The Wikimedian of the Year is an annual award that honors

Wikipedia editors The Wikipedia community, collectively known colloquially as Wikipedians, is an informal community that volunteers to create and maintain Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. Since August 2012, the word "Wikipedian" has been an '' Oxford Diction ...

and other contributors to

Wikimedia The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best know ...

projects to highlight major achievements within the

Wikimedia movement According to the Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikimedia movement is the global community of contributors to the Wikimedia projects. This community directly builds and administers the projects. It is committed to using open standards and software. ...

, established in August 2011 by

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

's co-founder

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...

. Wales selects the recipients and honors them at

Wikimania Wikimania is the Wikimedia movement's annual conference, organized by volunteers and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, other wikis, open-source software, f ...

, an annual conference of the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

—except in 2020, 2021, and 2022 when the recipients were announced at

online meeting Web conferencing is used as an umbrella term for various types of online conferencing and collaborative services including webinars (web seminars), webcasts, and web meetings. Sometimes it may be used also in the more narrow sense of the peer-le ...

s as a consequence of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. From 2011 to 2017, the award was named Wikipedian of the Year. In 2011, the first title was given to Rauan Kenzhekhanuly for his work on the Kazakh Wikipedia. The following year, it was awarded to an editor identified as "Demmy" for creating a bot to translate 15,000 short English articles into

Yoruba The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

, a language spoken in Nigeria. In 2013,

Rémi Mathis Rémi Mathis (born 20 November 1982) is a French historian and curator. He served as President of Wikimedia France from 2011 to 2014. Early life Son of the paleontologist Christian Mathis,. Rémi Mathis graduated from the in 2007. The followin ...

of Wikimédia France and the

French Wikipedia The French Wikipedia (french: Wikipédia en français) is the French-language edition of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. This edition was started on 23 March 2001, two months after the official creation of Wikipedia. It has article ...

was named for his role in an article controversy. In 2014, the award was given posthumously to Ukrainian journalist

Ihor Kostenko Ihor Ihorovych Kostenko ( uk, Ігор Ігорович Костенко; 31 December 1991 – 20 February 2014) was a Ukrainian journalist, student activist and Wikipedian killed during the Euromaidan events. Biography Kostenko was born ...

, who actively promoted the

Ukrainian Wikipedia The Ukrainian Wikipedia ( uk, Українська Вікіпедія, ''Ukrainska Vikipediia'') is the Ukrainian language edition of the free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. The first article was written on January 30, 2004. the Ukrainian Wiki ...

on social networking sites and was killed during a protest. Wales named an undisclosed recipient in 2015, and hopes someday to tell their story. In 2016, the first joint award was presented to

Emily Temple-Wood Emily Temple-Wood (born May 24, 1994) is an American Wikipedia editor who goes by the name of Keilana on the site. She is known for her efforts to counter the effects and causes of gender bias on Wikipedia, particularly through the creation of ...

and

Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight Dame Rosie Gojich Stephenson-Goodknight (born December 5, 1953), known on Wikipedia as Rosiestep, is an American Wikipedia editor who is noted for her attempts to address gender bias in the encyclopedia by running a project to increase the quant ...

for their efforts to combat harassment on Wikipedia and increase its coverage of women. Other recipients include

Felix Nartey Felix Nartey is a Ghanaian social entrepreneur and open advocate. He was named the Wikimedian of the Year in August 2017 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales at Wikimania. He is a Co-founder of Open Foundation West Africa and Creative Commons Gha ...

, Farhad Fatkullin, and Emna Mizouni. In addition to the main award,

Susanna Mkrtchyan Susanna Mkrtchyan (Armenian:''Սուսաննա Մկրտչյան'') (born August 26, 1949) is an Armenian Wikimedian and a professor of database and system research. She founded and leads the Wikimedia Armenia chapter, which organizes outreach an ...

and Satdeep Gill were the first to receive honorable mentions in 2015. Since then, other honorable mentions have been conferred. The award was expanded in 2021 with additional categories including Media Contributor of the Year, Newcomer of the Year, Tech Contributor of the Year, and Wikimedia Laureate.

List of recipients

Honorable mentions

Newcomer of the Year

The Newcomer of the Year award was first presented in 2021.

Wikimedia Laureate (formerly 20th Year Honouree)

The 20th Year Honouree award was first presented in 2021. In 2022, the award was renamed Wikimedia Laureate.

Tech Contributor of the Year (formerly Tech Innovator)

The Tech Innovator award was first presented in 2021. The honor was renamed Tech Contributor of the Year in 2022.

Media Contributor of the Year (formerly Rich Media)

The Rich Media award was first presented in 2021. The honor was renamed Media Contributor of the Year in 2022.

Wikimedia Affiliate Spotlight

The Wikimedia Affiliate Spotlight was first presented in 2022. Art+Feminism and

Wikimedia UK Wikimedia UK (WMUK) is a registered charity established to support volunteers in the United Kingdom who work on Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia. As such, it is a Wikimedia chapter approved by the Wikimedia Foundation, which owns and hosts ...

were recognized by the Wikimedia Affiliation Committee (AffCom) in the Partnerships and Governance categories, respectively.

References

External links

* {{featured list Awards established in 2011