Wikimedia Commons facts for kids
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Type of site
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Media repository |
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| Owner | Wikimedia Foundation |
| Created by | Wikimedia community |
| Website | commons.wikimedia.org |
| Alexa rank | ▼ 265 (wikimedia.org's rank) (July 2016[update]) |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Optional (required for uploading files) |
| Launched | September 7, 2004 |
| Current status | Active |
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Content license
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Free |
Wikimedia Commons is a special website. It's like a huge online library for pictures, sounds, and videos. The Wikimedia Foundation owns it. This is the same group that runs Wikipedia!
Anyone can upload files to Wikimedia Commons. These files can then be used by other Wikimedia projects. For example, Wikipedia uses these images in its articles. All the files here are free to use. This means you can use them for your own projects too!
Contents
What is Wikimedia Commons?
Wikimedia Commons helps organize its files. It uses categories to group similar things. Imagine a category just for pictures of cats! This helps people find what they need easily.
The website works in many languages. This makes it useful for people all over the world. Some parts, like category names, are mostly in English.
Sounds and Learning
Wikimedia Commons also has many sound files. Not all of them are music. Some are recordings of words spoken aloud. These are very helpful for Wiktionary. Wiktionary is a free dictionary. It uses these sounds to teach people how to say words correctly.
Sharing Files Freely
When someone uploads a file, they agree to share it. They let everyone use and change their work. This includes companies. This idea is part of something called Creative Commons. It helps make sure lots of cool content is available for everyone.
Wikimedia Commons has grown a lot. By April 15, 2011, it had over 10 million files!
Improving the Way We Upload
The Wikimedia Foundation received money to make its websites better. They used some of this money to create a new tool. It's called the UploadWizard. This tool makes uploading files much easier. People started using it in December 2010.
Learning About Copyright
The UploadWizard also helps new users learn about copyright rules. It has a helpful guide. This guide teaches you how to check if your file can be uploaded legally. Most files are now uploaded using this smart tool.
Uploading Many Files at Once
Before the UploadWizard, you could only upload one file at a time. The UploadWizard changed that! Now, you can upload many files at once. You can also add all the important information for each file at the same time.
The Wikimedia Commons Logo
The Wikimedia Commons logo is interesting. It has a red circle inside a blue circle. Many small blue arrows point from the blue circle to the red one. There's also one big blue arrow pointing upwards.
The small arrows show the different projects of the Wikimedia Foundation. The big arrow means that Wikimedia Commons is always getting better. This logo was chosen by a vote in 2004.
Images for kids
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The ten millionth file uploaded.
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A mosaic made from images to celebrate one million files.
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This map shows where many images on Wikimedia Commons were taken.
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See also
In Spanish: Wikimedia Commons para niños
