United States
The United States is a country in North America, home to nearly one fifth of Wikimedia contributors. Most users in the United States use English language projects, particularly the English Wikipedia. The Wikimedia Foundation is located in the United States, and Americans account for a majority of its donations.
| United States | |
|---|---|
| Wikimedia organizations | Wikimedia Foundation Wikimedia New York City Wikimedia District of Columbia |
| Projects censored | None |
| Wikiproject | WikiProject United States |
| Editors | |
| Category | Category:American Wikipedians |
| Major Wikipedias by active editors (5-99 edits per month) | |
| English | ~21030 (~91% of country, ~37% of project) |
| Chinese | ~410 (~2% of country, ~7% of project) |
| Simple English | ~270 (~1% of country, ~38% of project) |
| Spanish | ~190 (~0.8% of country, ~2% of project) |
| Japanese | ~100 (~0.4% of country, ~1% of project) |
| French | ~90 (~0.4% of country, ~1% of project) |
| Russian | ~60 (~0.2% of country, ~4% of project) |
| Korean | ~60 (~0.2% of country, ~2% of project) |
| Persian | ~50 (~0.2% of country, ~21% of project) |
| German | ~50 (~0.2% of country, ~0.7% of project) |
| (Show more) | |
| Major Wikipedias by very active editors (100+ edits per month) | |
| English | ~1970 (~90% of country, ~39% of project) |
| Chinese | ~70 (~3% of country, ~12% of project) |
| Simple English | ~30 (~1% of country, ~37% of project) |
| Spanish | ~20 (~0.7% of country, ~2% of project) |
| (Show more) | |
| Readers | |
| Major projects by monthly pageviews | |
| English Wikipedia | ~3.4B (~92% of country, ~41% of project) |
| Spanish Wikipedia | ~48.65M (~1% of country, ~5% of project) |
| Chinese Wikipedia | ~38.94M (~1% of country, ~9% of project) |
| Commons | ~21.4M (~0.6% of country, ~20% of project) |
| English Wiktionary | ~20.04M (~0.5% of country, ~32% of project) |
| French Wikipedia | ~19.14M (~0.5% of country, ~2% of project) |
| Russian Wikipedia | ~17.37M (~0.5% of country, ~2% of project) |
| Portuguese Wikipedia | ~15.63M (~0.4% of country, ~5% of project) |
| Japanese Wikipedia | ~13.14M (~0.4% of country, ~1% of project) |
| German Wikipedia | ~10.81M (~0.3% of country, ~1% of project) |
| (Show more) | |
Much of Wikimedia's technical infrastructure is in the United States, with the primary data center located in Ashburn, Virginia and the secondary/fallback cluster in Carrollton, Texas, as well as a cluster for edge caching in San Francisco.
Wikimedia organizations
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The Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the websites of the Wikimedia projects, is based in the United States. Wikimedia Foundation headquarters were based in St. Petersburg, Florida from 2003-2007, and have been based in San Francisco, California since then. The Wikimedia Foundation also has offices in Washington, DC.
There are numerous Wikimedia affiliate groups based in the United States, many of which coordinate through the Wikimedia United States Coalition. The two American Wikimedia chapters are Wikimedia District of Columbia and Wikimedia New York City. Wiki Project Med Foundation, a Wikimedia thematic organization with global membership, is incorporated in New York State, and there are also numerous Wikimedia user groups based in the United States.
The Wiki Education Foundation, a spinoff of the Wikimedia Foundation based in San Francisco, runs a Wikipedia Education Program in the United States.
Major past Wikimedia events in the US include Wikimania 2006 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Wikimania 2012 in Washington, D.C. American Wikipedians organize the Great American Wiknic annually, and also hold regular meetups in various places across the US.
Government regulations
editThe content of the Wikimedia projects is subject to the laws of the United States. Wikimedia content may not violate US copyright law. Under the terms of use, users agree not to infringe the privacy rights of others under the laws of the United States.
None of the Wikimedia projects have ever been directly censored by the US government, and the Wikimedia Foundation has never had to remove or alter content in response to a request from the US government.[1] Free speech in the United States is protected by the First Amendment of the US constitution. The WMF considers Section 512 of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act (CDA Section 230) to be "essential" to ensuring Wikimedia's neutrality, stating that they provide "crucial immunity from intermediary liability that allow the Wikimedia Foundation to host Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects as a neutral platform."[2]
In 2012, the English Wikipedia held a blackout to protest the proposed SOPA and PIPA acts (which were understood to be a threat to the continued functioning of the Wikimedia projects), which were then postponed indefinitely. The Wikimedia Foundation supports Net Neutrality regulations, and put out a statement supporting it in 2017.[3] In 2018, both American Wikimedia chapters expressed support for net neutrality.[4]
The US government has requested private user information from the Wikimedia Foundation in the past. See the following timeline of requests for private user data, sorted by type:
Donations
editAmerican donors account for the majority of donations to the Wikimedia Foundation. Some US-based major donors include the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Google, Amazon, the Stanton Foundation, and the Omidyar Network.
| Year | Donations | % of all donations |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | $10,041,643 | 67% |
| 2011 | $14,398,721 | 60% |
| 2012 | $24,523,562 | 70% |
After 2012, the Wikimedia Foundation stopped providing donation data on a per-country basis.[6] More recent reports divide statistics by continent. In previous reports, most North American donations came from the US: Canada was typically ~10% of US, and donations from other North American countries were minimal.
| Year | Donations | % of all donations |
|---|---|---|
| 2013-14 | $31,000,000 | 61% |
| 2014-15 | $45,300,000 | 60% |
| 2015-16 | $43,000,000 | 56% |
| 2016-17 | $55,000,000 | 60% |
| 2017-18 | $58,200,000 | 58% |
| 2018-19 | $68,500,000 | 61% |
| 2019-20 | $73,000,000 | 62% |
| 2020-21 | $89,600,000 | 60% |
References
edit- ↑ https://transparency-archive.wikimedia.org/content.html
- ↑ https://policy.wikimedia.org/policy-landing/liability/
- ↑ https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/12/04/net-neutrality-access-to-knowledge/
- ↑ wmdc:Press:Wikimedia DC statement supporting Senate action to restore Net Neutrality, Wikimedia New York City/Net Neutrality
- ↑ From reports: 2010, 2011, 2012
- ↑ "FY1819 Fundraising Report", wikimedia-l. See further posts in that thread regarding future WMF internal discussion on resuming publishing country-level data.