Template:2011FR/appeal-jimmyedit-US-0326

Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 679 servers and around 100 employees.

So who created and fact checked Wikipedia's 20 million articles in 270 languages? And who pays for the servers, the tech staff and the legal team? You.

Whether you spend a few hours improving a Wikipedia article on something you care about or donate a small amount, you are someone who makes Wikipedia -- something that should be impossible -- thrive.

Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 450 million different people every month – with billions of page views. Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others. When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.

If everyone reading this donated $5, we would only have to fundraise for one day a year. But not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.

This year, please consider making a donation of $5, $20, $50 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales Wikipedia Founder