Wikimedia CommonsWikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in all languages, including Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikibooks, and Wikispecies, or downloaded for offsite use. As of February 2023, the repository contains over 90 million free-to-use media files, managed and editable by registered volunteers.
English WikipediaThe English Wikipedia is the primary English-language edition of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on January 15, 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition. English Wikipedia is hosted alongside other language editions by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American non-profit organization. Its content is written independently of other editions in various varieties of English, aiming to stay consistent within articles. Its internal newspaper is The Signpost.
WikibooksWikibooks (previously called Wikimedia Free Textbook Project and Wikimedia-Textbooks) is a wiki-based Wikimedia project hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the creation of free content digital textbooks and annotated texts that anyone can edit. Initially, the project was created solely in English in July 2003; a later expansion to include additional languages was started in July 2004. As of , there are Wikibooks sites active for languages comprising a total of articles and recently active editors.
Wikimedia movementThe Wikimedia movement is the global community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia. This community directly builds and administers these projects with the commitment of achieving this using open standards and software. First created around and by Wikipedia's community of volunteer editors (Wikipedians), it has since expanded to other projects like Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata and volunteer software engineers and developers contributing to the software used to power Wikimedia, MediaWiki.
WikisourceWikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually representing a different language); multiple Wikisources make up the overall project of Wikisource. The project's aim is to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations.
WikipediaWikipedia is a free-content online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, collectively known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system called MediaWiki. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history, and has consistently been one of the 10 most popular websites. Created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on January 15, 2001, it is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization.
Universal libraryA universal library is a library with universal collections. This may be expressed in terms of it containing all existing information, useful information, all books, all works (regardless of format) or even all possible works. This ideal, although unrealizable, has influenced and continues to influence librarians and others and be a goal which is aspired to. Universal libraries are often assumed to have a complete set of useful features (such as finding aids, translation tools, alternative formats, etc.).
WiktionaryWiktionary (UKˈwɪkʃənəri, ; USˈwɪkʃənɛri, ; rhyming with "dictionary") is a multilingual, web-based project to create a free content dictionary of terms (including words, phrases, proverbs, linguistic reconstructions, etc.) in all natural languages and in a number of artificial languages. These entries may contain definitions, s for illustration, pronunciations, etymologies, inflections, usage examples, quotations, related terms, and translations of terms into other languages, among other features.
MediaWikiMediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002 and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker, after which it has since been coordinated by the Wikimedia Foundation. It powers most websites hosted by the Foundation including Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons, Wikiquote, Meta-Wiki and Wikidata, which define a large part of the set requirements for the software. MediaWiki is written in the PHP programming language and stores all text content into a database.
Jimmy WalesJimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the nickname Jimbo Wales, is an American–British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the for-profit wiki hosting service Fandom (formerly Wikia). He has worked on other online projects, including Bomis, Nupedia, WikiTribune, and WT Social. Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama, where he attended Randolph School, a university-preparatory school.