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  "path": "/25-years-of-wikipedia/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-23T10:42:15.000Z",
  "site": "https://wikimedia.brussels",
  "tags": [
    "mini-exhibition",
    "Wikicheese",
    "Depths of\nWikipedia",
    "may watch an\nolder version",
    "Wikipedia Test"
  ],
  "textContent": "On 18 March, Wikimedia Europe and Wikimedia Belgium brought together a room full of people who care deeply about one of the internet’s most quirkiest and perhaps most surprising achievements: 25 years of Wikipedia.\n\nThink about what that actually means. A non-commercial, volunteer-built encyclopedia in hundreds of languages, freely available to anyone with an internet connection. No paywalls. No shareholders. No algorithm deciding what you should read next. Around 260,000 volunteers curate 65 million entries, viewed more than 15 billion times every month. We don’t have nearly enough of that kind of thing.\n\n**A room full of communities**\n\nThe evening had the feel of a reunion — familiar faces from across the European digital policy and Wikimedia communities. A mini-exhibition taking guests through the history of Wikipedia. A \nWikicheese station where volunteers photographed Belgian cheeses to improve culinary content on the internet. These things only happen when people have been genuinely building something together long enough that the work creates its own history.\n\n**Annie Rauwerda**\n\nStand-up Wikipedian and Depths of\nWikipedia creator Annie Rauwerda took the stage and did what she does best — making the audience laugh while quietly reminding everyone why Wikipedia and free knowledge is beautiful. Her show was a love letter to trivia, knowledge, facts and humans. You may watch an\nolder version of her talk online.\n\n**Here’s to the next 25.**\n\nOne accent was the conscious decision to celebrate being human. Wikipedia is a project of humans and dedicated to human knowledge. With everything that this entails – good and bad. In a world full of machine generated content, the Wikimedia movement wants to confirm its commitment to being community human of volunteers first and foremost.\n\nAnd since we are human, you will also bear with us that we will plug the \nWikipedia Test here. It is a policy tool that asks a simple question: does a proposed law harm Wikipedia? When a law harms Wikipedia, it likely harms other community-led, nonprofit digital spaces too – spaces that don’t sell ads, don’t harvest data, and exist purely in the public interest. If you’re a policymaker, it’s worth thinking about and using it.",
  "title": "25 Years of Wikipedia"
}