theglobaljournal.net: Latest activities of group Jimmy Waleshttp://www.theglobaljournal.net/group/jimmy-wales/2012-02-15T15:49:46Z#01 - The Wikimedia Foundation2012-02-15T15:49:46Zhttp://www.theglobaljournal.net/article/view/476/<p><a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.ngoadvisor.net" target="_blank">Check out if Wikimedia Foundation is in the Top 100 NGOs 2013 Edition!</a></p> <p><img style="vertical-align: top;" src="/s3/photos%2F2012%2F02%2F6eeff2255a031e75.jpg" alt="Wikipedia Puzzle Globe" width="600" height="400" /></p> <blockquote> <p>Revolutionizing the way knowledge is shared.</p> <p>20 million articles written in 282 languages.</p> </blockquote> <p style="text-align: justify;">&ldquo;Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share&nbsp;in the sum of all knowledge.&rdquo; That is the humble goal of Jimmy Wales,&nbsp;founder of the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home">Wikimedia Foundation</a>. Since its inception in 2001,&nbsp;Wikimedia&rsquo;s most famous initiative &ndash; Wikipedia &ndash; has transformed the&nbsp;way the world obtains information. Free, multilingual, and edited by&nbsp;thousands of volunteers, it offers anyone with an Internet connection&nbsp;access to the largest and most up-to-date encyclopedia available today.&nbsp;</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Wikipedia is built on the belief that information is not a for-profit&nbsp;commodity. It has created an open platform where people around the&nbsp;world can collectively share their knowledge: whereas the encyclopedias&nbsp;of the past were written by a minority of professionals, Wikipedia is&nbsp;available to be edited and reviewed by volunteers ranging in expertise&nbsp;and spanning geographical regions. The result is a database of&nbsp;peer-reviewed and accurate entries &ndash; some updated thousands of times.&nbsp;</p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span><strong><img style="float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;" src="/s3/cache%2F5c%2F85%2F5c857caacf06b8268417e5b45f8318cf.jpg" alt="Wikimedia Logo" width="150" height="150" /><span style="color: #888888;">"&nbsp;</span></strong><span style="color: #888888;">Wikimedia Foundation is a small non-profit&nbsp;that supports hundreds of thousands of volunteers&nbsp;&ndash; the people from all over the world who make our project,&nbsp;and give away their efforts for free so they can be enjoyed by&nbsp;hundreds of millions of people every day. You&rsquo;re recognizing&nbsp;that community of volunteers by recognizing us.&ldquo;</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Rekindling the world&rsquo;s insatiable appetite for knowledge, Wikipedia&nbsp;is visited by 477 million visitors per month, making the Wikimedia web&nbsp;property the fifth most visited in the world. It contains over 20 million&nbsp;articles in 282 languages and it is run by a meager staff of 97. In 5 years, Wikimedia plans to&nbsp;increase its global reach to 1 billion people and increase the number of articles in Wikipedia to 50&nbsp;million &ndash; all while diversifying participation and improving the quality of its content.&nbsp;As part of this goal, Wikimedia hopes to increase participation from contributors in India, Brazil, and&nbsp;the Middle East and North Africa regions &ndash; where there are already buds of rich online engagement.&nbsp;</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Wikipedia is not innovating a new technology nor is it staffing a mass of researchers to extract data&nbsp;from all corners of the earth. It is rather changing the world with an idea: to create a public space&nbsp;where all people can freely join to collaborate, share and communicate all of our collective&nbsp;knowledge. In its 12 years of existence, Wikipedia has become the largest collection of shared&nbsp;knowledge in human history. The brainchild of one man, it would never be possible without the&nbsp;hundreds of thousands of volunteers who offer their time and expertise to create its content.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Read also our <a rel="nofollow" href="../../../../article/view/604/">interview</a> of Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales.</p> <p><span style="color: #888888;">(Photo CC-BY-SA 3.0 Victor Grigas)</span></p>