List of Wikipedia people

This list includes notable editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia who create and maintain the site, known as Wikipedians, as well as other notable people associated with the project and the larger Wikipedia community.

A

• Evan Amos, New York City-based professional photographer known for his numerous stock images of video game consoles, which are frequently used in Wikipedia articles
• Amin Azzam, American psychiatrist and clinical professor at the UCSF School of Medicine known for teaching a class of medical students which consists entirely of editing Wikipedia articles

B

• Nicholson Baker, author and conservationist who "fell in love with Wikipedia"
• Mark Bernstein, Russian Wikipedia editor and blogger from Belarus, detained for participating in anti-Lukashenko protests
• Yaroslav Blanter, Russian nanoscientist, administrator of Russian Wikipedia until 2012 and English Wikipedia since 2013

C

• Hampton Lintorn-Catlin, American computer programmer and programming language inventor who wrote several applications for iOS and other mobile platforms, including a Wikipedia browsing client which was later purchased by the Wikimedia Foundation; Catlin was later hired by Wikimedia Foundation as mobile development lead
• Faizul Latif Chowdhury, Bangladeshi economist and writer who uses his real name to edit Wikipedia, primarily the Bengali-language edition
• William Connolley, British climate modeller who edits Wikipedia using his real name, William M. Connolley
• Danese Cooper, American programmer, computer scientist and advocate of open source software who worked with Wikimedia foundation as Chief Technical Officer
• Lee Daniel Crocker, American programmer best known for rewriting MediaWiki, the content-management software upon which Wikipedia and many other websites run, to address scalability problems
• Anthony Czarnik, American biochemist, inventor, and professor

D

• Florence Devouard, French Wikipedian and former Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation
• Mike Dickison, New Zealand's first "Wikipedian-at-large"

E

• Siân Evans, librarian, activist, and co-founder of Art+Feminism, a global campaign that challenges gender bias on Wikipedia
• David Eppstein, an American computer scientist and mathematician

F

• Farhad Fatkullin, linguist known for work on development of

G

• Gangadhar Bhadani, a prolific Indian wikipedian (2005–2018)
• Tomasz Ganicz, former president of Wikimedia Polska (2007–2018)
• Sue Gardner, former executive director, Wikimedia Foundation (2007–2014)
• David Gerard, author about cryptocurrencies
• Susan Gerbic, founder and leader of the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) project
• Mike Godwin, former general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation (2007–2010)

H

• Martin Haase, German linguistics professor at the University of Bamberg as well as a linguist, polyglot, and podcaster who is also a Wikipedia volunteer and served as a member of Wikimedia Germany's advisory board (2005–2007)
• Aaron Halfaker, principal applied scientist at Microsoft Research, a former research scientist at the Wikimedia Foundation
• James Heilman, Canadian emergency department physician, and advocate for the improvement of Wikipedia's health-related content
• Miran Hladnik, Slovenian literary historian, specializing in quantitative analysis of Slovene rural stories and in Slovene historical fiction
• Netha Hussain, medical doctor known for her efforts to tackle the spread of misinformation in Wikipedia about the origin of the coronavirus

I

• Maryana Iskander, former chief executive officer of the Wikimedia Foundation (2022–2026)

J

• Andrea James, American transgender activist
• Dariusz Jemielniak, Polish professor of management
• Richard J. Jensen, American professor and historian, longtime Wikipedia editor
• Sverker Johansson, Swedish linguist, physicist, textbook author, and developer of Lsjbot

K

• Uładzimir KatkoÅ­ski (1976–2007), Belarusian blogger, web designer and website creator who was a founder of Belarusian Wikipedia
• Rauan Kenzhekhanuly, Kazakh entrepreneur and NGO activist who was named the first Wikipedian of the Year in August 2011 by Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales at Wikimania
• Osama Khalid, Arabic Wikipedia administrator and medical doctor who was sentenced to 32 years in prison for contributing information critical to the Saudi government
• Bassel Khartabil (1981–2015), Palestinian Syrian open-source software developer who contributed to projects like Creative Commons, Wikipedia, and Mozilla Firefox. On 15 March 2012, the one-year anniversary of the Syrian uprising, he was detained by the Syrian government at Adra Prison in Damascus. Khartabil was executed by the Syrian regime shortly after his disappearance in 2015.
• Kitamura Sae, literary scholar and literary critic in Musashi University
• Justin Knapp, American Wikipedian who, in 2012, became the first person to make 1 million Wikipedia edits
• Dan Koehl, pioneer and first admin on Swedish Wikipedia and prolific contributor to different Wikimedia projects
• Ihor Kostenko (1991–2014), a Ukrainian journalist, student activist and Wikipedian killed during the Euromaidan events
• Stanislav Kozlovsky, co-founder and last director of Wikimedia RU

L

• Siobhan Leachman, New Zealand citizen scientist, open knowledge advocate, and Wikipedian whose work is focused on natural history; Wikimedia Laureate for 2023
• Jennifer 8. Lee, American journalist and founding member of WikiPortraits, a group of photographers working to improve Wikipedia's access to freely-licensed photos of notable people.
• Maksim Lepushenka, Belarusian administrator of the Belarusian Wikipedia who has been imprisoned since May 2025.
• Andrew Lih, American new media researcher, consultant and writer, as well as an authority on internet censorship in the People's Republic of China and a long-time Wikipedian
• Yuri Lushchai (1982–2024), Ukrainian historian and poet, who died in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
• Richard F. Lyon, American inventor, scientist, engineer, and author, one of the two people who independently invented the optical mouse in 1980

M

• Katherine Maher, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation (2016–2021)
• Michael Mandiberg, co-founder of the Art+Feminism project
• Magnus Manske, developer of MediaWiki and related software tools
• Rémi Mathis, historian and curator, Wikipedian of the Year (2013)
• Zachary McDowell, professor of communication, information, and media theory at University of Illinois Chicago.
• Emna Mizouni, Wikimedian of the Year (2019)
• Erik Möller, former deputy director of Wikimedia Foundation (2008–2015)
• Jason Moore, editor and organizer
• Lucy Moore, museum curator known for improving the coverage of women on Wikipedia; UK Wikimedian of the Year (2022)
• Vira Motorko, administrator of Ukrainian Wikipedia, Wikimedian of the Year in the category Functionary of the Year (2024)

N

• Felix Nartey, Ghanaian social entrepreneur and open advocate who was named the Wikimedian of the Year in 2017
• Alaa Najjar, Neurosurgery Resident, Wikipedian and internet activist who was named the Wikimedian of the Year at Wikimania in August 2021 for his pioneering role in the development of the Arab and medical communities, as well as for his role in the development of COVID-19 topics

O

• Tron Øgrim (1947–2007), Norwegian journalist, author and politician. He was active in Socialist Youth Union (later Red Youth) from 1965 to 1973, and a central figure in the Workers' Communist Party from 1973 to 1984. From 2005 till his death in 2007, he contributed to Wikipedia both online and offline.

P

• Olga Paredes, Wikimedian of the Year (2022)
• Pavel PernikaÅ­, Belarusian Wikipedia editor and human rights activist
• Steven Pruitt, administrator and highest edit count on the English Wikipedia
• Simon Pulsifer, prolific Wikipedia contributor

R

• Annie Rauwerda, creator of Depths of Wikipedia
• Steven Rubenstein (1962–2012), American anthropologist

S

• Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia
• Tony Santiago, editor recognized in 2007 by the 23rd Senate of Puerto Rico for his contributions to Puerto Rico–related content
• Michael Q. Schmidt, actor, television model, and Wikipedia editor; died in 2025 (2008–2025)
• Seedfeeder, explicit illustrator on Wikipedia
• María Sefidari, chair of Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees (2018–2021)
• Bobby Shabangu, African language advocate and president of Wikimedia South Africa
• David Shankbone, American photographer and blogger
• Chris Sherwin (1962–2017), English scientist and researcher
• Volha Sitnik, Belarusian activist and administrator of the Belarusian Wikipedia who has been imprisoned on unknown charges since May 2025.
• Gage Skidmore, American photographer
• Revo Soekatno, linguistic researcher and co-founder of Wikimedia Indonesia
• Jan Sokol (1936–2021), a Czech philosopher, university professor and promoter of WMCZ project Senior Citizens Write Wikipedia
• Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight, joint Wikipedian of the Year (2016); Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees (2021–2024)
• Boryana Straubel (1983–2021), Bulgarian businesswoman and vice president of human resources for the Wikimedia Foundation in 2015
• Aaron Swartz (1986–2013), American programmer and political activist

T

• Sandister Tei, Wikimedian of the Year (2020) and co-founder of Wikimedia Ghana User Group
• Emily Temple-Wood, joint Wikipedian of the Year (2016)
• Lila Tretikov, former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation (2014–2016)

V

• Volodymyr Vakulenko (1972–2022), Ukrainian literary figure who was murdered during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
• Oscar van Dillen, first chairperson of the Dutch chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation
• Luis Villa, American attorney and programmer who worked for the Wikimedia Foundation

W

• Jess Wade, British physicist who has written over 1,700 articles about women in STEM
• Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014), American scholar of 18th-century British literature
• Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia
• Maia Weinstock, American science journalist and gender equality activist
• Winifred O. Whelan, religious sister, academic, writer, and member of
• Molly White, American cryptocurrency skeptic and author of website Web3 Is Going Just Great
• David Woodard, American composer and former Wikipedia editor, known for using over 200 sock puppet accounts to create hundreds of articles about himself in different languages before being discovered

Y

• Taha Yasseri, professor of technology and society at Trinity College Dublin and Technological University Dublin in Ireland

See also

• List of people imprisoned for editing Wikipedia

References