In emergency situations like this, it is not possible for traditional encyclopedias, or even some governments, to access, filter, analyse, and summarize massive loads of information coming from around the world every day and make it available in roughly 300 languages. This is only possible with a large global network of volunteers and a platform such as Wikipedia.

— Netha Hussain

Getting African librarians to believe in the power of telling the true African story through adding citations and editing articles about Africans was amazing. It was a call to action for librarians to go beyond being disseminators of information to information leaders in their different countries, telling the stories of their communities on a global platform.

— Nkem Osuigwe

I knew Wikipedia was important – although I think I only realised how important lately. The world needs honest and impartial information more than ever before – and Wikipedia is the most powerful, collaborative platform we can write and share that on.

— Jess Wade

I realised that there are a lot of ways to contribute to the Wikimedia movement beyond only writing articles. I have been involved in combating vandalism, trolls, and spam. I am also active in Wikimedia outreach events and activities. Continuous learning and being able to share what I have learned makes me happy and eager to continue volunteering.

— Tulsi Bhagat

Wikipedia has made it much easier to find a starting place for information about all sorts of topics. It’s been particularly beneficial for blind people like me because access to books has historically been very difficult for us. With Wikipedia, we can now have an encyclopedia that we can use on a close-to-equal footing with sighted people.

— Graham Pearce

My hope for Wikipedia’s 40th birthday is that automatic machine translation will reach native speaker level for every language. That way, all the knowledge across Wikimedia projects would be available to readers in every language as soon as it is written. At that time, human translators will no longer be needed. It would make me, as a translator, somewhat sad, but it’s okay in the universal aspect.

— Ota Takashi

Connection had become ever more valuable, and I felt it could be therapeutic. So with help from organizing partners, at noon local time, from New Zealand to India, Italy to Nigeria, and from New York where I stood to Oregon and California, Wikipedians came together. We edited about the pandemic, shared our experiences in our own languages, and left messages of encouragement for one another.

— Sherry Antoine

Although people from all walks of life use Wikipedia for knowledge and information, many are either unaware or unmindful of the fact that they too can help in creating or expanding the content in their area of interest and in their own language.

— Syed Muzammiluddin

The strength of Wikimedia lies in its ability to crowdsource content and its quest to share that content freely. I think this has made a huge impact on the world.

— Bobby Shabangu

Wikipedia changes people’s lives. It is shifting people’s understanding of the world in a way that nothing has before it.

— Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight

I always thought that what I was trying to show was more important than my life, because what I was doing was going to remain for future generations.

— Wilfredo Rodríguez

Wikipedia is for everyone to read and edit. Many people use it as an informative website, if they spot a mistake while reading it, I hope they edit it instead of ignoring it.

— Emna Mizouni

Wikipedia helps the world to be more free and educated. I want people to know that doing little things on the website can culminate in a great impact on other people.

— Greta Doçi

Wikipedia has made knowledge freely and readily accessible to the masses. Instead of information scattered around in multiple websites and offline libraries, now all of it is under one umbrella, which makes our real life endeavours that much easier and knowledge-based.

— Hrishikes Sen

In Africa, I would love for people to realize that what they read on Wikipedia is written and added by other internet users like them, and we desperately need them to also join in contributing to this huge knowledge base.

— Sam Oyeyele

It motivates me to know that Wikipedia and the movement are built day by day, with each individual contribution, and that we still have much to learn from new voices. There are no limits to participating and contributing. If you don’t do it, who will?

— Mónica Paola Bonilla-Parra

Wikipedia is more than an encyclopedia. It extends into sister projects, global editor and volunteer communities; a foundation; multidisciplinary and multicultural project opportunities; it can be plugged into various partnerships; it gives basis for advocacy – it’s a galaxy.

— Sandister Tei

He discovered Wikipedia while looking for information on endangered animals a few years back, and now, nearly every day, he asks to use his screen time to read biographies or read about animals or the world’s zoos on Wikipedia. What a gift your website is – it lets him explore new subjects daily. Nearly every dinnertime conversation includes new information gleaned from Wikipedia.

— Susan Garrett Weiss