Template:2011FR/appeal-basil as-1212/en

I’m not ashamed to say that a great portion of what I know is from Wikipedia.

Whether you want to learn about business, science, history, or even more silly stuff like a song you heard on the radio, Wikipedia is there to help you, and all information is treated equally. It doesn’t make any assumptions, it lets people decide for themselves what’s important.

I am one of the thousands of people who contribute to Wikipedia as a volunteer, just trying to make it better piece by piece. Being able to pull up the homepage and watch the number of articles go up each day amazes me every time I see it.

We built Wikipedia by breaking all the rules for making a top 10 website. We let anyone edit the content who wants to. And we don't support Wikipedia with advertising or big donations from a handful of very wealthy people.

But volunteers do need infrastructure and some help: servers, tech staff, a legal team to protect our independence and more. Believe it or not, it’s all paid for by donations from our readers.

We chose to be different, and ask that people who rely on Wikipedia help contribute $5, $20, $50 or whatever you can afford, in order to keep this crazy miracle online for everyone.

Thank you,

Basil Soufi

Wikipedia Author