Wikipedia – 25 years of knowledge at its best
Celebrate the volunteers who make the site possible, and be part of the platform's future.
On Thursday, the world’s largest online information source, Wikipedia, turned 25 – the anniversary of the day when reliable, human-generated knowledge became accessible worldwide. The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that manages Wikipedia, is inviting everyone to discover Wikipedia’s journey over the past 25 years through a campaign.
“Wikipedia is a digital wonder of the world, unlike anything else. It has overcome countless challenges and changes in its time, thanks to the people behind it and their unwavering commitment to sharing free, reliable knowledge with the world,” said Maryana Iskander, Chief Executive Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation.
“With billions of monthly visits and an ever-growing number of organisations relying on Wikipedia’s free, verified knowledge, this platform has become integral to the architecture of the entire internet,” Iskander added.
Global birthday campaign
To celebrate Wikipedia’s 25th birthday, the Wikimedia Foundation has released its first-ever video documentary series, which takes a look at the lives and stories of volunteer Wikipedia editors around the world.
The series stars eight such volunteers, highlighting their unique purpose and passion for contributing to the online encyclopedia. They include a Californian who has documented hurricanes and storms for two decades, an Indian doctor who shared critical information about COVID-19 during a global pandemic, an elderly librarian in Tokyo who provides knowledge in Japanese, and more. Their stories highlight that even in, and especially in, the age of artificial intelligence (AI), knowledge is human, and knowledge requires human intervention.
25th birthday events
The Wikimedia Foundation launched several initiatives during the anniversary campaign:
- An interactive quiz inviting users to explore different visions of the future of Wikipedia, created together by editors, children, futurists, and artists.
- A global call for users to use a new feature to “sign” a digital Wikipedia birthday card, aiming to make it the longest birthday card ever created.
- A global virtual birthday event will take place on January 15 at 16:00 UTC, featuring surprise guests, games, entertainment, and more. The event will be live-streamed on Wikipedia’s YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram channels. Other events are planned around the world.
- Baby Globe, a new birthday mascot inspired by sketches by a Wikipedia volunteer, will be available next month in a series of playful, visual surprises on several language versions of Wikipedia when readers turn on “birthday mode.”
- A fresh, festive collection of limited edition Wikipedia merchandise, starting with the Baby Globe plush toy, created in collaboration with “Makeship”.
Wikipedia in the age of artificial intelligence
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes the new norm, Wikipedia and its human-generated and curated knowledge have never been more valuable. Today, Wikipedia is one of the ten most visited websites in the world and the only one run by a non-profit organization.
It’s 65 million articles in over 300 languages are viewed nearly 15 billion times a month, and its knowledge powers generative AI chatbots, search engines, voice assistants, and more. Wikipedia is one of the highest-quality datasets used to train large-scale language models.
More information about Wikipedia’s birthday can be found here.
Credits:
