Wikipedia:The community

The community is a term used by those associated with Wikipedia to describe those who should be considered as being a part of Wikipedia, though opinions vary on who exactly this is. From the point of view of the Wikimedia Foundation, the community normally includes both millions of readers plus hundreds of thousands of past and present editors.

Most editors here at the English Wikipedia include only editors in their concept, such as the 123,552 registered editors who have made an edit during the last month, even though most of the article writing is done by unregistered (IP) editors. (Registered editors create most pages and do most of the formatting and repetitive gnoming.) Some might argue that wmf:Staff are part of the community or that wmf:Chapters are a part as well, though these concepts are not widely accepted.

Some people have a narrow view: to them, the community is only those people who have hundreds or thousands of edits and also publicly participate in discussions in the Wikipedia project namespace, usually meaning people whose names they personally recognize. Some misguided individuals use the term the community as just another way of saying people who agree with them.

A variant term with a different connotation is the communities, which emphasizes a collection of different groups.

See also

• Administration - discusses the human administrative structure, as well as its non-human components.
• Editing environment - describes how Wikipedia is governed? What happens when content disputes 'boil over' into accusations of bad conduct?
• Editorial discretion - discusses how common sense and Wikipedia policy dictates that editors must practice discretion regarding the proper inclusion of relevant and well-sourced content.
• Editor integrity - discusses how editors have a responsibility to uphold the integrity of Wikipedia and respect intellectual property rights of the sources they draw upon when they create and improve encyclopedia pages.
• Formal organization - discusses who does what on Wikipedia? What does Wikipedia say itself about its own formal organizational structure?
• Wikipedia is a volunteer service - discusses how editors on Wikipedia are mainly volunteers. Editors can contribute as much as they want, and however long they desire.
• Who writes Wikipedia? - discusses how anyone can edit existing articles or create new ones.
• Wikipedia is a community - describes how there is nothing wrong with occasionally doing other things than writing the encyclopedia, and that community spirit is a positive thing.