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Wikimania

annual series of international conferences for users of the wiki projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ483279
Source-derived summary

Wikimania is the Wikimedia movement's annual conference, organized by the community of contributors and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Topics of presentations and discussions include Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, other wikis, open-source software, free knowledge and free content, and social and technical aspects related to these topics.

Since 2011, the winner of the Wikimedian of the Year award (known as the "Wikipedian of the Year" until 2017) has been announced at Wikimania.

Conferences

2005

Wikimania 2005, the first Wikimania conference, was held from August 4 to 8, 2005 at the Haus der Jugend in Frankfurt, Germany, attracting about 380 attendees.

The week of the conference included four "Hacking Days", from August 1 to 4, when some 25 developers gathered to work on code and discuss the technical aspects of MediaWiki and of running the Wikimedia projects. The main days of the conference, despite its billing as being "August 4–8", were Friday to Sunday of that week, from August 5 to 7. Presentation sessions were scheduled all day during those three days.

Keynote speakers included Jimmy Wales, Ross Mayfield, Ward Cunningham, and Richard Stallman (who spoke on "Copyright and community in the age of computer networks"). The majority of sessions and conversations were in English, although a few were in German.

Sponsors of the event included Answers.com, SocialText, Sun Microsystems, DocCheck, and Logos Group.

Editorial summary

“Wikimania” enters the record as annual series of international conferences for users of the wiki projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Wikimania, annual and series can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2011, 2017, 2005—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2005-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Wikimania, annual and series.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Wikimania” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Wikimania, annual and series provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q483279. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2011, 2017 and 2005.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Wikimania”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Wikimania primary sources, Wikimania archive and Wikimania research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Wikimania”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Wikimania” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.