An appeal from Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder

Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 679 servers and 95 staff.

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.

Where does your donation go?

Infrastructure and software: maintain the technical infrastructure of Wikipedia (5^th most visited website) and improve software.
Conferences, workshops, and press: explain how Wikimedia projects work, train new users.
Partnerships : help cultural institutions improve Wikipedia.
Community support: help the users with their projects.

If everyone reading this donated €10, 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, ¥1000 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.

Thanks,

Jimmy Wales

Wikipedia Founder

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For further information about Wikimédia France, you can read our answers to frequently asked questions, and our yearly report.

An appeal from Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder