Elizabeth Culliford / Reuters:Wikimedia Foundation launches its first global code of conduct, addressing criticism that it fails to combat harassment and suffers from a lack of diversity(Reuters) – The foundation that operates Wikipedia will launch its first global code of conduct on Tuesday, seeking to address criticism
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Wikimedia Foundation
he Wikimedia Structure, Inc. (WMF), is an American 501( c)( 3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and also registered as a philanthropic structure under regional laws. [5] Best called the organizing platform for Wikipedia, a crowdsourced online encyclopedia, it also organizes other related projects and MediaWiki, a wiki software application. [6] [7] [8]
The Wikimedia Foundation was developed in 2003 in St. Petersburg, Florida, by Jimmy Wales as a nonprofit way to money Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and also various other crowdsourced wiki jobs that had actually till after that been held by Bomis, Wales’s for-profit business. [1] The Foundation funds itself mostly via millions of little donations from Wikipedia readers, collected via email projects as well as yearly fundraising banners positioned on Wikipedia and also its sister projects. [9] These are matched by gives from kind companies as well as tech companies, as well as beginning in 2022, by services earnings from Wikimedia Venture.
The Foundation has proliferated throughout its existence. By 2022, it utilized around 700 staff and also contractors, with annual earnings of US$ 155 million, annual expenses of US$ 146 million, net properties of US$ 240 million and also an expanding endowment, which exceeded US$ 100 million in June 2021.
Objective
The Wikimedia Foundation’s mission is “to encourage and also engage people around the globe to gather and also establish academic content under a complimentary permit or in the public domain, as well as to distribute it successfully and also around the world.” [10]
To serve this mission, the Structure provides the technological as well as business framework to allow participants of the public to create wiki material in several languages. [10] The Structure does not create or curate any of the web content on the wikis itself. [11] It collaborates with a network of specific volunteers and also affiliated organizations such as Wikimedia chapters, thematic companies, customer groups and various other companions in various nations all over the world, and also promises in its goal declaration to make valuable information from its jobs offered on the internet for free in perpetuity. [10] It additionally takes part in political advocacy. [12] The Structure’s critical instructions, created in 2017, envisages that it “will come to be the important facilities of the ecological community of complimentary understanding” by 2030. [13]
Background
Further details: History of Wikipedia
Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger founded Wikipedia in 2001 as a feeder job to supplement Nupedia. The project was initially funded by Bomis, Wales’s for-profit service, and also edited by a quickly expanding area of volunteer editors. The early area discussed a variety of methods to support the ongoing costs of maintenance, and was extensively opposed to running ads on the site, [14] so the suggestion of establishing a philanthropic structure gained prestige. [15] That additionally attended to an open concern of what entity should hold onto hallmarks for the project.
The name “Wikimedia”, a substance of wiki and media, was coined by American writer Sheldon Rampton in a message to the English Wikipedia newsletter in March 2003, [16] three months after Wiktionary came to be the 2nd wiki-based task organized on the original web server. The Wikimedia Foundation was incorporated in Florida on June 20, 2003. [1] [17] A tiny fundraising project to maintain the web servers running was run in October 2003. [18] The Foundation was approved area 501(c)( 3) condition by the united state Internal Profits Code as a public charity in 2005, making donations to the Structure tax-deductible for U.S. federal revenue tax functions. [19] Its National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) code is B60 (Grownup, Continuing education). [20] [21]
The Structure applied to hallmark the name Wikipedia in the US on September 14, 2004. The mark was provided registration standing on January 10, 2006. Trademark security was accorded by Japan on December 16, 2004, and also by the European Union on January 20, 2005. Parts of Wikipedia were currently being dispersed in publication as well as DVD kind, and there were conversations concerning licensing the logo and wordmark. [22]
On December 11, 2006, the Foundation’s board kept in mind that it can not come to be a subscription organization, as initially planned yet not carried out, due to an inability to satisfy the registration requirements of Florida legal law. The laws were as necessary amended to remove all references to subscription legal rights as well as tasks. [23]
In 2007, the Foundation determined to relocate its headquarters from Florida to the San Francisco Bay Location. Considerations cited for picking San Francisco were distance to similar organizations and also possible companions, a far better talent swimming pool, as well as more affordable and also easier worldwide travel. [24] [25] [26] The move was completed by January 31, 2008, into a headquarters on Stillman Street in San Francisco. [27] It later on transferred to New Montgomery Road, and afterwards to One Montgomery Tower. [28]
On October 25, 2021, the Foundation launched Wikimedia Business, an industrial Wikimedia material shipment service aimed at groups that wish to utilize high-volume APIs, beginning with Large Tech ventures. [29] [30] In June 2022, Google as well as the Net Archive were revealed as the solution’s first consumers, though only Google will certainly spend for the service. [31] The exact same news noted a moving focus in the direction of smaller companies with comparable information requirements, supporting the service with “a lot paying a little”.
