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-{{en-langs|[[About Wikimedia|English]] - [[À propos de Wikimédia|Français]]}}
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-The '''Wikimedia Foundation Inc.''' is the parent organization of various projects, including [http://www.wikipedia.org Wikipedia], the award-winning online encyclopedia. Other online projects include [http://www.wiktionary.org/wiki/Main_Page Wiktionary], a multilingual dictionary; [http://wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks_portal Wikibooks], a collection of free content textbooks; [http://wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikiquote], a repository of famous quotes; and [http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikisource], a repository for primary source material.
-Wikimedia is a [[w:en:non-profit|non-profit]] corporation organized under the laws of [[w:en:Florida|Florida]], [[w:en:United States|USA]]. Its existence was officially announced by Wikipedia founder [[Board of Trustees#Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales|Jimbo Wales]] on June 20, 2003. In January 2004, Jimmy Wales appointed 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.
-==The goals of the foundation==
-The goals of the foundation are to maintain and develop [[w:en:free content|free content]], [[w:en:wiki|wiki]]-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public [[w:en:gratis|free of charge]]. In addition to managing the already developed multilingual general encyclopedia ''Wikipedia'', there is a multi-language [[w:en:dictionary|dictionary]] and thesaurus named Wiktionary, an encyclopedia of [[w:en:quotations|quotations]] named Wikiquote and a collection of e-book resources aimed specifically toward students (such as [[w:en:textbook|textbooks]] and annotated [[w:en:public domain|public domain]] books) named Wikibooks. The Foundation also manages a memorial collection of articles about the [[w:en:September 11, 2001 attacks|September 11 attacks]] and the operations of the largely dormant Nupedia project (which is not a wiki but is open content). All projects work thanks to a wikiengine called [[w:en:MediaWiki|MediaWiki]].
-The Wikimedia Foundation owns the Wikimedia servers along with the domain names and trademarks of all Wikimedia projects and MediaWiki. Contributors retain the copyright to their own content and the [[w:en:GNU FDL|GNU FDL]] license used on these projects prevents anyone from controling the content.
-The continued growth of each of the Wikimedia projects is dependent on [[fundraising|donations]]. The Wikimedia Foundation aims to increase revenue by finding alternative means of financing, including grants and sponsorship.
-The name ''Wikimedia'' is a portmanteau of ''wiki'' and ''multimedia''.
-== Organization ==
-===Bylaws===
-The bylaws of Wikimedia Foundation Inc. have been posted on the Foundation's main web site: http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/bylaws.pdf.
-===The Board of Trustees===
-A Wikimedia [[Board of Trustees]] manage the nonprofit and supervise the disposition and solicitation of nonprofit donations. The Board of Trustees are the ultimate corporate authority in the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. (article IV, sec. 1). The Board has the power to direct the activities of the foundation. It also has the authority to set membership dues, discipline and suspend members (article III), and to amend the corporate bylaws (article VI).
-===Income===
-As of July, 2004, Wikipedia is funded exclusively through private donations.
-For some time, there has been discussion of finding alternate sources of income. Some have suggested we seek grants, or sell WikiReaders. For the time being, we want Wikipedia to remain free of advertisement. There has also been discussion of selling a print version of Wikipedia, such as the Wikipedia 1.0 project. Finally, a membership system should be set during 2004.
-For more information about donations, see our [[fundraising|fundraising page]].
-===Liabilities===
-For the details of what we have done with donations since the start of 2004, and how we plan to use our funds, see ''[[meta:What we use the money for]]''.
-One of the main expenses for the Foundation is '''hardware'''.
-* Description of the hardware that powers Wikimedia : [[meta:Wikimedia servers]]
-* Frequently updated status of this hardware : [[meta:Wikimedia hardware status]]
-* Next planned order(s) : [[meta:Q3 and Q4 2004 hardware order worksheet]]
-Three servers will be soon hosted in France as squids. The hosting and bandwidth have been donated.
-The Foundation currently spend no money on salaries or any other type of employee / consultant / volunteer compensation.  It may reimburse costs, such as travel costs, shipping costs, or phone bills in the future.
-Domain registrations is another part of Wikimedia liabilities. We already own some of our active and secondary/tangentially-related [[w:en:domain names]], while others are still free or already owned.
-See also [[meta:Wikimedia budget]] for a detailed list of other potential expenses.