[WikiX-l] W10: Final Press Release

[Moka Pantages]

Hi, everyone!

Just three days until we celebrate a decade of Wikipedia: more than
300 events in 104 countries! Amazing.

Below is the final release you are free to distribute anytime after
1PM UTC tomorrow, January 12. Again, feel free to edit or change it
anyway you like. It's for you to use however you need.

Just so you know, Jay is going to send this out to press tomorrow at
1PM UTC.  It's going out to the media list a few days early to make
sure people have it in enough time to write something by Saturday.

I'm personally so proud to be apart of this movement and love seeing
everyone --press, everyday people, community members--  excited and
celebrating.

Congrats to you all! You do amazing work.

Cheers,

Moka



Wikipedia Celebrates 10 Years of Free Knowledge

Wikipedia users and contributors mark the project's first decade with
events around the world

San Francisco, January 15, 2011 -- On this day ten years ago, a
website with a funny name invited people everywhere to come together
to create a free encyclopedia. The initial results were underwhelming.
The article "Astronomer" simply said: "Scientist whose area of
Research is Astronomy." Sweden: "Country in Northern Europe.
Inhabitants are called Swedes. Language spoken is Swedish. Capital is
Stockholm." Physics: "Physics is a very broad subject."

Following these humble beginnings, Wikipedia grew quickly, and 1,000
articles were written in less than a month. Over the next five years,
many new language versions were launched, and Wikipedia began to
surpass traditional reference sources in breadth and depth. The secret
to its success: anyone can edit any article. In January 2006,
Wikipedia volunteer Gareth Owen wrote on his user page: "The problem
with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it's a
total disaster."

Wikipedia is now consulted by more than 400 million people every
month. It provides instant access to high quality and in-depth
information, free of charge and free of advertising. In the last
decade, a vast and unique global volunteer community has come together
to create more than 17 million articles in 270 languages, advancing
the cause of free knowledge for every person on the planet.

Today, January 15, the Wikipedia community is coming together in more
than 200 locations all over the planet to celebrate the 10th
anniversary of the free encyclopedia. From a conference in New York to
a concert in Prague, from the launch of a new school project in
Nairobi to a museum bootcamp in Amsterdam, from a beer-meet in
Bucharest to a film screening in Tel Aviv, the events are organized by
volunteers and Wikimedia chapters, as well as independent supporters.
The events are open to participation by anyone and reflect the
diversity of the community.

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, recalled: "It's hard to imagine
that it's been 10 years since I first edited Wikipedia. I remember
that first day. I clicked on 'Edit' and I wrote 'Hello World', and
that was the beginning of Wikipedia and all the things that have come
since then. I want to thank everyone who has helped. I want to thank
all the people who have edited Wikipedia, who have contributed to this
great knowledge base. I want to thank everybody who is reading
Wikipedia, who is really engaging with ideas and knowledge. That's
what we made it for: we made it for you to read."

Wikipedia is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a charitable
non-profit organization established by Wales in 2003. It is entirely
supported by donations, and just completed the most successful
fundraiser in its history, with more than 500,000 individual donations
totaling more than $16 million.

Sue Gardner, Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director, has ambitious
goals for the future. "We want to reach a billion people by 2015. We
want to persuade more readers to edit. More women. More people from
the Global South. We know that the more diverse the editing community
becomes, the more comprehensive, accurate and rich the encyclopedia
will be."

Jimmy Wales joined her call to action: "Even though we've got millions
of articles, even though we're in hundreds of languages, there's still
a lot of work to do. So, I want everybody out there, if you've never
edited Wikipedia, try it - just click 'edit'."

For more information about Wikipedia 10 events

    * http://ten.wikipedia.org
    * http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_timeline

About the Wikimedia Foundation

    * http://wikimediafoundation.org
    * http://blog.wikimedia.org


The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive 410 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th
most popular web property world-wide (Nov, 2010). Available in more
than 270 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 17 million articles
contributed by a global volunteer community of more than 100,000
people. Based in San Francisco, California, the Wikimedia Foundation
is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily through
donations and grants.


-- 
Cheers,
Moka

Moka Pantages
415.839.6885 x 635
@moka