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Wikipedia Meets $16M Budget Goal
netbuzz writes "Thanks to some 630,000 individual contributions that averaged $22 apiece, Wikipedia has reached its fundraising goal of $16 million, founder Jimmy Wales announced over the weekend. Writes Wales, '... this year is a little more incredible than most because this year we celebrate Wikipedia's tenth anniversary. It's so important that we kick the year off just like this: by fully funding the Wikimedia Foundation's budget to support Wikipedia and all the sister projects as we head into the next decade of our work together.' The online encyclopedia now boasts of being the Internet's fifth largest site, which renews questioning by some as to whether it can afford over the long haul to stand by its policy of refusing advertising."
Ask NPR, it has been their business model for quite some time.
It was the non-stop display of smug holier-than-thou photos of Jimmy Wales and all his cronies that did it for me.
I hope that means I won't have to see Jimbo's creepy face any more.
I think we are increasingly moving toward a model where people will subscribe to sources of information/entertainment if they don't want to see the ads, or they will get a free version that includes ads (and possibly presents other limitations in format or content).
Wouldn't surprise me to see Wikipedia go this way.
Honestly, I would expect them to stay just the way they are, if they want to badly enough. Think about it: They're already the fifth most popular website. They are unlikely to become substantially more popular than that, which means that their operation costs are already close to their peak level. Now consider this:
1) The cost of bandwidth and servers, which has got to be some large fraction of their expenses, go down over time.
2) They made their financing goal for this year, a year in which by (1) their costs are likely to be higher than in future years.
Also, $16M in the scheme of things is not a lot of money. If that's their yearly budget then all it would take is one billionaire to provide them a $350M or so endowment in a will or something and they would be set forever just on the interest. (That is, once interest rates get back above 0% again.)
Realistically, the biggest threat to Wikipedia is ISPs violating network neutrality. If Wikipedia had to pay whatever tithe each ISP decided they were entitled to in order to reach their subjects, that could explode their costs pretty quickly and require them to seek other sources of funding.
Obligatory just-to-try-set-the-record-straight (as the summary perpetuates the common myth) Jimmy Wales isn't "the" founder of Wikipedia, he didn't come up with the idea for Wikipedia, didn't agree with the idea initially and had to be convinced, didn't come up with the name, didn't build the initial software, and didn't create the first Wikipedia community. Most of the credit for all of the above goes to co-founder Larry Sanger; in the beginning Wales acknowledged this but he has since been attempting to rewrite history by going around marketing himself as "the founder" of Wikipedia. He is at very best "co-founder".
http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/001424.html
I just believe strongly in credit where credit is due, and in not taking credit for other people's work.
I prefer to put my money where my mouth is and support public radio. After not watching any commercial news for probably the last few years and just relying on NPR and BBC for the most part, I happened to visit a relative when the TV news came on. I am not exaggerating when I say the news show had a jittery cartoon-like appearance in its speech and presentation style. And it was mostly commercials. That is the mindless garbage you get when you let someone else pay for your news.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I always thought this was self-destructive behavior on Slashdot's part.
I can't speak for others but just the fact that I was given the option to block ads at the site level is enough for me to allow them. I feel that little checkbox is a sign of respect from this site and since I'm too cheap to pay to be a subscriber, I show my respect by leaving the ads in place.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
I can't understand the mentality of the story summary.
The news is: the annual fund raiser was a success. It raised more money than ever before, in a shorter time than the previous fund raisers.
How does raising oodles of money without ads make someone wonder if ads will soon be required?
The news story answers this question: No, there is clearly no need for ads.
Ads could even ruin Wikipedia's funding model. Would so many people donate if there were ads and if Wikipedia had a conflict of interest (don't offend the advertisers)?
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Over the last 50 years, cigarette companies were the biggest advertisers in women's magazines. Half their ad pages might be cigarette ads.
Women's magazines warned about every cancer but one -- lung cancer. For 50 years, health coverage was a major topic for women's magazines, but they pointedly avoided any mention of the health effects of cigarettes. The editors of these magazines admitted it, and it's been proven in published academic studies. Or you can just go to the library and look at them.
Conversely, the few women's magazines and consumer magazines that didn't take cigarette advertising did run articles on smoking and health.
Cigarettes are the most obvious example, but you can find that same bias in the coverage of all the major advertisers in most news media -- alcohol, automobiles.
Public radio is now taking advertising. I've heard a lot of local news stories about their advertisers, particularly in the music and entertainment business.
Wikipedia is already getting all the money it needs. (TFA doesn't explain *why* they need more money -- more server farms?) There's a real risk advertising would compromise their objectivity. It has everywhere else.