Wikipedia talk:FAQ/Overview

Who really owns Wikipedia?

"With the announcement of the Wikimedia Foundation on June 20, 2003, the ownership of all domain names was transferred to the Foundation" - that's a good one, by which I mean "a good dodge". "Who owns Wikipedia?" is the question, not "Who owns the domain names". I mean, this whole thing could be sold to Google in a flash, set up on wikipedia.google.com and that would be that. So who has the right to close that deal with Google? That person owns Wikipedia. Jim Tour 11:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The Wikimedia Foundation owns Wikipedia. It is true that the Wikimedia Foundation could (in theory) sell Wikipedia to Google, though there is no interest in doing anything like that at all. In such a transaction, all the proceeds would have to remain with the Wikimedia Foundation and be spent on the charitable purpose of the foundation, or transferred to other 501(c)(3) organizations.--Jimbo Wales 17:47, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Was curious about who then owns the Wikimedia Foundation, but it looks like nonprofits do not have this ownership issue. Also, although the comments above are over a decade old at this point, it's nice to see Mr. Wales responding to users directly. Good luck with WikiTribune / WT:Social! - Indefensible (talk) 06:49, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

What's wrong with the donation counter?

It shows always the same Number for 1 or 2 days. BTW count shown by the small version differs from the count of the bigger one (maybe by means of caching?) --Wolf Peuker 11:29, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Pardon, I was wrong. They differ only - by thousands(!) --Wolf Peuker 11:32, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

...

HELP, PLEASE!

Hi friends!

I learnt that my name showed up among the notable alumni of Moscow's "Russian Peoples' Friendship University". I did check and found no references attached to my name. I thought (mistakenly as it turned out, for which I sincerely apologize) that I could write an entry about myself. I have now been warned that this article may soon be deleted. I do modestly think that, in view of the many entrances with my name, it would be worth readers' while to know a bit about myself and my publications. Is there any way this can be done? For instance, could I ask someone else to take care of it?

If not, tough luck!

Best wishes to everybody!

sergio viaggio s.viaggio@aiic.net —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sviaggio (talk • contribs) 20:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure, Unicorn123xxxx (talk) 16:16, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Top 100, Top 500, Top 1,000, Top 5,000 articles?

What is the prospect of having the page statistics of articles posted on those pages? For example, I noticed that an article I was working on is in the Top 5,000 articles accessed. It'd be interesting to see how articles "rank" compared to others when perusing the encyclopedia here.

Here's an example of what I was thinking... Something to the effect of:

..of course the info in the box is arbitrary, (and it doesn't need to be that obtrusive, but I think this would be a great addition to the pages being viewed.

Dijcks HotTub Pool 19:26, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Who owns Wikipedia? 1st para

re: "Their authors under the CC-BY-SA license (and in most cases, also the GNU Free Documentation License), so the articles are free content and may be reproduced freely under the same license." -- is the primary clause missing its verb? if so, then perhaps it should be "They are authors under the CC-BY-SA license...", or possibly "Their authors are under the CC-BY-SA license..." -- Oniscoid (talk) 03:17, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Easy way to repeat search at Wiktionary?

Sometimes it is not clear whether something should be looked up in Wikipedia or Wiktionary. If in doubt I usually start at Wikipedia. It would be handy to have an easy way to repeat the search at Wiktionary. I try not to re-type anything I've typed before... Is there an easy way? Search result pages have lots of namespace searching options but no Wiktionary option that I could find. A link to Wiktionary a couple clicks from any Wikipedia article and copy paste would be helpful. THe best I've found is >About Wikipedia , scroll to Contents, >Sister Projects >Wiktionary and then paste.

Sorry if there is a better place to have posted this. I did not find one. Fholson 15:07, 28 February 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fholson (talk • contribs)

Quick link to Content box?

When there is a Content box that is not on the the first screen it would be handy to have a link near the top of article (title line?) to its Contents box.

Sorry if there is a better place to have posted this. I did not find one. Fholson 15:09, 28 February 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fholson (talk • contribs)