Wikimedia Foundation
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 Logo of the Wikimedia Foundation | |
| Type | 501(c)(3) Charitable organization |
|---|---|
| Founded | St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S. June 20 2003 |
| Location | San Francisco, California U.S. |
| Key people | Ting Chen, Chair of the Board Jimmy Wales, Chairman Emeritus[1] Sue Gardner, Executive Director |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Focus | Free, Open content, Wiki-based internet projects |
| Method | Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, Wikimedia Incubator and MetaWiki |
| Revenue | US$10,632,254 (July – December 2009)[2] |
| Volunteers | 350,000 (2005)[3] |
| Employees | 27 (as of June 2009)[4] |
| Website | wikimediafoundation.org |
The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a 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 Meta-Wiki. Its flagship project, the Wikipedia, ranks among the top ten most-visited websites worldwide.[5]
The creation of the foundation was officially announced on June 20, 2003 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales,[6] who had been operating Wikipedia under the aegis of his company Bomis.[7]
Contents |
Goals
The Wikimedia Foundation falls under section 501(c)(3) of the US Internal Revenue Code as a public charity. Its National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) code is B60 (Adult, Continuing Education).[8][9] The foundation's by-laws declare a statement of purpose of collecting and developing educational content and to disseminate it effectively and globally.[10]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.[11] This is possible thanks to its Terms of Use (updated and approved on June 2009, to adopt CC-BY-SA license).
History and growth
The Wikimedia Foundation was created from Wikipedia and Nupedia on June 20, 2003.[12] 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."[citation needed] There are plans to license the use of the Wikipedia trademark for some products, such as books or DVDs.[13]
The name "Wikimedia" was coined by American author Sheldon Rampton in a post to the English mailing list in March 2003.[14]
With the foundation's announcement, Wales also transferred ownership of all Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Nupedia Domain names 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 (by letter) 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.[15]
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.[16][17][18]
The one billionth edit to a Wikimedia project took place in April 16, 2010.[19]
