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GuinansEyebrows01/15/20263 repliesview on HN

> Wikipedia is a corporation

nitpick: WMF (the org that develops and hosts Wikipedia and its related services like Wikimedia Commons) is a non-profit foundation, not the classic type of profit-driven corporation that your post implies.


Replies

ryan_lane01/16/2026

I think this deserves more than a nitpick. WMF also doesn't dictate the actions of the volunteer community, and neither does the board. The content of Wikipedia is fully volunteer created and maintained, and admin actions are also handled by the volunteer community.

The foundation is there to provide technical, legal, and community support. In some cases this is funding for community events, in other cases, this includes funding towards making the editor community more diverse. In most cases, though, it's keeping a staff of folks that maintain and improve the software, and defend the project legally.

So, no Wikipedia isn't a corporation. It's more of a commune.

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weslleyskah01/15/2026

Well, I prefer to be skeptical of any corporation, regardless if it is non-profit or not, until proven otherwise with substantial transparency on their methods of moderation and control.

There is a lack of transparency on Wikipedia. The rules are nebulous and prone to abuse by veteran users and the oligarchs aggregating on political articles.

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xmprt01/15/2026

I don't think corporation implies for-profit. In my eyes, corporation refers to a large organization with some self-serving motivation which is not necessarily just money. Being a non-profit just so happens to be the best vehicle for this motivation but it doesn't mean that the motivation doesn't exist.

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