License to Chill: What Does Wikipedia’s Adoption of Creative Commons Mean to...
Jay Walsh, head of communications at the Wikimedia Foundation — the organization which owns Wikipedia’s trademark and its equipment — announced on the Foundation’s official blog last week: Today we...
View ArticleGoogle’s Gift to Wikipedia Probably Not Evil
This is a few days old now, but if you haven’t already heard, Google gave Wikipedia $2 million dollars to help with its never-sated appetite for bandwidth and “increasing … multimedia needs.” Here are...
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They Send You a Cease and Desist Letter, You Send One of Theirs to the Morgue
Apparently the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the nation’s top cops, the G-Men, the public enemies of all public enemies, have found a new target: Wikipedia! The New York Times ran a short article...
View ArticleAll The Women Who Edit Wiki, Throw Your Hands Up At Me
Editor’s note: The author of this post is Rhiannon Ruff (User:Grisette) who last wrote “Public Lives: Jim Hawkins and Wikipedia’s Privacy Dilemma” for The Wikipedian in April 2012. It’s no secret that...
View ArticleInternational Women’s Day
Happy International Women’s Day, everyone! As it has in previous years, the Wikipedia community has organized a number of events to celebrate both today and the rest of Women’s History Month, through...
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The Wikimedia Foundation is Losing its Chief. What Happens Next?
Big news in the world of Wikipedia, yesterday: Sue Gardner, the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation (the non-profit behind Wikipedia and other wiki-based projects) announced she will be...
View ArticleThe Unbearable Lightness of Jimbo
Is it time for another lengthy profile of Jimmy Wales already? The New York Times Magazine says yes, and so this Sunday’s edition will carry a story now already out on the web under the snarky headline...
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Jimmy Wales and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Prize Money
“Jimmy Wales is Not an Internet Billionaire” So went the tongue-in-cheek headline from a New York Times Magazine cover story about Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales in 2013—ill-treatment this...
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The Top 10 Wikipedia Stories of 2014
Every twelve months the Gregorian calendar resets itself, and I pull together a roundup of the most important events, happenings and newsworthy items that marked the previous year on Wikipedia. I’ve...
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The Top 10 Wikipedia Stories of 2015
Each year since 2010, The Wikipedian has looked back at the year on Wikipedia and taken a stab at determining which trends, milestones, and controversies most influenced the direction of Wikipedia in...
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The Crisis at New Montgomery Street
Wikipedia officially turns 15 years old at the end of the week.[1]Friday, January 15 to be specific. The tone of the TV news segments, newspaper op-eds, and other media spotlights will be celebratory....
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Search and Destroy: The Knowledge Engine and the Undoing of Lila Tretikov
The Wikimedia Foundation is in open revolt. While the day-to-day volunteer efforts of editing Wikipedia pages continue as ever, the non-profit Foundation, or WMF, is in the midst of a crisis it’s never...
View ArticleA Modest Proposal for Wikimedia’s Future
On February 25, Lila Tretikov, the embattled executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), finally tendered her resignation. Though an interim successor would not be named until March 10,[1]it...
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The Top Ten Wikipedia Stories of 2016
2016 was a hell of a year. In matters of war and peace, politics and governance, arts and celebrity culture—not to mention unexpected crossovers among them—it was a year that seemed to come off the...
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The Top 10 Wikipedia Stories of 2017
Every year since 2010, The Wikipedian has delivered a roundup of the most interesting events, trends, situations, occasions, and general goings-on that marked the foregoing year on Wikipedia and in the...
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Why Aren’t There More Wikipedia Editors?
Why do some people contribute to Wikipedia? Conversely, why don’t others? Ever since Wikipedia became a self-aware community, this question has vexed those who participate in it, and would like to see...
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How Wikipedia Has Responded to the George Floyd Protests
“There are decades where nothing happens, and then there are weeks where decades happen” is an old and likely apocryphal quote attributed to V.I. Lenin. It’s been popular throughout the tumultuous and...
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The Top 10 Wikipedia Stories of 2020
It’s no overstatement to say that 2020 was a year where everything changed. Since March, ubiquitous semi-ironic references to the “Before Times” have served to euphemize the unfathomable. To date,...
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