Wikimedia

Revision as of 15:35, 22 February 2004 by Jukeboksi (talk | contribs) (moving wikipedia specific critisism to Wikipedia)

Wikimedia Foundation is a private tax-exempt corporation (IRS 501) in the US founded and mainly run by Jim Wales aka Jimbo.

It has no independent board, no legal charity status in any country, and seems to spend money it raises on providing hardware for mediawiki sites such as Wikipedia and Wiktionary.

Some claims have been made that part of the funds it raises is used to support development of the mediawiki software (which Consumerium R&D wiki is running on). According to Mediawiki developers these claims are not true and they are receiving no money from Wikimedia.

Many longstanding participants in the Wikipedia project have serious problems with the people and processes employed by the Foundation. As a volunteer organization, it probably has growing pains, and it's unclear if it will outgrow these, gain an independent board, or other attributes of a responsible nonprofit. Most of the criticisms have to do with wiki management problems on which there is little well-understood practice.