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Based in San Francisco, theWikimedia Foundation (WMF) is a nonprofit charitable organization incorporated in the United States that is registrant of the domainwikipedia.org, owner of the trademark and operator of the wiki platform.[1] The Foundation also runs other projects like Wikibooks, Wikidata, Wiktionary and Wikimedia Commons. It raises money, distributesgrants, controls the servers, develops and deploys software, and does outreach to supportWikimedia projects, including the English Wikipedia. The WMF does not edit Wikipedia content, except for occasionaloffice actions to avoid damage. "The community" (more specific individual volunteer editors) handles content, because if the WMF did take responsibility for content, it would introduce liability issues persection 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
The organization grew quickly. In 2006, there were five employees and about $2.7 million in revenue. In 2012, there were approximately 140employees and a revenue of about $38 million (mostly from donations). In 2016, there were approximately 280 employees,[2] and in 2020, there were approximately 450 employees and contractors.[3]
The WMF and volunteers develop software used on the English Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects). Even you canbecome a MediaWiki hacker. Seemw:Wikimedia engineering for some of the current priorities andm:Tech/News for news. The WMF is also hiring, seefoundationsite:about/jobs. If you have a specific idea about how to develop a new software feature for the English Wikipedia, it could help to find a wiki-colleague or make a friend who has experience. You might find people by posting your ideas atWP:VPI,WP:VPP,WP:VPT, or looking for tech-savvy Wikipedians inCategory:Wikipedia bot operators. You might also consider learning how to code yourself or seeing if anIndividual Engagement Grant (IEG) could suit you (however IEGs are not just about tech stuff). Getting official development time from the WMF for new ideas is unfortunately difficult because there are many old and good ideas in the works, bugs already logged, and feature requests to existing software already requested.[4]
The WMF suffered significant staff turmoil, turnover among board members, and loss of many long-standing employees in the 1 year and 10 months ofLila Tretikov's (User:LilaTretikov)[6] tenure as executive director (June 2014 to March 2016), as chronicled atA timeline of recent events surrounding the Wikimedia projects byUser:GorillaWarfare and others.
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees oversees the foundation and its work, as itsultimate corporate authority.
Three board trustees are to be elected as community representatives, but there were periods when three were not serving in 2015 and 2016. (Seem:Wikimedia_Foundation_elections_2015/Results for results of the most recent Wikimedia elections.)User:Doc James/James Heilman was voted off of the board in 2015.[7][8] This related to his communication with staff and interest in making details of theKnowledge Engine public;Andrew Lih/User:Fuzheado of theWikipedia Weekly later said in March 2016 that "we can now see in retrospect James was very much justified in taking on these issues".[9] (User:Raystorm/María Sefidari) was brought on in place of James. She finished 4th in the previous election and had prior board experience. In 2016, a community-elected member,User:Denny/Denny Vrandečić, resigned.[10]User:Jimbo Wales/Jimmy Wales has the "founder's seat" and the title "EmeritusChairman". Two board members are selected byWikimedia movement affiliates and the remaining four members are appointed by the rest of the board for expert knowledge. The WMF has anAdvisory Board. Seestrategy:Task force/Strategy/Plan overview for old community discussion on strategy.
For the most recent minutes of theBoard of Trustees, seewmf:Resolutions. For a list of the board's user accounts, seem:Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. The board hasa noticeboard as well. If you have a general question for the WMF that is more general than just English Wikipedia, then that can go to answers
wikimedia.org (and here are someprevious answers). There are also other ways tocontact the WMF.
Members ofthe Wikipedia community vary in their reactions to WMF initiatives. Many atWP:VisualEditor/Default State RFC criticized the buggy release of theWP:VisualEditor (VE). The community disabled some VE features, in line with consensus, but against WMF wishes.[11]WP:Education Working Group/RfC shows both community support and community skepticism of the value of theWP:Education program. The recent notification features received generally positive feedback. Sometimes, WMF staff provide direct and organized support to volunteer Wikipedians engaged in advancingthe Wikimedia mission – more perhaps than the volunteer community might be able to muster. For example, the WMF has helped users that faced legal problems that occurred because of their editing of Wikimedia projects.[12]
ACTRIAL was important because it showed how disagreement between the WMF and the community can occasionally reach proportions requiring the Foundation to bend to the volunteers' consensuses for needed organic changes as they finally did atWP:ACPERM five years later.[13]
In 2013,Sue Gardner/User:Sue Gardner, then executive director, criticized the existing structure of grantmaking, which she proposed and set up,[14][15] as being too vulnerable to corruption.[16] There are ways to participate in managing the money that is donated to the WMF. There is am:Grant Advisory Committee, composed of volunteers. There is also am:Funds Dissemination Committee with elected representatives.
There are about 282 staff members, including employees and individual independent contractors. Staff are generally paid either an hourly wage or a monthly salary. Full-time employees in the US receiveemployee benefits, including fully paid health insurance. There are no bonuses, no commissions, noprofit-sharing, and nostock options or any other types of equity-based compensation.
The compensation for all Board members (which is US $0.00), all officers, all directors, key employees and other highly compensated staff is publicly available through the Form 990 onGuidestar.org. In the fiscal year ending in June 2012, the highest-paid employee was Sue Gardner, who had a base salary of US $200,000 per year and also received the equivalent of $19,980 in other forms of compensation (mostly in retirement savings and health insurance premiums). Seem:Wikimedia Foundation salaries for a compilation of salaries from the public990s over the years.
The Wikimedia Foundation usually has some job openings[17] and seeks people who are motivated by the mission.
In general, the Foundation does not provide legal support or legal advice to volunteers. But seemeta.wikimedia.org for more details because it does maintain am:Legal and Community Advocacy/Legal Fees Assistance Program for volunteers under certain circumstances.
The Executive Director has prepared the framework [...] the Executive Director recommended the formal creation of the FDC
Recommendations: Funds Dissemination