The German Wikipedia Community
The German Wikipedia section Wikimedia was founded ten years ago in Berlin.
Wikimedia Germany was founded ten years ago by 35 activists in a lecture theatre at Berlin’s Technische Universität. It is a kind of friends’ association that promotes the main project, the German version of the Wikipedia online encyclopaedia. The idea was to provide a solid framework for the young German-speaking community and to foster the free knowledge philosophy. The global Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco got the ball rolling in 2003, and is meanwhile active in over 40 countries.
Nowadays, the non-profit organization in Berlin is well organized, with in excess of 60 people working at its Tempelhofer Ufer offices. Thanks to its more than ten thousand members, Wikimedia in Germany is funded by private donations alone – its annual budget in 2014 is just shy of five million euros. As such, Wikimedia Germany is one of the world’s largest “chapters” – as the activists call the individual branches – second only to the foundation in the USA.
Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikivoyage et al.
Despite all this success, there are also conflicts – above all with the unpaid Wikipedia authors who write for the association’s main project. They fear that the association might neglect the encyclopaedia in favour of other activities. Around 6,000 active authors write for the German version, with around 400 new articles appearing in the German-language version of Wikipedia every day, the Berlin-based association claims. There are also other less well-known projects driven by the association, however, such as the Wikimedia Commons database of images, the Wikibooks eBook portal and the Wikivoyage travel wiki.
Early August will see the activists meeting in London for the “Wikimania” international conference. “We want to network with community members from all over the world”, explains Wikimedia spokesperson Jan Apelt, going on to say that the German association wants to present its projects and show how it is contributing from its Berlin base to the promotion of free knowledge.
“Wikimania” International Wikimedia Conference in London from 6 to 10 August 2014
www.wikimedia.de/wiki/Hauptseite
