...Jimmy Wales:

Quote :

"Dear Reader, Today I am going to ask you to support Wikipedia with a donation. This might sound unusual: Why does one of the world's five most popular web properties ask for financial support from its users? Wikipedia is built differently from almost every other top 50 website. We have a small number of paid staff, just twenty-three. Wikipedia content is free to use by anyone for any purpose. Our annual expenses are less than six million dollars. Wikipedia is run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, which I founded in 2003. At its core, Wikipedia is driven by a global community of more than 150,000 volunteers - all dedicated to sharing knowledge freely. Over almost eight years, these volunteers have contributed more than 11 million articles in 265 languages. More than 275 million people come to our website every month to access information, free of charge and free of advertising. But Wikipedia is more than a website. We share a common cause: Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's our commitment. Your donation helps us in several ways. Most importantly, you will help us cover the increasing cost of managing global traffic to one of the most popular websites on the Internet. Funds also help us improve the software that runs Wikipedia -- making it easier to search, easier to read, and easier to write for. We are committed to growing the free knowledge movement world-wide, by recruiting new volunteers, and building strategic partnerships with institutions of culture and learning. Wikipedia is different. It's the largest encyclopedia in history, written by volunteers. Like a national park or a school, we don't believe advertising should have a place in Wikipedia. We want to keep it free and strong, but we need the support of thousands of people like you. I invite you to join us: Your donation will help keep Wikipedia free for the whole world. Thank you, Jimmy Wales"

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Letter/en?utm_source=2008_jimmy_letter&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_campaign=fundraiser2008#appeal

dude, just set up some ad space

if you have that many hits per month, you will rake in whatever you want for you foundation

dont try to guilt us into donating

12/23/2008 10:32:15 AM

I saw that last night and thought the same thing. They wouldn't even have to plaster their site with ads in order to get the $ they need.

12/23/2008 10:33:52 AM

Remember Geocities pop-up ads

12/23/2008 11:06:25 AM

yeah i thought that was going to be something cool, but it was not at all.

12/23/2008 11:14:24 AM

Wow seriously? I like the donation model better. I would think most of y'all young whippersnappers would too, what with your distaste for corporate greed and whoring out to corporate interests and whatnot

[Edited on December 23, 2008 at 1:35 PM. Reason : knowledge shouldn't be tied to commercial whims]

12/23/2008 1:32:57 PM

I'm pretty cool with corporate greed for the most part.

Website ads can be done tastefully, and there is nothing wrong with them.

12/23/2008 1:35:18 PM

I, like a lot of people, use adblock, so I wouldn't know

[Edited on December 23, 2008 at 1:38 PM. Reason : And hasn't wikipedia been doing fundraising drives forever? Why so surprised]

12/23/2008 1:37:18 PM

12/23/2008 1:42:55 PM

More like Jimmy Whines - AM I RIGHT?

12/23/2008 1:58:03 PM

no, you are not right

12/23/2008 2:04:06 PM

I always wonder how sites with no ads and no visible means of income get by.

12/23/2008 2:48:02 PM

Quote :

"dude, just set up some ad space"

well, once he has a million bucks worth of donations, he probably will.

12/23/2008 2:55:04 PM

^haha, what I was thinking

12/23/2008 2:56:00 PM

i spend enough time clicking random things

if there were ads i'd probably click them too just because i'm in the habit

i probably generate 15-20 pageclicks reading about colon diseases, might as well be giving somebody some coin for it

12/23/2008 3:01:49 PM

non-profits have interesting regulations....


NPR goes for pledge drives as well....

12/23/2008 3:03:17 PM

BUY AN AD

12/23/2008 4:03:29 PM

Quote :

"Dear Reader, Since July 1, more than 125,000 of you have donated $4 million. In addition, we've received major gifts and foundation support totaling $2 million. This combined revenue will cover our operating expenses for the current fiscal year, ending June 30, 2009. Your donation makes you a key supporter of the free culture movement, and pays for: * Day-to-day operations: servers, hosting, bandwidth, our staff of just 23 people. * Continued development & improvements of open source software that powers all Wikimedia projects. * Outreach events like Wikipedia Academies: in-person workshops where you can learn more about how to use and edit Wikipedia. * Volunteer support: helping our international volunteer community to grow and to continue to do amazing work. You can still get involved: Any donations beyond our $6 million goal are put in a reserve fund, which will help us to offset operating costs beyond the current fiscal year. Your continued support will also serve as a much-needed financial safety net if economic conditions continue to worsen globally. You have proven that Wikipedia matters to you, and that you support our mission: to bring free knowledge to the planet, free of charge and free of advertising. You've helped make and keep Wikipedia available for the whole world. I deeply appreciate your support. Thank you, Jimmy Wales"

thank god, he can shut up about it already

1/5/2009 10:41:45 PM

Quote :

"NPR goes for pledge drives as well...."

I'd rather give money to NPR than Wikipedia. Mainly because of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me

1/5/2009 11:52:15 PM

$130,000 for a board that only meets 3 times...sounds like my kind of job

1/6/2009 12:07:37 AM

Quote :

"Outreach events like Wikipedia Academies: in-person workshops where you can learn more about how to use and edit Wikipedia."

Seriously?

1/6/2009 12:10:40 AM

they don't need 23 paid staff. Ten would be plenty to run their servers and take care of everything else

1/6/2009 12:14:02 AM

^ not when half of them are probably UNC grads

1/6/2009 12:50:30 AM

someone should make the tww page there better....it needs more info

1/6/2009 12:52:05 AM

Oh my.

1/6/2009 1:25:56 AM

I like not having ads on Wikipedia. I donated money.

1/6/2009 1:27:58 AM

he sounds like fucking npr

1/6/2009 1:59:54 AM