Wikimedia Foundation

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"Wikimedia" redirects here. For the software used by the foundation, see MediaWiki.

Template:Infobox Non-profit The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit charitable organization based in St. Petersburg, Florida, USA, and organized under the laws of the state of Florida. It operates several online collaborative projects including Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks (including Wikijunior), Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, and Meta-Wiki.

The Foundation's creation was officially announced by Wikipedia co-founder[3][4] Jimmy Wales, who was running Wikipedia within his company Bomis, on June 20, 2003. Its approval by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, by letter in April 2005, as an educational foundation in the category "Adult, Continuing Education" means all contributions to the Wikimedia Foundation are tax deductible for U.S. federal income tax purposes.

Contents

[edit] Foundation goals

The Wikimedia Foundation falls under section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code as a public charity. Its National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) code is B60 (Adult, Continuing Education).[5][6] The Foundation's by-laws declares a statement of purpose of bringing a free and accurate encyclopedia to every single person on the planet.[7]

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.[8]

In addition to the multilingual general encyclopedia Wikipedia, the Foundation manages a multi-language dictionary and thesaurus named Wiktionary, an encyclopedia of quotations named Wikiquote, a repository of source texts in any language named Wikisource, and a collection of e-book texts for students (such as textbooks and annotated public domain books) named Wikibooks. Wikijunior is a subproject of Wikibooks that specializes in books for children.

[edit] Foundation operations

The continued growth of each of the Wikimedia projects is dependent mostly on donations but the Wikimedia Foundation also increases its revenue by alternative means of funding such as grants, sponsorship, services (datafeed) and brand merchandising.

[edit] Foundation history and growth

The name "Wikimedia" was coined by Sheldon Rampton in a post to the English Wikipedia's mailing list in March 2003.[9] The name has been criticized for its similarity to the name of Wikipedia and the software it runs on, MediaWiki; this sometimes leads to confusion among people new to the project.

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. The domain names wikimedia.org and wikimediafoundation.org were secured for the Foundation by Wikipedia contributor Daniel Mayer.

On December 11, 2006 the Wikimedia Foundation board acknowledged that the corporation could not become the membership organisation 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 acknowledged that the operations would be moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in late 2007. 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.[10][11][12]

[edit] Board of Trustees

In January 2004, Jimmy Wales appointed his business partners Tim Shell and Michael 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-Devouard were elected to join the board. In late 2004, Wales and Beesley launched a startup company, Wikia, affiliated with neither Wikimedia nor Bomis. 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 organisation 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. After her resignation, a special election was held in September, to finish Beesley's term, ending with the mid-2007 election. The election was won by Erik Möller.[13]

In October 2006, Nibart-Devouard replaced Wales as chairwoman of the Foundation. On December 8, 2006, the board expanded to seven people with the appointments of Kat Walsh and Oscar van Dillen. 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.

The appointed terms for Wales, Davis, and de Vreede all expire in December 2007. Nibart-Devouard's elected term expires in June 2008; the other three Board members have terms that expire in June 2009.

[edit] Volunteer committees and positions

In 2004, the Foundation appointed Tim Starling as Developer Liaison to help improve the organisation of the development of the MediaWiki software, Daniel Mayer as Chief Financial Officer, to help keep a budget and coordinate fund drives, and Erik Möller as the Content Partnership Coordinator.

In January 2005, the Foundation created several committees, including the Communication Committee, in an attempt to further organize the activities of the Foundation, essentially handled by volunteers at that time. Starling resigned that month to spend more time on his PhD program.

In May 2005, the Foundation announced the appointment of seven people to official positions:[14]

  • 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 Soufron as Lead Legal Coordinator

Möller resigned in August 2005 due to differences with the board.[15] James Forrester was subsequently appointed to the position. In February 2007, Forrester resigned and the Board appointed Gregory Maxwell to the position, renamed "Chief Research Coordinator".[16]

[edit] Employees

The functions of the Wikimedia Foundation were, for the first few years, executed almost entirely by volunteers. In the Spring of 2005, the Foundation only had two employees, Danny Wool and Brion Vibber. Though the number of employees has grown, the bulk of Foundation work continues to be done by volunteers, with the Foundation having very few employees.

On June 16, 2006, Brad Patrick, previously a practicing attorney who had done some pro bono work with the Foundation starting in fall 2005, was named general counsel and interim executive director; in the latter capacity, Patrick was designated to assist the Board in its search for a permanent executive director.[17]

As of October 4, 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation had five paid employees: two programmers (software manager Brion Vibber in California and server administrator Chad Perrin in Tampa); "to answer the phones", administrative assistant Barbara Brown; to handle fundraising and grants, Danny Wool; and to manage, interim executive director Brad Patrick. [18]

As of December 8, 2006, the Wikimedia Foundation's list of current staff named three other technical independent contractors (part-time hardware manager Kyle Anderson in Tampa, full-time MediaWiki software developer Tim Starling, and part-time networking coordinator Mark Bergsma).

Brad Patrick ceased his activity as interim director in January 2007, and then resigned from his position as legal counsel, effective April 1 2007.

In January 2007, Carolyn Doran was named Chief Operating Officer and Sandy Ordonez came on board as Communication Manager.[19] Doran had begun working as a part-time bookkeeper for the Foundation in 2006 after being sent by a temporary agency.

Danny Wool, officially the grant coordinator but also largely involved in fundraising and business development, resigned in March 2007. In April 2007, the Foundation added a new position, Chapter Coordinator, and appointed Delphine Ménard, then in the position of Volunteer Coordinator, to fill it. Cary Bass was appointed to replace Ménard.

In May 2007, Vishal Patel was hired to assist in business development.[20]

In July 2007, Mike Godwin was hired as general counsel and legal coordinator. [21] That same month, Carolyn Doran left as COO [1] and Sue Gardner was hired as Consultant and Special Advisor. The number of full-time staff members, after these hires, was still fewer than ten.[22]

In December 2007, it was revealed by The Register[23] that former COO Carolyn Doran was a convicted felon, with a DUI arrest during her tenure at the Foundation and a substantial criminal history, including charges of complicity in credit card forgery.[24]

[edit] 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.[25] The current members are:

[edit] Wikimedia coordination and projects

[edit] Wikimedia projects

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 Launching date Description
Wikipedia [2] 2001-01-15 Encyclopedia containing more than 9 million articles in 252 languages.
Wiktionary [3] 2002-12-12 Dictionary cataloging meanings, synonyms, etymologies and translations.
Wikibooks [4] 2003-07-10 Collection of free educational textbooks and learning materials.
Wikiquote [5] 2003-07-10 Collection of quotations structured in numerous ways.
Wikisource [6] 2003-11-24 Project to provide and translate free source documents, such as public domain texts.
Wikimedia Commons [7] 2004-09-07 Repository of images, sounds, videos and general media, containing more than 1,500,000 files.
Wikimedia Incubator (2006-06-02 ?) Used to test possible new Wikimedia projects and new languages for existing projects.
Wikispecies [8] 2004-09-13 Directory of species data on animalia, plantae, fungi, bacteria, archaea, protista and all other forms of life.
Wikinews [9] 2004-12-03 News source containing original reporting by citizen journalists from many countries.
Wikiversity [10] 2006-08-15 Courses, course materials, tests. Announced to go into beta testing, little has been officially decided on its structure.

[edit] Recent project history

[edit] Board of Trustees

The foundation maintains a current list online.[1] Barring resignations, this list should be current until December 2007.

[edit] Economy

Wikimedia Foundation operates with predominantly volunteer staff and relies on public contributions and grants to fund its mission of providing free knowledge to every person in the world. [26] It is exempt from federal income tax [26] [27] and from state income tax.[26] [28] It is not a private foundation and contributions to it qualify as charitable contribution deductions.[29]

At the beginning of 2006, the net assets were $270,000. During the year, the organization received a total support and revenue of $1,510,000, with concurrent expenses of $790,000. The increase in net assets was $720,000, making it reach a total of one million dollars[26]. (See also Wikimedia:Finance report)

As of 2007, Wikimedia's growth has outpaced its ability to raise funds[citation needed], and consideration was being given to placing advertisements on Wikimedia projects. However, this has historically drawn staunch opposition from the editing communities of the projects. It has been estimated that such endeavours could potentially raise hundreds of millions of dollars. (See also Wikipedia:Advertisements).

[edit] References

  1. ↑ a b Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees, last modified October 27, 2006
  2. ↑ a b c Board resolution, December 8 2006
  3. ^ Template:Cite news
  4. ^ Template:Cite news
  5. ^ NTEE Classification System
  6. ^ Adult Education
  7. ^ Statement of purpose
  8. ^ Wikimedia mission statement
  9. ^ Wikipedia English mailing list message, March 2003.
  10. ^ Carlos Moncada (25 September 2007). Wikimedia Foundation Moving To Another Bay Area. The Tampa Tribune.
  11. ^ Richard Mullins (26 September 2007). Online Encyclopedia To Leave St. Petersburg For San Francisco. The Tampa Tribune.
  12. ^ Ryan Kim (10 October 2007). Wikipedia team plans move to San Francisco. San Francisco Chronicle.
  13. ^ Wikimedia Foundation mailing list message
  14. ^ "Wikimedia names seven to official positions", Signpost, May 30, 2005
  15. ^ Wikimedia Foundation mailing list message, August 2005.
  16. ^ [http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Chief_Research_Coordinator "Resolution:Chief Research Coordinator", Wikimedia Foundation, February 11, 2007
  17. ^ Wikimedia Foundation press release
  18. ^ Jimmy Wales. Charlie Rose (46:22) (internet video) [TV-Series]. Google Video: Charlie Rose. Retrieved on 2006-12-08.
  19. ^ Current staff from the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved on 2006-12-08.
  20. ^ Current staff from the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved on 2007-04-23.
  21. ^ Mailing list post by the Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees announcing the appointment.
  22. ^ Current staff from the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved on 2007-07-11.
  23. ^ Template:Cite news
  24. ^ Template:Cite news
  25. ^ Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board
  26. ↑ a b c d Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. - Financial Statements - June 30, 2006, 2005, and 2004
  27. ^ See also Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of the Florida Statutes
  28. ^ See also Chapter 220.13 of the Florida Statutes
  29. ^ The Internal Revenue Service

[edit] External links

Image:Wikinews-logo.svg
Wikinews has related news:
Image:Commons-logo.svg
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

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