In practice, any person who has access to the World Wide Web may read the content of Wikipedia on the website wikipedia.org without paying any money. This, however, does not mean that Wikipedia content is fully non-commercial. Copies of Wikipedia content can be sold.

Based in San Francisco, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is the organization that owns the domain wikipedia.org . The Foundation raises money, distributes grants, controls the servers, develops and deploys software, and does outreach to support Wikimedia projects, including the English Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is a wiki, meaning anyone can edit nearly any page and improve articles immediately. You do not need to register to do this, and anyone who has edited is known as a Wikipedian or editor. Small edits add up, and every editor can be proud to have made Wikipedia better for all.

Wikipedia's purpose is to benefit readers by presenting information on all branches of knowledge. Hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, it consists of freely editable content, whose articles also have numerous links to guide readers towards more information.