Wikipedia Day – January 15, 2027

Expected Wikipedia Day Deals

As Wikipedia Day approaches, expect a focus on supporting open knowledge rather than commercial deals. Organizations like the Wikimedia Foundation often highlight fundraising campaigns to sustain the platform’s free access and development. Educational technology companies such as Coursera and edX may offer special discounts on courses related to information literacy or open-source contributions. Tech giants like Google and Microsoft, whose search engines heavily rely on Wikipedia, might promote initiatives supporting digital literacy. Look for local libraries and educational institutions to host workshops on editing Wikipedia or utilizing its vast resources. We will update this page with confirmed live initiatives as January 15 approaches.

History of Wikipedia Day

There was a time when students and researchers would need to go through tons of books in a library to attain information regarding a certain topic. This was the time when the internet had not reached the heights of innovation it has today. However, the world as we know it, completely evolved when this search engine was formed, and numerous websites were created to provide people with information regarding several topics. One of these famous websites is Wikipedia — also known as the free internet encyclopaedia. Overseen by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, the website is recognized for facilitating the creation and development of articles.

Here’s a bit more on the history of Wikipedia. It all started when Jimmy Wales established Bomis, Inc., a web portal company, in 1996. By March 2000, Wales had introduced “Nupedia” to the world. This was a free online encyclopaedia that had an editor in chief, and a team of individuals who were reviewing the information published. In 2001, Nupedia was supplemented with a wiki software, and Wikipedia was launched as a feature of Nupedia.com. However, after several discussions, Wikipedia was relaunched as an independent website, and managed to publish over 20,000 articles in its first year! This included work in 18 different languages such as French, German, Polish, Dutch, Hebrew, Chinese, and Esperanto.

Today, it has become one of the most visited sites in the globe and has information regarding almost every single topic of interest. However, schools and universities do not permit the use of Wikipedia in term papers due to a lack of proper references used by the site.