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='''Wikimedia Foundation and UNU-MERIT announce First Survey of Wikipedians'''=
=Wikimedia Foundation and UNU-MERIT announce First Survey of Wikipedians=


'''St. Petersburg, FL and Maastricht, Netherlands, January 24, 2008 '''<br>
'''St. Petersburg, FL and Maastricht, Netherlands, January 24, 2008 '''<br>
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The survey will be conducted over the course of the next several months. Early results are scheduled for presentation at Wikimania, the Wikimedia Foundation's annual conference, which will be held this year at the Library of Alexandria, Egypt.
The survey will be conducted over the course of the next several months. Early results are scheduled for presentation at Wikimania, the Wikimedia Foundation's annual conference, which will be held this year at the Library of Alexandria, Egypt.


'''About Wikipedia'''<br>
=== About us ===
{|
http://wikipedia.org/<br>
|style="width: 30%; vertical-align: top;" |
The goal of the Wikipedia project is to create free encyclopedias in all languages of the world. Anyone with Internet access is free to contribute by writing new articles and editing existing articles.
'''About Wikipedia'''


<div class="plainlinks">The goal of the [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia] project is to create free encyclopedias in all languages of the world. Anyone with Internet access is free to contribute by writing new articles and editing existing articles.
Wikipedia started in January 2001, and currently offers more than eight million articles in 250 languages. The largest Wikipedia is in English, with more than two million articles; it's followed by the German and French editions, each of which contain more than half a million articles. Nine other language editions contain 100,000+ articles, and more than 100 other languages contain 1,000+ articles. Every month, new language editions launch.


Wikipedia started in January 2001, and currently offers more than 51,000,000<!-- {{ALL-WP-COUNT}} --> articles in 309<!-- {{WP-EDITIONS-COUNT}} --> languages. The largest Wikipedia is in [[w:en:|English]], with more than 5,900,000<!-- {{EN-WP-COUNT}} --> articles; it's followed by the [[w:de:|German]] and [[w:fr:|French]] editions, each of which contain more than 500,000 articles. Nine other language editions contain 100,000+ articles, and more than 100 other languages contain 1,000+ articles. Every month, new language editions launch.
Wikipedia is entirely created and maintained by a community of active volunteers. In 2004, Wikipedia won the Webby Award for "Community" and the Prix Ars Electronica's Golden Nica for "Digital Communities." Since the start of the project, more than 100,000 registered users have made at least ten edits each, and more than 3.4 million people have created accounts on the English Wikipedia alone.


Wikipedia is entirely created and maintained by a community of active volunteers. In 2004, Wikipedia won the [[w:Webby Award|Webby Award]] for "Community" and the Prix Ars Electronica's Golden Nica for "Digital Communities." Since the start of the project, more than 100,000 registered users have made at least ten edits each, and more than 3.4 million people have created accounts on the English Wikipedia alone.</div>
'''About the Wikimedia Foundation'''<br>
http://wikimediafoundation.org<br>
The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is a nonprofit charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. It operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the world's 10 most-visited websites. The Foundation was created in 2003 by Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia.


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Today, the Wikimedia Foundation operates the following projects:<br>
|style="width: 30%; vertical-align: top;" |
{{#if:{{{header}}}|'''About the Wikimedia Foundation'''}}


<div class="plainlinks">
Wikipedia, a project to build free encyclopedias in all languages of the world. Wiktionary, a project to create free content dictionaries and thesauri in every language. Wikiquote, a repository of quotations taken from famous people, books, speeches, films or any intellectually interesting materials. Wikibooks, which aims to build a collection of free e-book resources, including textbooks, language courses, manuals, and annotated public domain books. Wikisource, a collection of classic books, laws, and other free works. Wikispecies , a central, extensive species database for taxonomy. Wikinews, with the mission to report the news on a wide variety of subjects. Wikiversity, a project dedicated to learning materials and learning communities. Wikimedia Commons, a central repository for free video, images, music, spoken texts, and other free media that can be easily reused by all Wikimedia projects.


The Wikimedia Foundation got its start in 2003 and is the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia. Based in San Francisco, California, we currently employ over 150 staff and contractors globally. The Wikimedia Foundation is committed to creating a world in which every single human being can freely and easily share in the sum of all knowledge. Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation receive nearly 500 million unique visitors per month, making them the 5th most popular web property worldwide. Wikipedia is available in more than 280 languages, containing more than 51<!-- {{ALL-WP-COUNT|million=true}} --> million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of over 100,000 people. In an effort to continue our mission, we are hiring talented and creative individuals to join the team.
All projects of the Wikimedia Foundation are collaboratively developed by volunteers using the MediaWiki software. All contributions are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (except in Wikinews, which is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5). This means their content may be freely used, freely edited, freely copied and freely redistributed subject to the restrictions of that license.


* [//wikimediafoundation.org wikimediafoundation.org]
'''About UNU-Merit'''<br>
* [//blog.wikimedia.org blog.wikimedia.org]
http://ccg.merit.unu.edu/<br>
</div>

|style="width= 2%; vertical-align: top" |
UNU-MERIT is the United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and
|style="width=30%; vertical-align: top" |
social Research and training Centre on Innovation and Technology.
;About UNU-Merit
Located in Maastricht, The Netherlands, UNU-MERIT is a joint research
<span class="plainlinks">[[w:UNU-MERIT|UNU-MERIT]] (http://ccg.merit.unu.edu) is the [[w:United Nations University|United Nations University]] – Maastricht Economic and social Research and training Centre on Innovation and Technology. Located in Maastricht, The Netherlands, UNU-MERIT is a joint research and training centre of United Nations University - based in Tokyo, Japan - and Maastricht University. UNU-MERIT provides insights into the social, political and economic contexts within which innovation and technological change is created, adapted, selected, diffused, and improved upon. The Institute’s research and training programmes address a broad range of relevant policy questions dealing with the national and international governance of innovation, intellectual property
and training centre of United Nations University - based in Tokyo, Japan
protection, and knowledge creation and diffusion. The Collaborative Creativity Group at UNU-MERIT is a leading research group on open source software, open content, and collaborative creativity and innovation.</span>
- and Maastricht University. UNU-MERIT provides insights into the
|}
social, political and economic contexts within which innovation and
technological change is created, adapted, selected, diffused, and
improved upon. The Institute’s research and training programmes address
a broad range of relevant policy questions dealing with the national and
international governance of innovation, intellectual property
protection, and knowledge creation and diffusion. The Collaborative
Creativity Group at UNU-MERIT is a leading research group on open source
software, open content, and collaborative creativity and innovation.



'''For more information'''<br>
----
For '''UNU-MERIT'''<br>
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, UNU-MERIT<br>
ghosh@merit.unu.edu<br>
+31 629 07 44 87 (GMT + 1)<p>

For the '''Wikimedia Foundation'''<br>
press@wikimedia.org
+1-727-231-0101


===For more information===
{|
|style="width: 48%; vertical-align: top;" |
;UNU-MERIT
:Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, UNU-MERIT
:ghosh{{@}}merit.unu.edu
:+31 629 07 44 87 (GMT + 1)
|style="width: 4%; vertical-aling: top;" |
|style="width: 48%; vertical-align: top;" |
;Wikimedia Foundation
:press{{@}}wikimedia.org
:+1-727-231-0101
|}
[[Category:Archival content to be exported to Meta-Wiki]]
[[Category:Press releases issued in 2008]]
[[Category:Press releases issued in 2008]]

Latest revision as of 07:01, 16 March 2024

Wikimedia Foundation and UNU-MERIT announce First Survey of Wikipedians

St. Petersburg, FL and Maastricht, Netherlands, January 24, 2008
The Wikimedia Foundation and the Collaborative Creativity Group at UNU-MERIT [a joint research and training centre of United Nations University (UNU) and Maastricht University] are pleased to announce a collaboration to conduct the first-ever, comprehensive Wikipedia survey. Wikipedia is the 9th most visited website in the world, receiving up to 65,000 hits per second.

"I am thrilled we are doing this, and UNU-MERIT, which has a track record of intelligent research into global volunteer communities, is our perfect partner," said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "For the first time, Wikimedia will have solid information about who our readers and contributors are, why they come to us, and what they do here. This will help us figure out how to persuade new people to start contributing, and how to keep existing contributors engaged."

"This is a very exciting participatory space to explore," said Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, who heads the Collaborative Creativity Group at UNU-MERIT. "Surprisingly little data exists so far on why, how and how much Wikipedians contribute, or indeed even who they are. Wikipedia is the world's largest and most successful collaborative reference project: its success is worth examining."

UNU-MERIT has pioneered the use of surveys and other tools to understand the behaviour of Free/Open Source Software such as Linux and Firefox, which also depend on voluntary contributors from individuals around the world. With this survey, which will be conducted worldwide in several languages, the Wikimedia Foundation hopes to build a similar understanding of Wikipedia.

"Wikipedia is an invaluable resource for diffusion of and access to knowledge, especially in developing countries where commercially available resources are scarce. Understanding how Wikipedia functions is very much part of our mission at UNU-MERIT," said Prof Luc Soete, the director of UNU-MERIT, an institute of the United Nations University.

The survey will be conducted over the course of the next several months. Early results are scheduled for presentation at Wikimania, the Wikimedia Foundation's annual conference, which will be held this year at the Library of Alexandria, Egypt.

About us

About Wikipedia

About the Wikimedia Foundation

About UNU-Merit

UNU-MERIT (http://ccg.merit.unu.edu) is the United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and social Research and training Centre on Innovation and Technology. Located in Maastricht, The Netherlands, UNU-MERIT is a joint research and training centre of United Nations University - based in Tokyo, Japan - and Maastricht University. UNU-MERIT provides insights into the social, political and economic contexts within which innovation and technological change is created, adapted, selected, diffused, and improved upon. The Institute’s research and training programmes address a broad range of relevant policy questions dealing with the national and international governance of innovation, intellectual property protection, and knowledge creation and diffusion. The Collaborative Creativity Group at UNU-MERIT is a leading research group on open source software, open content, and collaborative creativity and innovation.

For more information

UNU-MERIT
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, UNU-MERIT
ghosh@merit.unu.edu
+31 629 07 44 87 (GMT + 1)
Wikimedia Foundation
press@wikimedia.org
+1-727-231-0101