Wikipedia “might disappear” ?

[crazyleaf]

Florence Devouard, chairwoman of the Wikimedia Foundation, has touched off a tempest with her suggestion in a talk at the Lift07 conference that Wikipedia has funding for only another quarter and “might disappear” if donations don’t pick up.

According to this post by media producer Philippe Mottaz, Devouard told the audience: “At this point, Wikipedia has the financial resources to run its servers for about 3 to 4 months. If we do not find additional funding, it is not impossible that Wikipedia might disappear.”

Here is a copy of the official Wikimedia budget for the last quarter of the 2005 calendar year. Keep in mind that although this copy dates from 2005, the costs of running Wikipedia have rised in time.

[bluesage]

bad news...lets hope donations come in :), use the site often for research, but we will always manage without, we did before it existed :)

[sarah]

That would be a shame, it's grown to be some resource, although can't say I'm rushing to donate! I'd get more work done without it as I'll quickly check it to find out one thing, only to click on a link, then another, and another, until two hours later I wonder why I'm reading about Sonja Jackson or some other random soap character!

[crazyleaf]

Yeah .. realy bad news. I love Wikipedia. Also read somewhere that they put the "nofollow" attribute to the external links. That won't help donations.

[Toon]

Google Should Pay a Big Share of Wikipedia's Bills

Last week word spread through the sphere that Wikipedia may one day not have enough cash to support itself. Now today Hitwise reports that 50% of Wikipeida's traffic comes from Google. What's more, Wikipedia has now cracked the Web's 10 largest sites. Google is 50% responsible and they should help WIkipedia, which operates as a not-for-profit.

The health of Wikipedia is in Google's best interest. The search engine's quality of results lately have been rising as it gives more credence to Wikipedia. Given this, one would hope that Google will finally pick up a big share of WIkipedia's expenses - namely bandwidth and storage. Google offered to host Wikipedia back in 2005. However, details are scant. One would hope that the two will consummate this proposed deal since they are both equally valuable to each other. Why the delay?

by Steve Rubel

READ MORE>>

[zumojuice]

Yeah I reckon Google would buy in. I mean they are slowly buying up the internet.

[crazyleaf]

Originally Posted by zumojuice

Yeah I reckon Google would buy in. I mean they are slowly buying up the internet.

I agree. Wikipedia would be a great asset to Google.

[Toon]

Internet site Wikipedia has been hit by controversy after the disclosure that a prominent editor had assumed a false identity complete with fake PhD.

The editor, known as Essjay, had described himself as a professor of religion at a private university.

But he was in fact Ryan Jordan, 24, a college student from Kentucky who used texts such as Catholicism for Dummies. He has now retired from the site.

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia open to all, written by volunteers worldwide.

MORE>>

[zumojuice]

That does not surprise me in the slightest. I mean wiki is good source of info if you need and overview of something - and its particularly good on modern culture elements BUT because its users thoughts, it should be regarded with some level of caution if you want to take anything as FACT.

But I do still think google will buy it out. The internet all seems to be about getting your fingers into as many pies as possible.

[crazyleaf]

Google buying it is a strong option in my opinion too. They are fast becoming some sort of Microsoft in the online world.