News

Category: Projects/Initiatives

Wikipedia Gets a Fresh New Look: First Desktop Update in a Decade Puts Usability at the Forefront

The interface update, built in collaboration with Wikipedia volunteers worldwide, will make the site more welcoming, easier to use for everyone Update: On 4 May 2023, the desktop update was deployed to Spanish Wikipedia. The updated interface is now live on 95% of the 318 active language versions of Wikipedia for all desktop users. The….

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2022 as you saw it on Wikipedia

It has been a long year dominated by news headline after news headline. The Russian government invaded Ukraine. Queen Elizabeth II died. Amber Heard and Johnny Depp. The World Cup. Everything surrounding Elon Musk. Wikipedia isn’t immune to that phenomenon. But in 2022, one particular English Wikipedia article captivated readers like you more than any….

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Experience some of the world’s most beautiful places with Wiki Loves Earth 2022

Think about that feeling you get when you are walking through pristine nature. Do you think it can be captured in a single photo?  The Wiki Loves Earth photography competition celebrates the world’s natural heritage, encompassing everything from small parks to massive nature reserves. It asks photographers to dive into those areas to pick out….

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New Wikipedia editor features make it easy for everyone to contribute

New features on Wikipedia are making it easy for everyone to edit Wikipedia, especially those contributing to the site for the first time. Every time you read a Wikipedia article, you are reading the work of a volunteer contributor.  Nearly 300,000 people from around the world edit Wikipedia articles each month — they start new….

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Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as its first customers; allows new customers to self sign-up for free trials

Wikimedia Enterprise announced its first customers: multinational technology company Google and nonprofit digital library Internet Archive. Wikimedia Enterprise was recently launched by the Wikimedia Foundation as an opt-in product.

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Court room of the European Court of Human Rights

European Court of Human Rights case dismissed after two years of access to Wikipedia being restored in Turkey

Today, the European Court of Human Rights announced that it is dismissing the Wikimedia Foundation’s 2019 petition to lift the block of Wikipedia in Turkey. The case was dismissed because access to Wikipedia was restored by the Turkish government in January 2020 and the block was already determined to be a human rights violation in….

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Wikimedia Foundation launches Wikimedia Enterprise: the new, opt-in product for companies and organizations to easily reuse content from Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects

October 25, 2021, San Francisco, CA, USA ―  The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, today formally launched a new commercial product, Wikimedia Enterprise, for large-scale reusers and distributors of Wikimedia content. The opt-in product, operated by Wikimedia, LLC, is designed for companies and organizations who want to more easily….

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Wikipedia celebrates 20 years of free, trusted information for the world

14 January 2021 — Wikipedia, the world’s largest free online encyclopedia, turns 20 years old on 15 January. This birthday commemorates two decades of global efforts to support free knowledge, open collaboration, and trust on the internet. In a time when disinformation and polarization challenge our trust in information and institutions, Wikipedia is more relevant….

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The infinite potential of human collaboration

On November 2, 2000, a space capsule carrying three astronauts arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). It was appropriately named “Expedition 1,” and it was the beginning of 20 years of humans continuously living and working onboard the ISS. Just two months after the landing of Expedition 1, another seemingly impossible human endeavor launched….

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Pandemics and politics: 2020 through the lens of Wikipedia

This is my sixth annual post sharing the list of Wikipedia’s most popular articles of the year, and each year I’ve had to come up with different ways of saying “people really love the latest pop culture.” Then 2020 happened — and, as with most things this year, the list was very different. Instead of….

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