Foundation of the Wikimedia Foundation
June 20th, 2003
June 20th, 2003
How Long Ago?
21 years, 8 months, 22 days ago
Location
St. Petersburg, Florida, USA
Category
Education & Academia
People
- Jimmy Wales
- Larry Sanger
Links & References
Tags
Foundation of the Wikimedia Foundation
The Wikimedia Foundation was founded in St. Petersburg, Florida, to support the Wikimedia projects, mainly Wikipedia. Established by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, the foundation aimed to foster a collaborative environment for freely sharing knowledge and information globally. Its inception was driven by the success of Wikipedia, which had launched a few years earlier, and the need for a nonprofit organization to manage its ongoing growth and various projects. The foundation’s mission emphasized the importance of freely accessible and shared educational content.
Founded to support free knowledge projects
Inspired by Wikipedia's rapid growth
Led by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger
Creates a framework for collaborative content
What Happened?
The Wikimedia Foundation originated in the innovative landscape of online information sharing in the early 21st century. Founded in St. Petersburg, Florida, it was the brainchild of Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, inspired by the remarkable progress and popularity of Wikipedia, which had become one of the world's largest reference websites since its inception in 2001. The foundation was explicitly created to support the various Wikimedia projects, with Wikipedia being the most notable among them. The decision to establish a formal organizational structure was motivated by the necessity to ensure the sustainability and expansion of the projects and to protect them from commercial interests that could infringe on their core values of free information.The foundation's purpose extended beyond just Wikipedia; it aimed to encourage the growth of a variety of projects that promote free knowledge, such as Wikimedia Commons and Wiktionary. By establishing the foundation, Wales and Sanger addressed the challenges and opportunities of maintaining a growing and diverse community of contributors and users. The foundation provided resources, financial oversight, and a legal framework that would allow various projects to flourish independently while still being part of the larger Wikimedia vision. This development marked a significant step in the evolution of open content and collaborative editing, laying down the principles that guide Wikimedia to this day. It also emphasized the importance of volunteer contributions to knowledge production, thus changing how information could be accessed and shared globally.With the establishment of the Wikimedia Foundation, there was a formal commitment to the ethos of sharing and democratizing knowledge. The foundation now serves as the backbone for numerous projects and handles the technical infrastructure, community engagement, and legal matters related to the content created by volunteers around the world. This transformative model of content creation has led to the rise of similar initiatives and the proliferation of open-access resources, reshaping the landscape of information distribution on the Internet.
Why Does it Matter?
The founding of the Wikimedia Foundation was pivotal in establishing a model for non-profit, user-driven content sharing. It legitimized the notion that knowledge should be freely accessible, setting a precedent for future collaborative projects. The foundation played a crucial role in the democratization of information, allowing individuals worldwide to contribute, edit, and access content without barriers, fostering a global community of knowledge sharing.
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