Category: Community

When my work phone rings in the middle of the night, I don’t ever have to wonder what it is. As one of the team of five who are charged with addressing emails sent to the Wikimedia Foundation’s emergency address, I sleep lightly on nights when I’m on call. [...]

We are pleased to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation is signing the Necessary and Proportionate Principles on the application of human rights to surveillance. Privacy on the Internet is closely connected to our mission to disseminate free knowledge.[1] We strive to provide a platform for users from all over the world to exercise their free….

We are happy to announce that on April 25, 2014, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees approved a new privacy policy. The new privacy policy explains how we collect, use and manage the information of over twenty million registered users and 490 million monthly unique visitors to the Wikimedia projects. But the policy wouldn’t have been….

Despite its growing economy, Ghana is not the first place one would associate with technology, but for 20-year-old native Rexford Nkansah, it’s second nature. “In Ghana you don’t have hobbies like skiing or going to restaurants,” he says. “So these are the little things I do to keep myself busy.” The youngest of five, Rexford….

Iolanda Pensa is always on one deadline or another. This is not a source of stress, though. She embraces them. As scientific director of WikiAfrica – which the Swiss-born, Italian-based 38-year-old calls “Africanizing Wikipedia” – Pensa gave the project some challenging deadlines. “In 2010, we decided to create a quantitative milestone, to produce 30,000 African….

On Tuesday, July 10, the Russian Wikipedia community made a decision to blackout their project for 24 hours to protest a piece of legislation before the Russian Duma. The legislation, which has since been passed (although with important amendments) could threaten the mission of the Wikimedia projects in Russia – to spread free knowledge globally.….

Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States —the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House….

I am happy to announce that we have completed the most collaborative, interactive drafting of a proposed terms of use for any major website.   For more than 120 days, the Wikimedia community reviewed, drafted, and redrafted with more than 200 edits modifying the original proposal.  While accumulating 19,000 page views, community members offered comments, edits,….

Today the volunteers of the Italian Wikipedia community made the decision to replace all of Italian Wikipedia with a message to readers about a law (PDF in Italian) being discussed before the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian parliament. The message outlines the viewpoints of the Italian Wikipedia community, and provides details about the proposed bill, and….