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Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

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Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#21
post #12
post #3

Great, now how much more money do they need to buy the disk space necessary to stop deletionism?

All the editing history is archived, right?

Who digs through editing history when they're looking stuff up?

And he's talking about the number of articles, if I'm not mistaken.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#22
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's annoying... but it worked 16 million times.

500 thousand times. 16 million dollars donated, but only 500 thousand donors. EDIT: Paragraph wondering about A/B testing removed, as two people responded with links to the results of A/B testing, which I was not previously aware of.

FYI: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2010/Banner_testi...

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#23
post #18

I've always thought Google should just buy them. If you're going to index the worlds information, this is a good start. Google has the resources and power to make sure it remains alive and well.

I tend to disagree due to future uncertainties. While Google may seem like the ultimate do-no-evil company at this moment, what will happen in 15, or even 30 years? If Google eventually "turns", it may lead to fragmentation of the Wikipedia project, and consequently a lack of focus. To me, Wikimedia (the foundation) seems like the type of foundation that will always keep a clear focus and maintain the core values of Wikipedia.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#24
post #6

Is their budget public? I'd really like to see how you spend $16 million. Is there actually paid staff/benefits? Because $16M is more hardware/bandwidth than I can fathom.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Budget PDF for 2011: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/dd/2010-1... (Page 24 for pie chart comparison) Summary: They want to expand, a lot, almost every sector has more than doubled in allocated budget from 09-10s budget

Thanks! So they spent nearly $9M in salaries vs $2M for bandwidth, $1M in travel expenses, $2M in office rent/furniture/meetings https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikime...

2010 Wikipedia Spending, in USD, in thousands

  8,972 Salaries and wages
  1,837	Internet hosting
  3,270	Capital expenditures
  483 	Donation processing fees, charitable registrations
  2,274	External contractors
  864 	Travel for staff, Board, Advisory Board and volunteers
  134	Wikimania Travel
  155	Legal
  1,273	Office rent, furniture and equipment,   supplies and maintenance
  813 	Staff and volunteer meetings, conferences,   training, workshops
  325 	New allocation for awards and grants supporting volunteer initiatives
  --------------------
  $20,400K	TOTAL  (*$20M*)
Direct link to pie chart as image (thanks to google)

https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikime...

and the whole document in html/images

https://docs.google.com/gview?embedded=true&url=http://u...

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could definitely make a killing with just a single AdSense block at the bottom of every article. Maybe even just the top 1000 articles. Instead, we get places like Answers.com mass-duplicating Wikipedia content and slapping big image ads on it.

One of the things people are worried about with that it would allow something close to paid additions/rebuttals to Wikipedia articles, at least if ad buyers were good enough at the AdSense targeting. The goal is to have a neutral article that covers all viewpoints fairly, but then you'd have this little box where whoever pays the most money would get the opportunity to insert a link to their take on the subject.

Surely if you just have general 'run of site' advertising which isn't targeted to specific articles, there's little chance of conflict.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#26
post #18

I've always thought Google should just buy them. If you're going to index the worlds information, this is a good start. Google has the resources and power to make sure it remains alive and well.

I'm pretty sure Wikipedia isn't for sale.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#27
post #23
post #18

I've always thought Google should just buy them. If you're going to index the worlds information, this is a good start. Google has the resources and power to make sure it remains alive and well.

I tend to disagree due to future uncertainties. While Google may seem like the ultimate do-no-evil company at this moment, what will happen in 15, or even 30 years? If Google eventually "turns", it may lead to fragmentation of the Wikipedia project, and consequently a lack of focus. To me, Wikimedia (the foundation) seems like the type of foundation that will always keep a clear focus and maintain the core values of…

I'd hardly call Google the 'ultimate do-no-evil' company after they signed that anti-net-neutrality pact with Verizon last summer.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#28
I wasn't aware that not meeting that goal would result in slapping ads on articles.

Also, Wikipedia itself was fully funded a while ago through next year, the foundation was trying to raise money for other projects and programs that aren't the encyclopedia itself.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#29
post #28

I wasn't aware that not meeting that goal would result in slapping ads on articles. Also, Wikipedia itself was fully funded a while ago through next year, the foundation was trying to raise money for other projects and programs that aren't the encyclopedia itself.

Or raising for the future instead of waiting for the imminent to happen, running out of money, and act in desperation.

Re: Wikipedia Raises $16 Million to Remain Ad-Free

#30
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Budget PDF for 2011: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/d/dd/2010-1... (Page 24 for pie chart comparison) Summary: They want to expand, a lot, almost every sector has more than doubled in allocated budget from 09-10s budget

Thanks! So they spent nearly $9M in salaries vs $2M for bandwidth, $1M in travel expenses, $2M in office rent/furniture/meetings https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikime... 2010 Wikipedia Spending, in USD, in thousands 8,972 Salaries and wages 1,837 Internet hosting 3,270 Capital expenditures 483 Donation processing fees, charitable registrations 2,274 External contractors 864 Travel for staff, Bo…

What's the big deal? Unlike bandwidth people get more and more expensive to employ over time. Health-care and cost of living are two biggies.
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