Category: Topics

From our beginning, Wikipedia has aspired to create a world where knowledge is free, accessible and useful to everyone, in every language, in every country, and across any device. Although the volunteers who make Wikipedia possible have made great strides towards achieving this vision, we’re still a long way from getting there. They say Rome….

Studies estimate that there are more than 7,000 languages spoken around the world. Wikipedia exists in about 300 of them. That’s about 4 percent of some of the world’s languages documenting some of the world’s knowledge. Consider the Arabic language. With more than 420 million speakers, it’s one of the most widely spoken languages in….

As 2018 turned to 2019, people around the world celebrated the start of a brand new year with parties, family, and friends. The transition into 2019 also marked a new era for access to knowledge and culture in the United States, as new works finally entered the public domain through copyright expiration for the first….

We are pleased to announce that Facebook, one of the world’s leading social networking platforms, has given $1 million to the Wikimedia Endowment—a permanent, independent fund dedicated to ensuring the long-term sustainability of Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. “We launched the Endowment in 2016 as an unwavering commitment to the lasting power….

Languages and multilinguality have always been an important part of the Wikimedia projects. After all, Wikimedia projects are available in over 300 languages. But most of these languages are accessible as a form of knowledge of their own only in their written form. Lingua Libre aims to change that by making the sound of a….

With over five million articles, finding the exact Wikipedia article you want can sometimes feel like you’re searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack. That’s why if you go and search the world’s largest encyclopedia, you will see a new interface that provides several common search terms. No longer will people looking for their….

Two years ago, we wrote about Magyar Jeti Zrt v. Hungary, a case before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which dealt with legal liability for hyperlinking—a practice on which the open internet relies and which many internet users engage in a on a daily basis. Last week, the ECHR affirmed an important principle:….

It is with deep regret that I share that Eileen Hershenov, General Counsel and Board Secretary, will be departing from her position at the Wikimedia Foundation. On behalf of the executive team, Foundation Board, and myself, I want to thank Eileen for her critical contributions to advance our legal, public policy, and advocacy work during….

A galloping overview As we have done before, let’s get a bird’s-eye view of the parts of the search process: text comes in and gets processed and stored in a database (called an index); a user submits a query; documents that match the query are retrieved from the index, ranked based on how well they….

Today, Giving Tuesday, the Wikimedia Foundation begins its annual banner campaign on the English Wikipedia, inviting anyone who values Wikipedia to join us on our journey and support  its continued growth and evolution as the world’s free knowledge resource. Banners will appear on the English Wikipedia asking our readers to consider contributing to the site….