People throughout the world are gathering at more than 450 events in 120 countries to celebrate Wikipedia’s 10th birthday.  I’m amazed and thrilled and humbled by the significant support Wikipedia has in every corner of the world.  When I started Wikipedia a decade ago, I  never imagined that everyday people in places like Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, Bolivia, Ethiopia and Algeria would come together to celebrate Wikipedia in such an extraordinary way.

In ten years, Wikipedia has become so much to so many people.  Millions of people came together because they believed that access to free information was important and needed.  Thank you to everyone who has contributed. Thank you to the editors, donors and supporters. Thank you to those who believed in our mission and helped us along the way.  It’s because of you that Wikipedia exists: thank you for believing in the power of ordinary people to come together to do something remarkable.

It’s my hope that more people are now inspired to join the movement and help us reach our mission: a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.  I look forward to working with all of you over the next ten years to reach our goal.
Happy birthday, Wikipedia!

–Jimbo

Late last week Fox News ran a news story about Wikimedia projects, focusing on Jimmy Wales, which included quite a bit of false information. We would like to clarify some of those details

Jimmy is the founder of Wikipedia and of the Wikimedia Foundation. He plays a key editorial role in our projects, by virtue of his special status as our founder, and due to his continued active engagement in the projects. Jimmy is not the President of the Wikimedia Foundation nor is he President of Wikipedia: there are no such roles. The chair of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is Michael Snow, and the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation is Sue Gardner. They have both been in those positions for several years. Jimmy is Chair Emeritus of the Board of Trustees, as he has been for several years now.

Last weekend Jimmy voluntarily relinquished some technical user-account privileges he has historically held, but that in no way affects his official status with Wikimedia, nor his editorial position. It was false to claim that Jimmy ever held final editorial control on our projects — his decision to change the technical details of his user account should not be interpreted as changes to his status in general.  Jimmy is actively engaged in discussions with other Wikimedia editors about sexually-explicit materials on Wikimedia Commons: discussions like that are part of his normal role, and are part of the normal work of being an active volunteer. He is a thought leader in the Wikimedia projects, and although the discussions over the past week have been unusually intense, we don’t consider them problematic. Discussion is how Wikimedians work through policy development and policy interpretation: active argument and debate are normal for us — they are how we do our work. The Wikimedia Foundation is grateful for Jimmy’s involvement, and we’re glad he continues to be an important part of the Wikimedia movement.

Jay Walsh, Communications

Today the USA Network announced that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has been chosen for their debut recognition award, Character Approved.  Jimmy is one of seven recipients – all of which are recognized figures in the arts, philanthropy, food, architecture, and technology.  The USA Network (a US-based cable TV operation) will run the spots featuring Jimmy and the other recipients over the next few weeks.  Jimmy’s videos can also be found on the award’s web portal.

And even more excellent, the recognition comes with a $10,000USD gift for a charity of the recipients choice.  Jimmy has chosen to share this gift with the non-profit project that started it all.  A big thanks to Jimmy.

Jay Walsh, Head of Communications

There is just no doubt in my mind that Jimmy’s Appeal letter has been the cause of our wonderful, incredible fundraising bump over the last 7 days.  None of us here predicted  such a wonderful response…but when you think about it, it really makes sense.

A few blog posts back, we proved that people do read our site notices…our messages matter.  So is it so hard to imagine these results?

Fundraiser Snapshot 122908

Yeah… I guess it might be hard to imagine.   Those LONG green lines are the donation totals for Jimmy’s Appeal.  It’s roughly 8 times what we had been raising on a daily basis previous to the appeal.

Date    # Donors    $USD
12/23/08    8,192     $283,994.98

12/24/08    6,823     $229,293.59

12/25/08    5,139     $169,109.73

12/26/08    5,995     $213,963.27

12/27/08    5,791     $200,988.24

12/28/08    5,627     $196,524.30

12/29/08    5,850     $207,349.76

Compare those results to the recent weeks (when we were averaging about $30,000 per day), the biggest change is running the Jimmy Appeal at 50% of the time.

Site Notice Frequency 12/20/08 to 12/22/08:

There Need it Meter: 25%
Rely on donations Meter: 25%
Wikipedia is a Non Profit: 25%
Various Quotes:  25%

And from 12/23 to present:

Jimmy Appeal Red Border:  25%
Jimmy Appeal Grey Border:  25%
There Need it Meter: 10%
Rely on donations Meter: 10%
Wikipedia is a Non Profit: 10%
Various Quotes:  20%

Incidentally, how did the grey bordered vs. red bordered vs. quotes and other site notices do?

# donations        sum           average
red border            13,372      $441,163.75     $32.99       25%
grey border          12,215       $419,911.63     $34.38       25%
quotes                     1,560        $59,445.81     $37.69       20%
Helped Meter           963        $35,814.23     $37.19       10%
Need it Meter           927        $32,502.97     $35.06      10%
NonProfit Meter      867        $38,412.25     $44.30      10%

Nope… no doubt.   The Jimmy Appeal was a huge push.

The Appeal really hit the right notes for our community:  direct and honest.  It was straight to the point and forceful.  And it helped our donors understand why we needed the money and what we were going to do with it.

As I write this, we’re at approximately $5,500,000.00 and still going strong toward our $6 million goal.   That’s with over 100,000 donors (many of them new donors) averaging over $30.00 per donation.   That speaks very well for the depth of our donor pool and the future.

Rand Montoya
Head of Community Giving

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