Template:2011FR/appeal-jimmy-temple-1028

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. It is a unique human project, the first of its kind in history. It is a humanitarian project to bring a free encyclopedia to every single person on the planet.

Every single person. We're a small organization, and I've worked hard over the years to keep us lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others. Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 400 servers and 73 staff.

Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 422 million different people every month – with billions of page views. 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, $10, $20 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales Wikipedia Founder