Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Geek Speak => Topic started by: JimBob on 18/03/2008 00:35:32

Title: Wikipedia in deep financial trouble
Post by: JimBob on 18/03/2008 00:35:32

Wikipedia has cut its staff to the bone and is very concerned with being able to pay fir it's servers. This was in an article in the Austin American-Statesman this morning and the dateline was last week. Much of it has to do with the private life of it's founder but another issue is that Wikipedia will not accept advertising to cover costs and accepts only donations. But the news out on founder (http://www.news.com/8301-13577_3-9895666-36.html?tag=nefd.top Date March 17, 2008, 12 PM) isn't a glowing endorsement for potential benefactors.

See search results:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=chP&q=wikipedia+news&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=news_result&resnum=11&ct=title

Title: Wikipedia in deep financial trouble
Post by: DoctorBeaver on 18/03/2008 07:43:04

Oh dear (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbestsmileys.com%2Fnono%2F4.gif&hash=c716169a2ae16cb190152541daffcdc1)

Title: Wikipedia in deep financial trouble
Post by: another_someone on 18/03/2008 20:21:35

Would have expected a wider reporting of this by now if there was much substance to it.  Why is the rest of the media so silent on the matter, given the widespread use of Wikipedia, and the expectation that were it true it would have a wide impact?

I am not saying the reports are false, only that I would have expected, if true, that it would have been corroborated from other sources by now.

Title: Wikipedia in deep financial trouble
Post by: Simulated on 19/03/2008 13:29:29

It's sad, but I saw it coming

Title: Wikipedia in deep financial trouble
Post by: neilep on 19/03/2008 13:52:23

Oh my !!..what can we do ?


I'm sending my kids out to clean chimneys and my wifey is to stand on street corners......(hmmmmm...last time she did that it cost me in refunds !!)....

Title: Wikipedia in deep financial trouble
Post by: DoctorBeaver on 21/03/2008 08:44:29

With the traffic Wikipedia gets, advertisers would pay a fortune. Just 1 add per page would probably solve their problems.

Title: Wikipedia in deep financial trouble
Post by: Simulated on 25/03/2008 10:57:28

Yes, but I don't like looking at them ads. They get quite annoying, but hey i'd still use the site. Like mypace hell they've got like 4 on a page.

Title: Wikipedia in deep financial trouble
Post by: another_someone on 25/03/2008 17:06:24

We are a week on, and I still have not seen secondary confirmation of this story.

If you don't like the ads on web pages, then may I recommend FireFox with the adblock add-on, which you can use to block ads on specific pages (it may be that IE7 might have similar add-on's - I am not familiar with that, but I don't think it was possible under IE6).

Title: Wikipedia in deep financial trouble
Post by: Simulated on 27/03/2008 21:33:36

Is it true that they are working on a Wiki2?