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All major projects of the Wikimedia Foundation are collaboratively developed by its users using the MediaWiki software. The content is free under the GNU Free Documentation License, meaning that it may be freely used, freely edited, freely copied and freely redistributed subject to the restrictions of that license. See also our link to all projects.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a project to build free encyclopedias in all languages of the world. Virtually anyone is free to contribute.

The project started in January 2001 in one language, English, and currently has over 3,300,000 articles in over 125 languages. The largest Wikipedia is in the English language, with over 1,000,000 articles; then come the German, French, Polish and Japanese editions, with over 175,000 articles each. 80 other languages have at least 1,000 articles. New language editions are proposed and launched every month.

Since the start of the project, over 100,000 registered users have made at least ten edits. It is unknown how many users have registered on multiple projects at once. The total number of accounts created on the English Wikipedia alone exceeds 1,000,000.

Some Wikipedias release or plan to release regular snapshots. The German Wikipedia is released twice a year as a DVD, in collaboration with Directmedia Publishing. The French and English Wikipedias have a similar plan in collaboration with Mandriva (formerly Mandrake Soft).

Wikipedia is also known for its community. In 2004 Wikipedia won the Webby Award for "Community" and the Prix Ars Electronica's Golden Nica for "Digital Communities".



Wiktionary

Wiktionary is a project to create free content dictionaries and thesauri in every language. The project started in December 2002, and is now available in over 50 languages with over 200,000 entries in all. The largest language edition is English, followed by Polish, Bulgarian and Dutch.

Recently, Wiktionary has collaborated with the Wikimedia Commons. Many sound files have been uploaded to Commons, to provide Wiktionary and other projects with examples of pronounciation.


Wikiquote

File:Wikiquote.png

Wikiquote is a repository of quotations taken from famous people, books, speeches, films or any intellectually interesting materials. Proverbs, mnemonics or slogans are also included in Wikiquote.

The project started in July 2003; As of February 2006, it includes nearly 30,000 pages in over 30 languages. The largest Wikiquote is in English with over 5,000 pages. The German, French, Polish, Bulgarian and Portuguese editions have each over 1,000 articles.


Wikibooks

Wikibooks aims to build a collection of free e-book resources, including textbooks, language courses, manuals, and annotated public domain books. It aims to help both (self-)instruction of students, and teachers in high-schools and universities. The project started in July 2003 and has over 22,000 modules from 1000 developing books, across 45 languages.


Wikisource

Wikisource is a multilingual project to build a collection of primary source texts, distributed as free and open content. It serves Wikimedia's other projects as a useful archive of classics, laws, and other free texts. It started in November, 2003. At the beginning, Sources in all languages are gathered on one site except Hebrew sources. After voting, It was divided to the several editions of individual languages.



Wikispecies

Wikispecies is an open, wiki-based, species database. Wikispecies will provide a central, more extensive database for taxonomy. Wikispecies is aimed specifically at the needs of scientific users, and as of March, 2006, has over 30,000 entries.


Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons was launched in September 2004, to provide a central repository for free video, images, music, and spoken texts, to be used by all Wikimedia projects. The project allows its resources, images and sound files to be reused across other Wikimedia projects. As of March 2006, it has over 400,000 multimedia files.

Wikimedia Commons received an honorary mention for Digital Community at the 2005 Prix Ars Electronica awards in May 2005.


Wikinews

Wikinews logo
Wikinews logo

The Wikinews project is currently in the beta stage. It was launched in December 2004 with the mission to report the news on a wide variety of subjects. As of February 2006, Wikinews is active in seventeen languages, and has produced more than 6000 news articles. Contributors from around the world write news articles collaboratively. Reports are ranged from original reports to summaries of news from external sources. All of them are required to be written from a neutral point of view. Currently Wikinews has two aims: providing a free content alternative to commercial news sites and making sure that articles are fact-checked and reviewed thoroughly.


Related projects

MediaWiki

MediaWiki Logo
MediaWiki Logo

MediaWiki is wiki engine released under the GPL. The software is used by all Wikimedia projects and many other sites.

In 2005 MediaWiki won the prize at les Trophées du Libre in the category special php prize.

See MediaWiki, its Wikipedia article, or its website for more information.


Meta

"Meta" is a central wiki for all of Wikimedia's projects to come together. The portal includes the help guide to MediaWiki, as well as discussions about proposed and existing projects, policies, development issues, and adminstration of all of Wikimedia's wikis.