Thank You/Ivan Meetin

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Wikipedia is a place to learn, a place to share. But for me, it was also the beginning of an incredible idea: a promise of what we can achieve when we work together as a community.
Wikipedia exists because of donations. It survives on generosity and goodwill. I loved the idea &mdash; but I didn't think anything like that could exist in the real world. But then I thought, why not?

I decided to give it a try. I founded a space called The Treehouse. There, I received guests &mdash; anyone who wanted to come &mdash; and they could drink tea and eat snacks. They could bring their own food and leave something to share.

The whole thing was run on donations, and everyone gave as much as they could afford. Like Wikipedia, my project survived on generosity and goodwill.

Wikipedia inspired me; it showed me the good that a community built on trust can accomplish in the world.

We live in a time of constant distraction. Advertising is everywhere. Huge piles of information are always in view. But people need space to concentrate and time to think. They need a place where they can learn and socialize without distractions. For me, that's Wikipedia.

I know from experience how hard it is to keep a project running on donations and volunteer hours. It's not easy &mdash; but somehow, year after year, Wikipedia manages to make it work.

If you admire the cause that is Wikipedia, then please do whatever you can to help.

Thanks,

Ivan Meetin

''Ivan Meetin was born and raised in Moscow. He began editing Wikipedia in 2006 as a creative outlet. His experience with The Treehouse inspired him to found a second community space, called Ziferblat (“Clockface”), which has grown into a network with nine locations across Russia and Ukraine.''

Image Attribution: by Victor Grigas, under [//creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported], from Wikimedia Commons.