Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, has appealed to users to give to the free online encyclopedia to 'protect' the site and the space in which it operates. In a public letter Wales has beseeched users to support the site, which he claimed cost $US10 million a year and to run and has a staff of less than 35 folks. About half work on technology, while another team supports public outreach and volunteer cultivation activities, and the leftover work in fund raising and administration.
Wikipedia is not a commercial internet site. It is a community creation, completely written and bankrolled by folks like you. More than 340 million folk use Wikipedia each month just about a 3rd of the Internet-connected world, he wrote. The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization Wales made in 2003 to help grow Wikipedia, the 5th most-read internet site globally.
We want to protect the space where this significant work occurs. We want to protect Wikipedia. We wish to keep it free and freed from advertising. We wish to keep it open you may use the info in Wikipedia any way you need. Wales is also the founder of a for-profit company, Wiki, which hosts some of the biggest wikis outside of Wikipedia. The company was set up in 2004 and allegedly reached profitability in September this year. It is a totally separate entity to the Wikimedia Foundation.
