$6.2 million raised for Wikipedia

**Catherine** · #1 (**permalink**) 02-01-2009, 20:35

Wikipedia will be working in future also. This has been announced by the Wikimedia Foundation on Friday. $6.2 million was raised by the Wikimedia foundation for Wikipedia. This target was achieved with the help of over 125,000 donors from around the world. The Money will be used to maintain and develop Wikipedia.

Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation wrote "This campaign has proven that Wikipedia matters to its users, and that our users strongly support our mission: to bring free knowledge to the planet, free of charge and free of advertising". This was written in a thank you letter which was posted on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation's Web site.

Wales published a personal appeal on the foundation's site to increase funding and as a result, In the eight days trailing that message, more than 50,000 contributions flooded in, totaling $2 million and closing the gap toward the goal.

I hope Wikipedia keeps on working for ages and keeps on sharing knowledge with people.

Daniel · #2 (**permalink**) 02-01-2009, 21:50

I'm surprised Google hasn't bought Wikipedia and put some ads on there

**paul** · #3 (**permalink**) 03-01-2009, 09:20

I hate to see Goolge ads on wikipedia, Google has already Knol to place ads right to left.

**Brian** · #4 (**permalink**) 03-01-2009, 14:49

Everybody knows my hatred of Google.
They have even turned YouTube into a place I dont want to visit anymore with the ads poping up across vids that you have to close.

Lets see if we can raise 6.2. million for an EUK Host Staff and Customer Party

**Catherine** · #5 (**permalink**) 04-01-2009, 19:18

Yes, I agree to your point. Google has got many ads nowadays and it seems like Google will continue this trend for a long time. Anyways, we should be happy that wikipedia has achieved the target and will be spreading knowledge in future also.

**Danny M** · #6 (**permalink**) 05-01-2009, 05:33

IMO we should leave things that are done by Google for Google only as we cannot make any changes in the way they are going to promote the services run by them. I personally do not like too many ads on a particular webpage but then I keep my focus on what I want from that webpage.

It is good to know that Wikipedia has acheived their Traget and that's a good news for all of us. Let the Valuable information spread like fire.

**kendalbigson** · #7 (**permalink**) 05-01-2009, 05:58

Wiki is great, they deserve the money they are getting. I love how they are ad-free too.

Kendal Bigson

**paul** · #8 (**permalink**) 05-01-2009, 11:22

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said recently "something I've been saying for five years, we don't believe we need advertising in order to survive." IMO, to raise that much fund an organization need truly such high commitment and loyalty.

**Ryan** · #9 (**permalink**) 05-01-2009, 16:17

Taking into consideration the amount of information they provide freely over the Internet, this is an apt way for them to generate funds. Way better than generating funds through advertising.

**Ben** · #10 (**permalink**) 05-01-2009, 17:24

I don't see why Wikipedia doesn't display advertisements on their site, I think its a good way of making money on a site that draws millions of visitors a day.

**Brian** · #11 (**permalink**) 05-01-2009, 18:51

Maybe they realise that ads tend to get annoying and reduce website enjoyment greatly ?

**Danny M** · #12 (**permalink**) 06-01-2009, 06:26

Ads on the webpage do annoy you a lot and reduce the joy and interaction. IMO it there should be a sound balance between the ads and the websites that display them which in turn should benefit both, the visitor and the webmaster.

**paul** · #13 (**permalink**) 16-01-2009, 15:17

Good use of donation amount, the latest news "Wikipedia is gearing up for an explosion in digital content with new servers and storage designed to handle larger photo and video uploads" networkworld.com/news/2009/011309-wikipedia-digital-media.html?hpg1=bn

**Ryan** · #14 (**permalink**) 17-01-2009, 14:40

That's a great step forward!

It seems to be one of Wikipedia's biggest goals to have all media content as open and accessible as possible. For media content, I think they would accept only those file formats which are free, open, and not subject to any claims

**paul** · #15 (**permalink**) 18-01-2009, 04:22

Yea, I hope they'll follow the classic example of archive.org to preserve digital/public domain content and focus more on user generated content.