Wikimedia Foundation
Encyclopedia
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an American non-profit
charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California
, United States, and organized under the laws of the state of Florida
, where it was initially based. It operates several online collaborative wiki
projects including Wikipedia
, Wiktionary
, Wikiquote
, Wikibooks
, Wikisource
, Wikimedia Commons
, Wikispecies
, Wikinews
, Wikiversity
, Wikimedia Incubator, and owns the now defunct, Nupedia
. Its flagship project, Wikipedia, ranks among the top ten most-visited websites worldwide. The creation of the foundation was officially announced on June 20, 2003 by Wikipedia
co-founder Jimmy Wales
, who had been operating Wikipedia under the aegis
of his company Bomis
.
as a public charity
. Its National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities
(NTEE) code is C60 (Adult
, Continuing Education
).
The foundation's by-laws declare a statement of purpose of collecting and developing educational content and to disseminate it effectively and globally.
The Wikimedia Foundation's stated goal is to develop and maintain open content
, wiki
-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge
.
This is possible thanks to its Terms of Use (updated and approved on June 2009, to adopt CC-BY-SA
license).
The Wikimedia Foundation was created from Wikipedia and Nupedia
on June 20, 2003. It applied to the United States Patent and Trademark Office
to trademark
Wikipedia on September 17, 2004. The mark was granted registration status on January 10, 2006. Trademark protection was accorded by Japan on December 16, 2004, and in the European Union
on January 20, 2005. Technically a service mark
, the scope of the mark is for: "Provision of information in the field of general encyclopedic knowledge via the Internet
." There are plans to license the use of the Wikipedia trademark for some products, such as books or DVDs.
The name "Wikimedia" was coined by American author Sheldon Rampton
in a post to the English mailing list in March 2003.
With the foundation's announcement, Wales also transferred ownership of all Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Nupedia
domain name
s to Wikimedia along with the copyrights for all materials related to these projects that were created by Bomis
employees or Wales himself. The computer equipment used to run all the Wikimedia projects was also donated by Wales to the foundation, which also acquired the domain names "wikimedia.org" and "wikimediafoundation.org".
In April 2005, the US Internal Revenue Service
approved the foundation as an educational foundation in the category "Adult
, Continuing Education
", meaning all contributions to the Wikimedia Foundation are tax-deductible
for U.S. federal income tax purposes.
On December 11, 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation board noted that the corporation could not become the membership organization
initially planned but never implemented due to an inability to meet the registration requirements of Florida Statute. Accordingly, the bylaws were amended to remove all reference to membership rights and activities. The decision to change the bylaws was passed by the board unanimously.
On September 25, 2007, the Wikimedia Foundation board gave notice that the operations would be moving to the San Francisco Bay Area
. Major considerations cited for choosing San Francisco were proximity to like-minded organizations and potential partners as well as cheaper and more convenient international travel than is available from St. Petersburg, Florida.
The one billionth edit to a Wikimedia project took place on April 16, 2010.
software, Daniel Mayer as chief financial officer
(finance
, budgeting and coordination of fund drives), and Erik Möller
as content partnership coordinator.
In May 2005, the foundation announced the appointment of seven people to official positions:
In January 2006, the foundation created several committees, including the Communication Committee, in an attempt to further organize activities essentially handled by volunteers at that time. Starling resigned that month to spend more time on his PhD program.
As of October 4, 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation had five paid employees: two programmers, an administrative assistant, a coordinator handling fundraising and grants, and an interim executive director
, Brad Patrick, previously the foundation's general counsel
. Patrick ceased his activity as interim director in January 2007, and then resigned from his position as legal counsel, effective April 1, 2007. He was replaced by Mike Godwin
, who served as general counsel and legal coordinator from July 2007 until 2010.
In January 2007, Carolyn Doran was named chief operating officer
and Sandy Ordonez came on board as head of communications. Doran began working as a part-time bookkeeper in 2006 after being sent by a temporary agency
. Doran later left the foundation in July 2007, and Sue Gardner
was hired as consultant and special advisor (later CEO). Some months after Doran's departure, it was determined that Doran was a convicted felon
, with a DUI
arrest during her tenure at the foundation and a substantial criminal history, including shooting her boyfriend and complicity in credit card forgery. Her departure from the organization was cited as one of the reasons the foundation took about seven months to release its fiscal 2007 financial audit.
Danny Wool, officially the grant coordinator but also largely involved in fundraising and business development, resigned in March 2007. In February 2007, the foundation added a new position, chapters coordinator, and hired Delphine Ménard, who had been occupying the position as a volunteer since August 2005. Cary Bass was hired in March 2007 in the position of volunteer coordinator. In May 2007, Vishal Patel was hired to assist in business development. Oleta McHenry was brought in as accountant in May 2007, through a temporary placement agency and made the official fulltime accountant in August 2007. In January 2008, the foundation appointed three new staff: Veronique Kessler as the new chief financial and operating officer, Kul Wadhwa to replace Vishal Patel as head of business development, and Jay Walsh as head of communications.
In June 2008, the foundation announced two staff additions in fundraising: Rebecca Handler as major gifts officer and Rand Montoya as head of community giving. Soon afterward, Sara Crouse was hired as head of partnerships and foundation relations. In fall 2008, the foundation hired three software developers: Tomasz Finc, Ariel Glenn, and Trevor Parscal.
In May 2011, the Wikimedia foundation had 65 employees. A list of Wikimedia Foundation staff can be found at the Wikimedia Foundation's staff page.
Wikipedia
, the foundation manages a multi-language dictionary
and thesaurus
named Wiktionary
, an encyclopedia of quotation
s named Wikiquote
, a repository of source texts in any language named Wikisource
, a collection of e-book
texts for students (such as textbook
s and annotated public domain
books) named Wikibooks
, and a collection of educational materials and activities named Wikiversity
. Wikijunior is a subproject of Wikibooks that specializes in books for children.
The launch dates shown below are when official domains were established for the projects and/or beta versions were launched; preliminary test versions at other domains are not considered.
(Germany), 2005.
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, United States, and organized under the laws of the state of Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, where it was initially based. It operates several online collaborative wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
projects including Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, Wiktionary
Wiktionary
Wiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages...
, Wikiquote
Wikiquote
Wikiquote is one of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, running on MediaWiki software. Based on an idea by Daniel Alston and implemented by Brion Vibber, the goal of the project is to produce collaboratively a vast reference of quotations from prominent people, books,...
, Wikibooks
Wikibooks
Wikibooks is a Wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the creation of free content textbooks and annotated texts that anyone can edit....
, Wikisource
Wikisource
Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, it has...
, Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation....
, Wikispecies
Wikispecies
Wikispecies is a wiki-based online project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aim is to create a comprehensive free content catalogue of all species and is directed at scientists, rather than at the general public...
, Wikinews
Wikinews
Wikinews is a free-content news source wiki and a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. The site works through collaborative journalism. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has distinguished Wikinews from Wikipedia by saying "on Wikinews, each story is to be written as a news story as opposed to an...
, Wikiversity
Wikiversity
Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project, which supports learning communities, their learning materials, and resulting activities. It differs from more structured projects such as Wikipedia in that it instead offers a series of tutorials, or courses, for the fostering of learning, rather than...
, Wikimedia Incubator, and owns the now defunct, Nupedia
Nupedia
Nupedia was an English-language Web-based encyclopedia whose articles were written by experts and licensed as free content. It was founded by Jimmy Wales and underwritten by Bomis, with Larry Sanger as editor-in-chief...
. Its flagship project, Wikipedia, ranks among the top ten most-visited websites worldwide. The creation of the foundation was officially announced on June 20, 2003 by Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
co-founder Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
, who had been operating Wikipedia under the aegis
Aegis
An aegis is a large collar or cape worn in ancient times to display the protection provided by a high religious authority or the holder of a protective shield signifying the same, such as a bag-like garment that contained a shield. Sometimes the garment and the shield are merged, with a small...
of his company Bomis
Bomis
Bomis was a dot-com company founded in 1996 by Jimmy Wales and Tim Shell. Its primary business was the sale of advertising on the Bomis.com search portal, and to provide support for the free encyclopedia projects Nupedia and Wikipedia...
.
Goals
The Wikimedia Foundation falls under section 501(c)(3) of the US Internal Revenue CodeInternal Revenue Code
The Internal Revenue Code is the domestic portion of Federal statutory tax law in the United States, published in various volumes of the United States Statutes at Large, and separately as Title 26 of the United States Code...
as a public charity
Charitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
. Its National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities
National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities
The National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities classification system was developed by the National Center for Charitable Statistics to classify nonprofit organizations. The IRS classifies nonprofit organizations using this system....
(NTEE) code is C60 (Adult
Adult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
, Continuing Education
Continuing education
Continuing education is an all-encompassing term within a broad spectrum of post-secondary learning activities and programs. The term is used mainly in the United States and Canada...
).
The foundation's by-laws declare a statement of purpose of collecting and developing educational content and to disseminate it effectively and globally.
The Wikimedia Foundation's stated goal is to develop and maintain open content
Open content
Open content or OpenContent is a neologism coined by David Wiley in 1998 which describes a creative work that others can copy or modify. The term evokes open source, which is a related concept in software....
, wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge
Gratis
Gratis is the process of providing goods or services without compensation. It is often referred to in English as "free of charge" or "complimentary"...
.
This is possible thanks to its Terms of Use (updated and approved on June 2009, to adopt CC-BY-SA
Creative Commons licenses
Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...
license).
History and growth
Nupedia
Nupedia was an English-language Web-based encyclopedia whose articles were written by experts and licensed as free content. It was founded by Jimmy Wales and underwritten by Bomis, with Larry Sanger as editor-in-chief...
on June 20, 2003. It applied to the United States Patent and Trademark Office
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
to trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
Wikipedia on September 17, 2004. The mark was granted registration status on January 10, 2006. Trademark protection was accorded by Japan on December 16, 2004, and in the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
on January 20, 2005. Technically a service mark
Service mark
A service mark or servicemark is a trademark used in some countries, notably the United States, to identify a service rather than a product. When a service mark is federally registered, the standard registration symbol ® or "Reg U.S. Pat & TM Off" may be used...
, the scope of the mark is for: "Provision of information in the field of general encyclopedic knowledge via the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
." There are plans to license the use of the Wikipedia trademark for some products, such as books or DVDs.
The name "Wikimedia" was coined by American author Sheldon Rampton
Sheldon Rampton
Sheldon Rampton was the American editor of PR Watch, and is the author of several books that criticize the public relations industry and what he sees as other forms of corporate and government propaganda....
in a post to the English mailing list in March 2003.
With the foundation's announcement, Wales also transferred ownership of all Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Nupedia
Nupedia
Nupedia was an English-language Web-based encyclopedia whose articles were written by experts and licensed as free content. It was founded by Jimmy Wales and underwritten by Bomis, with Larry Sanger as editor-in-chief...
domain name
Domain name
A domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
s to Wikimedia along with the copyrights for all materials related to these projects that were created by Bomis
Bomis
Bomis was a dot-com company founded in 1996 by Jimmy Wales and Tim Shell. Its primary business was the sale of advertising on the Bomis.com search portal, and to provide support for the free encyclopedia projects Nupedia and Wikipedia...
employees or Wales himself. The computer equipment used to run all the Wikimedia projects was also donated by Wales to the foundation, which also acquired the domain names "wikimedia.org" and "wikimediafoundation.org".
In April 2005, the US Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
approved the foundation as an educational foundation in the category "Adult
Adult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
, Continuing Education
Continuing education
Continuing education is an all-encompassing term within a broad spectrum of post-secondary learning activities and programs. The term is used mainly in the United States and Canada...
", meaning all contributions to the Wikimedia Foundation are tax-deductible
Tax deduction
Income tax systems generally allow a tax deduction, i.e., a reduction of the income subject to tax, for various items, especially expenses incurred to produce income. Often these deductions are subject to limitations or conditions...
for U.S. federal income tax purposes.
On December 11, 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation board noted that the corporation could not become the membership organization
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...
initially planned but never implemented due to an inability to meet the registration requirements of Florida Statute. Accordingly, the bylaws were amended to remove all reference to membership rights and activities. The decision to change the bylaws was passed by the board unanimously.
On September 25, 2007, the Wikimedia Foundation board gave notice that the operations would be moving to the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
. Major considerations cited for choosing San Francisco were proximity to like-minded organizations and potential partners as well as cheaper and more convenient international travel than is available from St. Petersburg, Florida.
The one billionth edit to a Wikimedia project took place on April 16, 2010.
Original Board of Trustees
- In January 2004, Jimmy WalesJimmy WalesJimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
appointed his business partners Tim Shell and Michael E. Davis to the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. In June 2004, an election was held for two user representative board members. Following one month of campaigning and two weeks of online voting, Angela Beesley and Florence Nibart-DevouardFlorence DevouardFlorence Jacqueline Sylvie Devouard, née Nibart was the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation between October 2006 and July 2008, succeeding Jimmy Wales....
were elected to join the board. In late 2004, Wales and Beesley launched a startup company, WikiaWikiaWikia is a free web hosting service for wikis . It is normally free of charge for readers and editors, deriving most of its income from advertising, and publishes all user-provided text under copyleft licenses. Wikia hosts several hundred thousand wikis using the open-source wiki software MediaWiki...
, affiliated with neither Wikimedia nor Bomis, except for their presence as principals/trustees. In July 2005, Beesley and Nibart-Devouard were re-elected to the board.
- On July 1, 2006, Beesley resigned from the board effective upon election of her successor, expressing concern about "certain events and tendencies that have arisen within the organization since the start of this year," but stating her intent to continue to participate in the Wikimedia projects, and in the formation of an Australian chapter. A special election was held in September to finish Beesley's term, ending with the mid-2007 election. The election was won by Erik MöllerErik MöllerErik Möller is a German freelance journalist, software developer, author, and Deputy Director of the Wikimedia Foundation , based in San Francisco, California...
.
- In October 2006, Nibart-Devouard replaced Wales as chair of the Foundation. On December 8, 2006, the board expanded to seven people with the appointments of Kat Walsh and Oscar van DillenOscar van DillenOscar Ignatius Joannes van Dillen is a Dutch composer, conductor, and instrumentalist.-Education:Van Dillen studied North-Indian classical music with Jamaluddin Bhartiya at the Tritantri School in Amsterdam and bansuri with Gurbachan Singh Sachdev at the Bansuri School of Music in Berkeley,...
. Effective December 15, 2006, Jan-Bart de Vreede was appointed to replace Shell.
- In the June 2007 election, Möller and Walsh were reelected; van Dillen, who ran for re-election, was narrowly edged by Frieda Brioschi.
- Davis left the board in November 2007. Nibart-Devouard's elected term expires in June 2008. The appointed terms for Wales and de Vreede expired in December 2008. Brioschi's and Walsh's elected terms expired in June 2009.
- In December 2007, Möller resigned from the Board of Trustees, and was hired as the foundation's deputy director by the executive director.
- In February 2008, Florence Devouard announced the addition of two new board members: Michael Snow, an American lawyer and chair of the Communication Committee; and Domas Mituzas, a Lithuanian computer software engineer, MySQL employee, and longtime member of the core tech team.
- In April 2008, the board announced a restructuring of its membership, increasing the number of board positions to 10 overall, as follows:
- Three community-elected seats
- Two seats to be selected by the chapters
- One board-appointed 'community founder' seat, to be occupied by Jimmy Wales
- Four board-appointed 'specific expertise' seats
- In the June 2008 board election, Ting Chen was elected for a one-year term, then in September Frieda Brioschi resigned to be elected at the board of Wikimedia Italia.
- In the August 2009 board election, Ting Chen (re-elected), Kat Walsh and Samuel Klein are elected. Their positions will be effective until July 2011.
- In the July 2010 board election, Michael Snow was replaced as chair of the board, although he retains his place on the Advisory Board.
- In the June 2011 board election, Ting Chen, Kat Walsh and Samuel Klein are re-elected.
Volunteer committees and positions
In 2004, the foundation appointed Tim Starling as developer liaison to help improve the MediaWikiMediaWiki
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
software, Daniel Mayer as chief financial officer
Chief financial officer
The chief financial officer or Chief financial and operating officer is a corporate officer primarily responsible for managing the financial risks of the corporation. This officer is also responsible for financial planning and record-keeping, as well as financial reporting to higher management...
(finance
Management accounting
Management accounting or managerial accounting is concerned with the provisions and use of accounting information to managers within organizations, to provide them with the basis to make informed business decisions that will allow them to be better equipped in their management and control...
, budgeting and coordination of fund drives), and Erik Möller
Erik Möller
Erik Möller is a German freelance journalist, software developer, author, and Deputy Director of the Wikimedia Foundation , based in San Francisco, California...
as content partnership coordinator.
In May 2005, the foundation announced the appointment of seven people to official positions:
- Brion Vibber as chief technical officer (Vibber was also an employee of the Foundation, with other duties)
- Domas Mituzas as hardware officer
- Jens Frank as developer liaison
- Möller as chief research officer
- Danny Wool as grants coordinator
- Elisabeth Bauer as press officer
- Jean-Baptiste SoufronJean-Baptiste SoufronJean-Baptiste Soufron, born 6 April 1978 at Bordeaux, is a French entrepreneur, lawyer and journalist. He also has been Lead Legal Coordinator of the Wikimedia Foundation and researcher at Pantheon-Assas Paris II University.- Career :...
as lead legal coordinator
In January 2006, the foundation created several committees, including the Communication Committee, in an attempt to further organize activities essentially handled by volunteers at that time. Starling resigned that month to spend more time on his PhD program.
Employees
The functions of the Wikimedia Foundation were, for the first few years, executed almost entirely by volunteers. In 2005, the foundation had only two employees, Danny Wool, a coordinator, and Brion Vibber, a software manager. Though the number of employees has grown, the foundation's staff is still very small, and the bulk of foundation work continues to be done by volunteers.As of October 4, 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation had five paid employees: two programmers, an administrative assistant, a coordinator handling fundraising and grants, and an interim executive director
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
, Brad Patrick, previously the foundation's general counsel
General Counsel
A general counsel is the chief lawyer of a legal department, usually in a corporation or government department. The term is most used in the United States...
. Patrick ceased his activity as interim director in January 2007, and then resigned from his position as legal counsel, effective April 1, 2007. He was replaced by Mike Godwin
Mike Godwin
Michael Wayne Godwin is an American attorney and author. He was the first staff counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation , and the creator of the Internet adage Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies. From July 2007 to October 2010, he was general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation...
, who served as general counsel and legal coordinator from July 2007 until 2010.
In January 2007, Carolyn Doran was named chief operating officer
Chief operating officer
A Chief Operating Officer or Director of Operations can be one of the highest-ranking executives in an organization and comprises part of the "C-Suite"...
and Sandy Ordonez came on board as head of communications. Doran began working as a part-time bookkeeper in 2006 after being sent by a temporary agency
Temporary work
Temporary work or temporary employment refers to a situation where the employee is expected to leave the employer within a certain period of time. Temporary employees are sometimes called "contractual", "seasonal", "interim", "casual staff", "freelance", or "part-time"; or the word may be shortened...
. Doran later left the foundation in July 2007, and Sue Gardner
Sue Gardner
Sue Gardner is the current Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco, and previous director of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website and online news outlets.- Life and journalism career :...
was hired as consultant and special advisor (later CEO). Some months after Doran's departure, it was determined that Doran was a convicted felon
Felony
A felony is a serious crime in the common law countries. The term originates from English common law where felonies were originally crimes which involved the confiscation of a convicted person's land and goods; other crimes were called misdemeanors...
, with a DUI
DUI
DUI is a three letter acronym that may stand for:* Driving under the influence * Democratic Union for Integration — the largest ethnic Albanian party in the Republic of Macedonia* Data Use Identifier...
arrest during her tenure at the foundation and a substantial criminal history, including shooting her boyfriend and complicity in credit card forgery. Her departure from the organization was cited as one of the reasons the foundation took about seven months to release its fiscal 2007 financial audit.
Danny Wool, officially the grant coordinator but also largely involved in fundraising and business development, resigned in March 2007. In February 2007, the foundation added a new position, chapters coordinator, and hired Delphine Ménard, who had been occupying the position as a volunteer since August 2005. Cary Bass was hired in March 2007 in the position of volunteer coordinator. In May 2007, Vishal Patel was hired to assist in business development. Oleta McHenry was brought in as accountant in May 2007, through a temporary placement agency and made the official fulltime accountant in August 2007. In January 2008, the foundation appointed three new staff: Veronique Kessler as the new chief financial and operating officer, Kul Wadhwa to replace Vishal Patel as head of business development, and Jay Walsh as head of communications.
In June 2008, the foundation announced two staff additions in fundraising: Rebecca Handler as major gifts officer and Rand Montoya as head of community giving. Soon afterward, Sara Crouse was hired as head of partnerships and foundation relations. In fall 2008, the foundation hired three software developers: Tomasz Finc, Ariel Glenn, and Trevor Parscal.
In May 2011, the Wikimedia foundation had 65 employees. A list of Wikimedia Foundation staff can be found at the Wikimedia Foundation's staff page.
Board of Trustees
These are the members of the Board of Trustees and the expiry of their terms, :- Ting Chen, chair (July 2012)
- Jan-Bart de Vreede, vice-chair (December 2011)
- Phoebe Ayers, executive secretary (July 2012). Appointed by Wikimedia Chapters.
- Stu West, treasurer (December 2011)
- Bishakha DattaBishakha DattaBishakha Datta is an Indian journalist and film-maker, best known for her work documenting the role of women in different aspects of Indian society...
(December 2012) - Matt Halprin (December 2012)
- Samuel Klein (July 2012)
- Arne Klempert (July 2012), the husband of Delphine Ménard, a prominent member of the Chapters Committee. Appointed by Wikimedia Chapters.
- Jimmy WalesJimmy WalesJimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
, (December 2011) - Kat Walsh (July 2012)
Advisory Board
The Advisory Board is an international network of experts who have agreed to give the foundation meaningful help on a regular basis in many different areas, including law, organizational development, technology, policy, and outreach. , the members are:- Angela Beesley StarlingAngela Beesley StarlingAngela Beesley Starling is a co-founder of Wikia, and its vice president for community relations. Involved in Wikipedia since 2003, Beesley was elected to the Board of Trustees of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation in 2004, and re-elected in 2005...
- Ward CunninghamWard CunninghamHoward G. "Ward" Cunningham is an American computer programmer who developed the first wiki. A pioneer in both design patterns and Extreme Programming, he started programming the software WikiWikiWeb in 1994 and installed it on the website of his software consultancy, Cunningham & Cunningham , on...
- Melissa Hagemann
- Benjamin Mako HillBenjamin Mako HillBenjamin Mako Hill is a Debian hacker, intellectual property researcher, activist and author. He is a contributor and free software developer as part of the Debian and Ubuntu projects as well as the author of two best-selling technical books on the subject, Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 Bible and The...
- Mimi Ito
- Mitch KaporMitch KaporMitchell David Kapor is the founder of Lotus Development Corporation and the designer of Lotus 1-2-3. He is also a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and was the first chair of the Mozilla Foundation...
- Véronique Kessler
- Neeru KhoslaNeeru KhoslaNeeru Khosla is the Co-Founder and Chair of the non-profit CK12 Foundation.She has a master's degree in Molecular Biology from San Jose State University and a master's degree in education from the Stanford University School of Education...
- Teemu Leinonen
- Rebecca MacKinnonRebecca MacKinnonRebecca MacKinnon is a former CNN journalist who headed the CNN bureaus in Beijing and later in Tokyo, before leaving television to become a blogger and co-founder of Global Voices Online. She is on the Board of Directors of the Global Network Initiative and the Committee to Protect Journalists,...
- Wayne Mackintosh
- Roger McNameeRoger McNameeRoger McNamee is a founding partner of the venture capital firm Elevation Partners. Prior to co-founding the firm McNamee co-founded private equity firm Silver Lake Partners and headed the T...
- Domas Mituzas
- Trevor Neilson
- Craig NewmarkCraig NewmarkCraig Alexander Newmark is an Internet entrepreneur best known for being the founder of the San Francisco-based international website Craigslist.-Biography:...
- Florence Nibart-Devouard
- Achal PrabhalaAchal PrabhalaAchal Prabhala is an Indian researcher, activist and writer based in Bangalore, Karnataka. He works on intellectual property rights in relation to medicine and knowledge. Prabhala is a member of the Advisory board of the Wikimedia Foundation.-Personal life:...
- Clay ShirkyClay ShirkyClay Shirky is an American writer, consultant and teacher on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. He has a joint appointment at New York University as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and Assistant Arts Professor in the New...
- Michael SnowMichael Snow (attorney)Michael Snow is a Seattle-based lawyer and was chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees from 2008 to 2010. He now serves on the Advisory Board of the Foundation.- Wikipedia :...
- Jing Wang
- Jessamyn WestJessamyn West (librarian)Jessamyn Charity West is an American librarian and blogger, best known as the creator of librarian.net and for her unconventional views of her profession...
- Ethan ZuckermanEthan ZuckermanEthan Zuckerman is the director of the MIT Center for Civic Media, officially starting in September 2011.Zuckerman was one of the first staff members of Tripod.com, one of the first successful "dot com" enterprises, and later founder of Geekcorps and Global Voices Online...
Projects
In addition to the multilingual general encyclopediaEncyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, the foundation manages a multi-language dictionary
Dictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
and thesaurus
Thesaurus
A thesaurus is a reference work that lists words grouped together according to similarity of meaning , in contrast to a dictionary, which contains definitions and pronunciations...
named Wiktionary
Wiktionary
Wiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages...
, an encyclopedia of quotation
Quotation
A quotation or quote is the repetition of one expression as part of another one, particularly when the quoted expression is well-known or explicitly attributed by citation to its original source, and it is indicated by quotation marks.A quotation can also refer to the repeated use of units of any...
s named Wikiquote
Wikiquote
Wikiquote is one of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, running on MediaWiki software. Based on an idea by Daniel Alston and implemented by Brion Vibber, the goal of the project is to produce collaboratively a vast reference of quotations from prominent people, books,...
, a repository of source texts in any language named Wikisource
Wikisource
Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, it has...
, a collection of e-book
E-book
An electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
texts for students (such as textbook
Textbook
A textbook or coursebook is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions...
s and annotated public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
books) named Wikibooks
Wikibooks
Wikibooks is a Wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the creation of free content textbooks and annotated texts that anyone can edit....
, and a collection of educational materials and activities named Wikiversity
Wikiversity
Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project, which supports learning communities, their learning materials, and resulting activities. It differs from more structured projects such as Wikipedia in that it instead offers a series of tutorials, or courses, for the fostering of learning, rather than...
. Wikijunior is a subproject of Wikibooks that specializes in books for children.
The launch dates shown below are when official domains were established for the projects and/or beta versions were launched; preliminary test versions at other domains are not considered.
| Name | Web address | Launched | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,... |
wikipedia.org | 2001-01-15 | Encyclopedia containing more than 19 million articles in 282 languages. |
| Meta-Wiki | meta.wikimedia.org | 2001-11-09 | Wiki devoted to the coordination of the Wikimedia projects. |
| Wiktionary Wiktionary Wiktionary is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary, available in 158 languages... |
wiktionary.org | 2002-12-12 | Dictionary cataloging meanings, synonyms, etymologies and translations. |
| Wikibooks Wikibooks Wikibooks is a Wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the creation of free content textbooks and annotated texts that anyone can edit.... |
wikibooks.org | 2003-07-10 | Collection of free educational textbooks and learning materials. |
| Wikiquote Wikiquote Wikiquote is one of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, running on MediaWiki software. Based on an idea by Daniel Alston and implemented by Brion Vibber, the goal of the project is to produce collaboratively a vast reference of quotations from prominent people, books,... |
wikiquote.org | 2003-07-10 | Collection of quotations structured in numerous ways. |
| Wikisource Wikisource Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, it has... |
wikisource.org | 2003-11-23 | Project to provide and translate free source documents, such as public domain texts. |
| Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons is an online repository of free-use images, sound and other media files. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation.... |
commons.wikimedia.org | 2004-09-07 | Repository Repository (publishing) A repository in publishing, and especially in academic publishing,is a real or virtual facility for the deposit of academic publications, such as academic journal articles.... of images, sounds, videos and general media, containing over 11 million files. |
| Wikimedia Incubator | incubator.wikimedia.org | 2006-06-02 | Used to test possible new languages for existing projects. |
| Wikispecies Wikispecies Wikispecies is a wiki-based online project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aim is to create a comprehensive free content catalogue of all species and is directed at scientists, rather than at the general public... |
species.wikimedia.org | 2004-09-13 | Directory of species Species In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are... data on animalia, plantae, fungi, bacteria Bacteria Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals... , archaea Archaea The Archaea are a group of single-celled microorganisms. A single individual or species from this domain is called an archaeon... , protista and all other forms of life. |
| Wikinews Wikinews Wikinews is a free-content news source wiki and a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. The site works through collaborative journalism. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has distinguished Wikinews from Wikipedia by saying "on Wikinews, each story is to be written as a news story as opposed to an... |
wikinews.org | 2004-11-08 | News News News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :... source containing original reporting by citizen journalists from many countries. |
| Wikiversity Wikiversity Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project, which supports learning communities, their learning materials, and resulting activities. It differs from more structured projects such as Wikipedia in that it instead offers a series of tutorials, or courses, for the fostering of learning, rather than... |
wikiversity.org | 2006-08-15 | Educational and research materials and activities. |
| Wikimedia Outreach | outreach.wikimedia.org | 2009-10-27 | Promotion of Wikimedia projects |
| Wikimedia Strategic planning | strategy.wikimedia.org | 2009-07-23 | Strategy planning work for all Wikimedia projects |
| Wikimedia Usability Initiative | usability.wikimedia.org | 2009-02-04 | Usability team wiki |
| Wikimania Wikimania Wikimania is an annual international conference for users of the wiki projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation... |
wikimania.wikimedia.org | Wikimania conference websites | |
| Wikipedia Test Wiki | test.wikipedia.org | 2006-01-13 | Test wiki that runs a recent version of MediaWiki MediaWiki MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites... |
Wikimania
Each year, Wikimedia organizes the event Wikimania, a conference for users of the Wikimedia Foundation projects. It was first organized in FrankfurtFrankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
(Germany), 2005.