25 Years of Wikipedia

Re:25 Years of Wikipedia by ryan_lane on Thursday January 15, 2026 @07:45PM (#46641614)

I think this deserves more than a nitpick. WMF also doesn't dictate the actions of the volunteer community, and neither does the board. The content of Wikipedia is fully volunteer created and maintained, and admin actions are also handled by the volunteer community.

The foundation is there to provide technical, legal, and community support. In some cases this is funding for community events, in other cases, this includes funding towards making the editor community more diverse. In most cases, though, it's keeping a staff of folks that maintain and improve the software, and defend the project legally.

So, no Wikipedia isn't a corporation. It's more of a commune.

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Re:25 Years of Wikipedia by weslleyskah on Thursday January 15, 2026 @08:15PM (#46641825)

I think I should have used the word 'entity', but commune is better since the body of editors are so diverse. But they sure have oligarchies.

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Re:25 Years of Wikipedia by ryan_lane on Friday January 16, 2026 @12:27AM (#46643294)

I think it would be hard to say it's an oligarchy. There's 450 or so active admins (and around 900 total), and really, they don't truly have that much power. The vast majority of decisions on Wikipedia are made by editors, and on occasion admins get involved.

This isn't a country with some ruling class. 450 people aren't in cahoots to stop you from editing.

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Re:25 Years of Wikipedia by mrguyorama on Friday January 16, 2026 @03:05PM (#46651470)

>But they sure have oligarchies.

Then name one of the relevant oligarchs

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