Ask HN: Is Wikipedia going to survive?

1 points by codegeek ↗ HN
With the aggressive push for donations, wikipedia seems desperate to keep floating. Have you been seeing the Donate Banners every time you visit wikipedia ?

8 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 25.7 ms ] thread
They do this every december. If you watched pbs in the us you would think the same thing.
They have $90M in savings. They already met their donation goal, half way through the donation period. They spend $2M a year on keeping the site running. They are fine.
The foundation has more and more money each year and spends quite a bit on things that are not critical to running wikipedia, so I have no reason to believe that Wikipedia is at financial risk.
I wish more people would donate
I usually give $10 per year. Not because I think they need it, but because they are an important institution. I'm concerned that the number of contributors is going down though.
Taking how often they are doing edit-a-thons into account, it's possible that some of your money goes into recruiting new contributors. (WMF also has a scholarship for known-good contributors to attend these conferences.)
You must be new to Wikipedia, if your never seen Jimmy Whales's begging bowl before now