On Friday, January 14, 2016 Wikipedia celebrated 15 years of existence. If you didn’t know before now, Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit – the biggest there is. In a press release, the company made some announcements to this effect:
This week, we celebrate not just Wikipedia, but the birth of an idea: that anyone can contribute to the world’s knowledge. Globally, readers and editors are coming together to celebrate, with nearly 150 events across six continents. From editing marathons in Bangladesh and lectures in Switzerland, to picnics in South Africa and a conference in Mexico, the world is celebrating the joy of knowledge.
Wikipedia and its sister Wikimedia projects represent a global, ever-expanding resource and community for free knowledge.
- Wikipedia started in January 2001 in English, but soon expanded to other languages—within the first year, it grew to 18 languages. Today, it is available in nearly 300 languages.
- Volunteers constantly edit and improve Wikipedia. Every hour, roughly 15,000 edits are made to Wikipedia. Every day, around 7,000 new articles are created.
- Wikipedia became one of the top 10 websites in the world in 2007, and the only non-profit website anywhere near the top.
- There are 11 other Wikimedia free knowledge projects, with more than 30 million freely licensed images, as well as Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikivoyage, and more.
- The Wikimedia community supports global projects that spread the joy of knowledge. Wiki Loves Monuments, a global photo competition, launched in 2010 – named the largest photo competition in the world.
- Volunteers around the world have built hundreds of partnerships with galleries, libraries, museums to make institutional collections more broadly available. More than 1.5 million images of cultural works are found in Wikimedia projects.
See the full press release here