Wikimedia movement explained

Wikimedia movement
Type:	Informal organization of individual contributors, chapters, user groups and thematic organizations
Area Served:	Worldwide
Focus:	Free, open-content, wiki-based Internet projects

The Wikimedia movement is the global community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia.^[1] This community directly builds and administers these projects^[2] with the commitment of achieving this using open standards and software.^[3]

First created around and by Wikipedia's community of volunteer editors (Wikipedians), it has since expanded to other projects like Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata and volunteer software engineers and developers contributing to the software used to power Wikimedia, MediaWiki.

Projects

Content projects

Wikimedia's content projects include:

• Wikipedia – an online encyclopedia
• Meta-Wiki – a Wikimedia wiki project idea discussion and coordination location
• Wikibooks – a repository for educational textbooks
• Wikidata – a shared repository of structured data, accessible by the other projects
• Wikifunctions – a catalog of functions and source code. It is designed to support Abstract Wikipedia, a language-independent version of Wikipedia using structured data.
• Wikimedia Commons – a shared repository of free-to-use media like images, videos and sounds, accessible by the other projects
• Wikinews – a repository for news articles
• Wikiquote – a collection of quotations
• Wikisource – a library of source texts and documents
• Wikispecies – a taxonomic catalogue of species
• Wikiversity – a repository of educational materials
• Wikivoyage – a travel guide
• Wiktionary – a dictionary

Infrastructure and interface projects

Other supporting projects in the Wikimedia movement include:

• Kiwix – a community project for offline access to the content projects
• MediaWiki – the open source platform for the projects
• Toolforge – a community space for hosting software projects that need access to the cluster
• Volunteer Response Team – community handling email inquiries
• Wikimedia cloud services – a space for shared cloud computing, built on OpenStack
• Wikitech – a community of developers with a wiki and mailing list

Organizations

Project communities

The Wikimedia community includes a number of communities devoted to single wikis:

Meta community

A multilingual cross-project community developed on the Meta-Wiki (meta.wikimedia.org) where translation and governance discussions happen.

Wikipedia community

See main article: Wikipedia community. The Wikipedia community, known as Wikipedians, is the community of contributors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. It consists of editors, some operating Wikipedia bots, and administrators. The Arbitration Committee (or ArbCom) is a court of last resort for disputes on Wikipedia.^[4]

Wikipedians in residence

Wikipedians in residence are Wikipedians and Wikimedians who collaborate with a cultural institution to help integrate its work into the projects.

Thematic organizations

Thematic organizations are charities, similar to chapters, founded to support Wikimedia projects in a subject focal area. there are two such organizations.^{[5] [6]}

Wikimedia chapters

See also: List of Wikimedia chapters. National and regional community groups have incorporated chapters, charitable organizations that support Wikimedia projects and their participants in specified countries and geographical regions. there are 39 chapters. Over time the agreements between chapters and WMF became more formalized.^[7]

Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE) is the oldest chapter, holding its first meeting in 2004. As of 2016, it had a budget of €20 million.^{[8] [9]} Some chapters such as WMDE get some of their funds directly from grants and supporting memberships. Some others get their funds primarily from annual plan grants from WMF. As of 2019, roughly 10% of the WMF budget is distributed in this way to chapters and thematic organizations.^[10]

Wikimedia Foundation

See main article: Wikimedia Foundation.

The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is an American non-profit and charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco. It owns the domain names and maintains most of the movement's websites.^[11] According to WMF's 2015 financial statements, in 2015 WMF had a budget of US$72 million, spending US$52 million on its operation, and increasing its reserves to US$82 million.^[12] WMF is primarily funded by donations with the average donation being $15.^[13]

WMF was founded in 2003 by Jimmy Wales so that there would be an independent charitable entity responsible for the domains and trademarks, and so that Wikipedia and its sister projects could be funded through non-profit means in the future. Its purpose was "... to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."^{[14] [15] [16]}

Wikimedia user groups

There are over 800 language editions of different Wikimedia projects, each with groups of editors working on areas of shared interest. Some have Wikiprojects^[17] with their own project pages, membership lists, and open task trackers. Some also register as community user groups to participate in movement governance, use community logos outside of the wikis, and receive grants for events and projects., there are over 140 user groups.^[18]

External links

• [//www.wikimedia.org Wikimedia home page]
• Wikimedia movement structure description at Meta-Wiki

Notes and References

1. Book: Koerner. Jackie. Reagle. Joseph. Wikipedia @ 20: Stories of an Incomplete Revolution. October 13, 2020. MIT Press. 9780262360609. 273. The Wikimedia movement has always been a movement of writers (and curators) rather than readers..
2. Book: Kosseff, Jeff. The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet. Cornell University Press. April 15, 2019. 9781501735790. March 20, 2023. April 29, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230429162843/https://books.google.com/books?id=faZzDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22wikimedia%22&pg=PT193. live.
3. Book: Proffitt, Merrilee. Leveraging Wikipedia: Connecting Communities of Knowledge . April 2, 2018. American Library Association. 13. 9780838916322.
4. News: The Wars of Words on Wikipedia's Outskirts . subscription . June 9, 2009 . Cohen . Noam . June 7, 2009 . . https://web.archive.org/web/20140328091528/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/technology/internet/08link.html?hpw. March 28, 2014. live.
5. Web site: Wikimedia movement affiliates/Frequently asked questions . Meta-Wiki . 2016-09-24 . https://web.archive.org/web/20151208153246/https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_movement_affiliates/Frequently_asked_questions#What_are_Wikimedia_thematic_organizations.3F . 2015-12-08 . live .
6. Web site: Wikimedia thematic organizations. Meta-Wiki . 2021-08-25. 2020-08-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20200813123436/https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_thematic_organizations#existing. live.
7. Web site: Wikimedia chapters/Creation guide – Meta. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20161130155143/https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters/Creation_guide. 2016-11-30. 2016-09-24. Meta.wikimedia.org.
8. Web site: Wikimedia chapters . Meta-Wiki . 2016-09-24 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160917182055/https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_chapters . 2016-09-17 . live .
9. Web site: Jahresplan 2016 – Wikimedia Deutschland . de . Wikimedia.de . 2015-11-28 . 2016-09-24 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190705143541/https://wikimedia.de/wiki/Jahresplan_2016 . 2019-07-05 . dead .
10. Web site: Template:APG navigation . Meta-Wiki . 2016-09-24 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160807001944/https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:AGP_navigation . 2016-08-07 . live .
11. Web site: GuideStar – WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION, INC.. 2020-02-11. 2021-01-21. https://web.archive.org/web/20210121083722/https://www.guidestar.org/profile/20-0049703. live.
12. Web site: WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION, INC. Financial Statements, June 30, 2015 and 2014. Upload.wikimedia.org. April 20, 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20160112032108/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/0/0b/Audit_Report_-_FY_14-15_-_Final.PDF. January 12, 2016. live.
13. Web site: Frequently Asked Questions. WikiMedia Foundation. 23 September 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20131122050954/http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/FAQ/en#How_is_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_funded.3F. 22 November 2013. live.
14. Web site: Jimmy Wales. Jimmy Wales. Announcing Wikimedia Foundation. June 20, 2003. . November 26, 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20130330033331/http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-June/010743.html. March 30, 2013. live.
15. News: Rupert . Neate . Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales goes bananas . The Daily Telegraph . October 7, 2008 . October 25, 2009 . The encyclopedia's huge fan base became such a drain on Bomis's resources that Mr. Wales, and co-founder Larry Sanger, thought of a radical new funding model – charity. . https://web.archive.org/web/20081110041546/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/3399843/Wikipedia-founder-Jimmy-Wales-goes-bananas.html . November 10, 2008 . live .
16. Web site: Bylaws . Wikimedia Foundation . 2016-09-24 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170225172741/https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#ARTICLE_II_-_STATEMENT_OF_PURPOSE . 2017-02-25 . live .
17. Web site: WikiProjects – Meta. 2021-09-06. meta.wikimedia.org. en. 2021-08-14. https://web.archive.org/web/20210814174112/https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiProjects. live.
18. Web site: Wikimedia user groups – Meta. May 3, 2023. Meta-Wiki. https://web.archive.org/web/20230413164654/https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups. April 13, 2023.