Join us for the One World Birthday celebration, Friday January 15.
Wikipedia launched in 2001, the same year America Online bought Time Warner. An Associated Press story covered the nascent encyclopedia project wistfully, as a project with high ideals but little chance of success in the face of a corporate takeover of the Internet.
Image by Nicholas Boudreau, licensed CC BY 4.0.
Twenty years hence, it stands as a testament to what loosely organized volunteers, sharing little more than a set of principles and a willingness to do some work, can accomplish, and how refreshingly different it can be from the corporate vision of the online experience.
Members of that loosely organized community—Wikipedians—traditionally celebrate “Wikipedia Day” every January 15.
Please join Wiki Strategies and friends as we continue this tradition with a free online event, which we’re calling “One World Birthday.” This is a celebration for all of us, as we all stand to benefit from the tools and vision Wikipedia offers. We will hold a “Park Bench” discussion with Ward Cunningham, inventor of wiki software, and several others, who represent diverse experiences as Wikipedians and as world citizens who appreciate Wikipedia. Following the discussion, we will hold a “Wikidojo,” in which we invite beginners and wiki veterans alike to share the experience of editing a wiki together.
Find further information, including registration and a time zone converter, on the One World Birthday page. The festivities begin at 4:00pm Pacific Time on Friday, January 15, 2021.
Looking for some reading to whet your appetite? Try these:
- How Wikipedia dodged public outcry that plagues social media platforms, published on MisInfoCon
- Trusting Everybody to Work Together, an essay written for the book Wikipedia @20
User:Peteforsyth
Pete Forsyth