Biography
Jimmy Wales co-founded Wikipedia.
The Foundation
Wikipedia is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a 501(c)(3) in San Francisco whose IRS ruling date is March 2005. Its scale is now that of a substantial institution: revenue of 167.9 million in 2022 and 111.7 million to $168.3 million over the same period.
The narrowing gap between revenue and spending is the interesting figure. An organization taking in $180 million a year to run a site written by volunteers is a different object from the one usually described in accounts of Wikipedia’s founding.
The 2012 Blackout
On 18 January 2012 the English Wikipedia went dark for 24 hours worldwide, from 05:00 UTC, in protest against SOPA and PIPA. It was the first public protest of its kind in its history.
The Foundation’s own announcement is careful about whose decision it was. Over 72 hours, more than 1,800 Wikipedians took part in the discussion — “by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia” — and the blackout proposals drew the strongest support. The Foundation announced a decision the community had made.
That distinction is the reason Wikipedia is treated separately from platforms on this site: the entity that owns the servers is not the entity that decided to switch them off.
Digital Political Impact
- Co-founded the reference source through which a large share of political information reaches readers, including through search results and AI systems that draw on it
- The 2012 blackout is the single most effective act of platform political mobilization on record, and it was decided by a public deliberation of 1,800 people rather than by an executive
- The Foundation’s finances document the institutionalization of what began as a volunteer project
What Is Not Established Here
Removed in the citation audit: his birth year; the founding date of Wikipedia and the circumstances of its founding; his co-founder; his other ventures; and his roles at the Foundation over time. The IRS filings establish the Foundation’s form, location and finances; the 2012 announcement establishes the blackout and how it was decided. Neither covers Wales’s personal history, and it is not asserted.
Sources
- 01.
Internal Revenue Service, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. Wikimedia Foundation Org — IRS Form 990 filings (EIN 20-0049703). The Foundation's tax filings. A 501(c)(3) in San Francisco with an IRS ruling date of March 2005. Total revenue $158,987,065 (2021), $167,911,116 (2022) and $180,199,672 (2023), against expenses of $111,669,959, $145,835,404 and $168,305,333 — a surplus in each year, with the gap narrowing sharply.
- 02.
Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia's community calls for anti-SOPA blackout January 18. (2012). Announcement of 16 January 2012. Source for the English Wikipedia going dark for 24 hours worldwide from 05:00 UTC on 18 January 2012 in protest against SOPA and PIPA; for it being the first public protest of its kind on the English Wikipedia; and for the decision process — over 72 hours, more than 1,800 Wikipedians participated in the discussion, 'by far the largest level of participation in a community discussion ever seen on Wikipedia'. The announcement describes the decision as the community's, not the Foundation's.