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The '''Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.''' is the parent organization of the [[Wikipedia]], [[Wiktionary]], [[Wikiquote]], [[Wikibooks]] (including [[Wikijunior]]), [[Wikisource]], [[Wikimedia Commons]], [[Wikispecies]], [[Wikinews]], [[Wikiversity]], and [[Meta-Wiki]] collaborative projects. It is a [[not-for-profit corporation]] based in [[St. Petersburg, Florida]], [[United States|USA]], and organized under the laws of the state of [[Florida]]. Its existence was officially announced by Wikipedia co-founder [[Jimmy Wales]], who was hitherto running Wikipedia within his company [[Bomis]], on [[June 20]], [[2003]]. Its approval by the U.S. [[Internal Revenue Service]], by letter in April 2005, as an educational foundation in the category "Adult, Continuing Education" means all contributions to the Wikimedia Foundation are [[Tax deduction|tax deductible]] for U.S. federal income tax purposes.
The '''Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.''' is the parent organization of the [[Wikipedia]], [[Wiktionary]], [[Wikiquote]], [[Wikibooks]] (including [[Wikijunior]]), [[Wikisource]], [[Wikimedia Commons]], [[Wikispecies]], [[Wikinews]], [[Wikiversity]], and [[Meta-Wiki]] collaborative projects. It is a [[not-for-profit corporation]] based in [[St. Petersburg, Florida]], [[United States|USA]], and organized under the laws of the state of [[Florida]]. Its existence was officially announced by Wikipedia co-founder [[Jimmy Wales]], who was hitherto running Wikipedia within his company [[Bomis]], on [[June 20]], [[2003]]. Its approval by the U.S. [[Internal Revenue Service]], by letter in April 2005, as an educational foundation in the category "Adult, Continuing Education" means all contributions to the Wikimedia Foundation are [[Tax deduction|tax deductible]] for U.S. federal income tax purposes.
==Foundation goals==
The goal of the Wikimedia [[Foundation (charity)|foundation]] is to develop and maintain [[open content]], [[wiki]]-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public [[gratis|free of charge]].
In addition to the multilingual general [[encyclopedia]] ''Wikipedia'', the Foundation manages a multi-language [[dictionary]] and [[thesaurus]] named ''[[Wiktionary]]'', an encyclopedia of [[quotation]]s named ''[[Wikiquote]]'', a repository of source texts in any language named ''[[Wikisource]]'', and a collection of [[e-book]] texts for students (such as [[textbook]]s and annotated [[public domain]] books) named ''[[Wikibooks]]''. ''[[Wikijunior]]'' is a subproject of Wikibooks that specializes in books for children.
The continued growth of each of the Wikimedia projects is dependent mostly on [http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising donations] but the Wikimedia Foundation tries to increase its revenue by finding alternative means of funding such as [[federal grant|grant]]s and sponsorship.
The Wikimedia Foundation is a [[501(c)(3)]] with a vision to bring a free and accurate encyclopedia to every single person on the planet. This includes people who currently do not have electricity, computers, Internet access, or even clean drinking water. All proceeds from donations, as with all proceeds from all Foundation fundraisers, are fully dedicated to that charitable purpose.
==Foundation history and growth==
The name "Wikimedia" was [[neologism|coined]] by [[Sheldon Rampton]] in a post to the English Wikipedia's mailing list in March 2003.<ref>[http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-March/001887.html Wikipedia English mailing list message], March 2003.</ref> The name has been criticized for its similarity to the name of [[Wikipedia]] and the software it runs on, [[MediaWiki]]; this sometimes leads to confusion among people new to the project.
With the Foundation's announcement, Wales also transferred ownership of all Wikipedia, Wiktionary and [[Nupedia]] [[domain name]]s to Wikimedia along with the copyrights for all materials related to these projects that were created by [[Bomis]] employees or Wales himself. The computer equipment used to run all the Wikimedia projects was also donated by Wales to the Foundation. The domain names [http://wikimedia.org/ wikimedia.org] and [http://wikimediafoundation.org/ wikimediafoundation.org] were secured for the Foundation by Wikipedia contributor Daniel Mayer. Wikimedia's [[bandwidth]] and power are covered by donations to the project from various companies and individuals.
In January 2004, Jimmy Wales appointed his business partners [[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; they were re-elected in July 2005. Wales and Beesley later launched a startup company, [[Wikia]], which is affiliated with neither Wikimedia nor Bomis, though it donates to Wikimedia.
Later, other official positions were developed: Tim Starling was appointed Developer Liaison to help improve the organisation of the development of the [[MediaWiki]] software, and Daniel Mayer was appointed Chief Financial Officer to help keep a budget and coordinate fund drives. Erik Möller had been the Chief Research Officer, but resigned in August 2005 due to differences with the board.<ref>[http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-August/003916.html Wikimedia Foundation mailing list message], August 2005.</ref> James Forrester was subsequently appointed to the position.
{{wikinewscat|Brad Patrick}}
On [[June 16]], [[2006]], Brad Patrick, theretofore a practicing [[attorney]] engaged in [[pro bono]] work with the Foundation, was named as [[general counsel]] and interim [[chief executive officer|executive director]]; in the latter capacity, Patrick was designated to assist the Board in its search for a permanent executive director<ref>[http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_Announces_Interim_Executive_Director Wikimedia Foundation press release]</ref>.
{{wikinewscat|Angela Beesley}}
On [[July 1]], [[2006]], Angela Beesley resigned from the board effective upon election of her successor, expressing concern about "certain events and tendencies that have arisen within the organisation since the start of this year," but stating her intent to continue to participate in the Wikimedia projects, and in the formation of an Australian chapter.<ref>[http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-July/008146.html Wikimedia Foundation mailing list message], July 2006</ref> After her resignation, a special election was held and the winner, Erik Möller, will finish Angela Beesley's term, ending with the ordinary 2007 election.<ref>[http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2006-September/010307.html Wikimedia Foundation mailing list message]</ref>
==Wikimedia coordination and projects==
===Wikimedia projects===
The launch dates shown below are when official domains were established for the projects and/or beta versions were launched; preliminary test versions at other domains are not considered.
;[[Wikipedia]]
:Encyclopedia containing more than 5 million articles in 250 languages (launched [[2001-01-15]]).
;[[Wiktionary]]
:Dictionary cataloging meanings, synonyms, etymologies and translations (launched [[2002-12-12]]).
;[[Wikibooks]]
:Collection of free educational textbooks and learning materials (launched [[2003-07-10]]).
;[[Wikiquote]]
:Collection of quotations structured in numerous ways (launched [[2003-07-10]]).
;[[Wikisource]]
:Project to provide and translate free source documents, such as public domain texts (launched [[2003-11-24]]).
;[[Wikimedia Commons]]
:[[Repository]] of images, sounds, videos and general [[Wiktionary:media|media]], containing more than 700,000 files (launched [[2004-09-07]]).
;[[Wikimedia Incubator]]
:Used to test possible new Wikimedia projects and new languages for existing projects.
;[[Wikispecies]]
:Directory of species data on animalia, plantae, fungi, bacteria, archaea, protista and all other forms of life (launched [[2004-09-13]]).
;[[Wikinews]]
:[[News]] source containing original reporting by citizen journalists from many countries (launched [[2004-12-03]]).
;[[Wikiversity]]
:Courses, course materials, tests. Announced to go into beta testing, little has been officially decided on its structure (launched [[2006-08-15]]).
=== Project coordination ===
;[[Meta-Wiki]]
:Wikimedia project [[coordination]] (launched [[November]] [[2001]]).
===Recent project history===
* [[September 7]], [[2004]]: The [[Wikimedia Commons]] was launched.
* [[December 3]], [[2004]]: After a brief demonstration phase in November, the English beta version of [[Wikinews]] became operational. Wikinews is meant to be a [[free content]] [[news source]] which allows anybody to report news on a wide variety of subjects.
* April 2005: [[501(c)(3)]] non-profit status granted by the [[U.S. Internal Revenue Service]] with the NTEE Code: B60 (Adult, Continuing Education).
* November 2005: Wikimedia awarded membership in the [[World Technology Network]].
==Board of Directors==
* [[Jimmy Wales]]
* [[Erik Möller]]
* [[Michael E. Davis]]
* [[Florence Nibart-Devouard]]
* [[Tim Shell]]
==References==
<references />
==External links==
{{wikinewscat|Wikimedia}}
{{commons|Wikimedia}}
* [[:wikimedia:|Wikimedia Foundation website]]
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* [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=204+37th+Ave+N,+St+Petersburg,+FL+33704&spn=0.004914,0.007854&t=k&hl=en The location of the foundation] on [[Google Maps]].
* {{GIS view | lat = 27.8057 | long = -82.6358 | elev = 3.5}}
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* [http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/bylaws.pdf Wikimedia Foundation bylaws] ([[Portable Document Format|PDF]] file)
* [http://www.sunbiz.org/COR/2003/0620/90039369.tif Corporate Charter of Wikimedia Foundation Inc.] two page [[Tagged Image File Format|TIFF]] file located on Florida Department of State, Divisions of Corporations web site
* [http://www.sunbiz.org/scripts/cordet.exe?a1=DETFIL&n1=N03000005323&n2=NAMFWD&n3=0000&n4=N&r1=&r2=&r3=&r4=WIKIMEDIA&r5= Public Record for Wikimedia Foundation Inc.] from Florida Department of State web site
* [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-March/001887.html Sheldon Rampton's WikiEN-l post]
* [http://www.npost.com/interview.jsp?intID=INT00126 Interview with Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Founder]
* [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Wikimedia.foundation.2005.990.pdf 2005 IRS Form 990 for the Wikimedia Foundation]
* "[[WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION, INC.]]" is registered as a [[Florida]] [[Non]] [[Profit]] entity with the [[Division]] of [[Corporation]]s of the [[Florida]] [[Department of State]] [http://www.sunbiz.org/scripts/cordet.exe?a1=DETFIL&n1=N03000005323&n2=NAMFWD&n3=0000&n4=N&r1=&r2=&r3=&r4=WIKIMEDIAFOUNDATION&r5=]
