Posts by Joe Sutherland, Wikimedia Foundation
A person counts a stack of paper currency.

You don’t need to pay for a Wikipedia article

The benefits of having a Wikipedia article about yourself or your business seem obvious—they rank highly in search engine results, and having one can make your online presence more “professional”. However, Wikipedia works in a very different way than the rest of the internet. An article is by no means guaranteed; it can seem really….

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Introducing a resource kit to help organizers handle event safety incidents

The Support and Safety team, in collaboration with several other Community Engagement teams at the Wikimedia Foundation, has developed a short kit providing event organizers with key actions, scripts, and steps to help them handle event safety issues as they arise at Wikimedia events.

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“It pays itself back in dividends”: NASA and MediaWiki, a natural pairing

The wiki's importance to the team became clear when the unthinkable happened—the team’s server crashed. It was then that the group realised how fundamental this wiki project, launched by three engineers and grown by countless others, had become in their daily routines.

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Announcing a new informational resource on Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA and government surveillance

We have released a new landing page for Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA, and the government has filed their response to our opening appeal brief.

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News on Wikipedia: How a world of volunteers dove into the leaked Panama Papers

Wikipedia editors jumped into action only nine minutes after the Guardian's report, and the consequent Wikipedia article has been edited once every 2.5 minutes since then.

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Millions read Bowie biography following sudden death

On January 10, just two days after the release of his twenty-sixth studio album, enigmatic British artist David Bowie died following an eighteen-month battle with liver cancer. His death kicked off a string of deaths among aging male entertainers, including Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey, René Angélil, and Abe Vigoda—all but the last within six years of age from one another. All….

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News on Wikipedia: Editors document Kansas City Royals’ World Series win

This week, the Kansas City Royals defeated the New York Mets to claim their first World Series in thirty years—and Wikipedia's editors were quick to react to the news.

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For Rexford Nkansah, Wikipedia represents the future of education for his country

Despite its growing economy, Ghana is not the first place one would associate with technology, but for 20-year-old native Rexford Nkansah, it’s second nature. “In Ghana you don’t have hobbies like skiing or going to restaurants,” he says. “So these are the little things I do to keep myself busy.” The youngest of five, Rexford….

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