Wikipedia does not take an article, nor does Wikimedia. When combined with an adjective modifying the project name, or a common noun modified by the name, the compound noun does take an article.
"Wikimedia is a non-profit charitable corporation." is correct; so are "The English Wikipedia", "the Wikipedia cabal", "the print Wikipedia 'Wikipedia:' namespace pages", and "the Wikimedia Foundation". http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/wikipedia-the-history-of-a-name/ SJ ps - I am confused by the first sentence on wikimedia.org [what does 'Wikimedia' mean there?], and the footer of wikimediafoundation says "About Wikimedia Foundation" -- missing an article. On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Jim Redmond<j...@scrubnugget.com> wrote: > On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 10:37, Michael Snow <wikipe...@verizon.net> wrote: > >> There are some situations where you would use the definite article for >> singular proper nouns, such as with some geographical names, or when the >> name is actually a combination of common and proper nouns. > > > I would also use the definite article if I were referring to a specific > language's Wikipedia - "the English Wikipedia", "the Swahili Wikipedia", et > al. - instead of to the Wikipedia project in general. > > As for referring to Wikimedia, in English one would say "the Wikimedia > Foundation" since "Wikimedia" clarifies which foundation we're talking > about. If the name didn't use the word "foundation" - if it were "Wikimedia > Earth" or "Wikimedia United" - then the definite article would not be > necessary. > > -- > Jim Redmond > j...@scrubnugget.com > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
