.
Wikimedia Foundation Press Contact
Katherine Maher
+1 415-839-6885 ext 6633
press(a)wikimedia.org
<mailto:press@wikimedia.org>
--
*Juliet Barbara*
Senior Communications Manager I Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street I San Francisco, CA 94105
jbarbara(a)wikimedia.org
<mailto:jbarbara@wikimedia.org> I +1 (512)
750-5677
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