Thanks to over 500,000 donors from 140 countries who have donated to Wikipedia, the site remains free for all to use. That is about 0.125 percent out of its total users (400 million) who have contributed.
According to Wikimedia Foundation, this is its shortest fundraiser. The foundation collected $16 million in just 50 days with each individual donated an average of $22.
The number of donators this year is double the amount in 2009, which had 230,000 total contributors.
“We’re overwhelmed with gratitude,” said Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation.
“On behalf of all of the volunteers who make Wikipedia possible, I’d like to thank our generous donors. We’re thankful to all of our supporters, from the volunteers who worked along-side Wikimedia staff to help create the campaign, to the editors who write and take care of Wikipedia to the amazing donors who make sure we have the support to continue our work. Wikipedia is the only major, top-ten site in the world that is ad-free and funded primarily by its readers and users–we’re lucky to have such a dedicated community of supporters.”
“This outpouring of support by hundreds of thousands of ordinary people from all walks of life is a testament to the spirit of the Wikimedia movement,” said Wikipedia Founder, Jimmy Wales. “Wikipedia is a public resource created and maintained by hundreds of thousands of volunteers, relied on by over 400 million people and paid for by half a million donors. It’s truly user-created, supported and maintained.”
As mentioned, Wikipedia is the only top ten website in the world that is funded entirely by users. It’s truly a web 2.0 phenomenon which is greatly used, but rarely under the limelight. Wikipedia has been part of our everyday lives, especially for students who’re looking to quickly understand a certain topic. To date, Wikipedia has over 3 million articles in English and covers a wide scope of topics ranging from ‘Culture and Arts’ to ‘Technology’. We are glad that it remained ad free.
Nonetheless, I believe many of us would still use it even if Wikipedia were to adopt an advertisement model. To many, it has become the default online encyclopedia. Even if you were to google a term, there is a fairly high chance that the top search result belongs to an article from Wikipedia.
Images courtesy of Wikipedia
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