The executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, has resigned, external after denying the group is considering building a search engine.
Lila Tretikov wrote in an email that it was time for her to move on.
A leaked memo suggesting the Foundation was looking at creating a "commerce-free" search engine had upset the volunteer Wikimedia community.
Many were angry that it had not been discussed first, as transparency is key to the ethos of the organisation.
In September 2015, Wikimedia was awarded a $250,000 grant from a trust called the Knight Foundation for work to "advance new models for finding information by supporting stage one development of the Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia, a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy public information on the internet," according to a document uploaded by Wikimedia itself. , external
The project summary at the end of the document - although its author is unclear - states that the Knowledge Engine would be "the world's first transparent search engine, and the first one originated by the Wikimedia Foundation".
The leaders of the team were listed as Ms Tretikov, vice-president Wes Moran and Wikimedia head director of search and discovery Tomasz Finc.
However, in published notes from a meeting to discuss the controversy, external, Ms Tretikov is recorded as saying the grant news had been shared "without context".