Is Wikipedia Asking Too Much from Its Users?

Oftentimes when I try to talk about the problems with online advertising and internet users unwillingness to watch ads on our sites combined with a very similar (or maybe stronger) unwillingness to pay for content, commentators mention Wikipedia as a popular example of how successful a donations-based model can actually be.

Of course it is kind of encouraging to see Wikipedia proudly reporting raising more than $5.5 million out of the target $6 million to maintain and run the community-edited encyclopedia that has become the usual destination whenever someone needs quick references on just about any question in the world.

But the main problem is that this amount is not particularly impressive on the scale that Wikipedia operates at as the giant encyclopedia probably requires more servers and bandwidth than I can imagine. In fact, running the 4^th most popular website in the world is a task that is supposed to consume tons of money and while to other popular sites it also means generating tons of money, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales insists the encyclopedia should be both free and ad-free and should rely on donations solely for its operations.

Today Shira Ovide is discussing the issue of Wikipedia sustainability on donations alone in Digits, the WSJ technology blog questioning the fact that Wikipedia can run like this for actually long time. The thing is that the budget supporting the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation is rapidly growing. Right now the required amount of $6 million in donations is intended to support 23 people of staff, software upgrades and all the bandwidth required to let everyone in on every single day.

But this $6 million budget will not be enough as soon as next year probably as the money Wikipedia consumes is rapidly growing from $3.5 million in 2007 which is almost twice the budget of 2006 as well. So the growth of budget is here and even if it slows down next year (now that Wikimedia Foundation is safely settled in San Francisco) I have a feeling that donations will probably slow down as well given the current economic environment. First of all, I don’t think that every user who donates once will want to donate every single year and new donors will constantly arrive to help finance the efforts. So while the growth of expenses will most certainly continue (at the very least the bandwidth consumption is supposed to grow), the donations will hardly be able to arrive at the amounts required to finance the giant project.

What’s more, to me it already looks like Wikipedia relies on its users way too much as the users bring in absolutely everything here: both the content and the money as well. I do understand that Wikipedia wants to keep the site ad-free for everyone to use and be happy about it. But what’s the point in trying to make the site survive on a tiny budget and probably cutting bandwidth expenses (to the extent that lately I’ve rarely been able to access Wikipedia pages at all from Russia - and in the rare cases that they actually arrive they take ages to load) instead of looking for a reasonable compromise, like inviting official sponsors and displaying the thank you messages on some prominent places, like on the home page or in search results instead of only giving them mentions on a dedicated page no one ever visits? It should not necessary be an ad and it certainly should not influence how this or that sponsor is mentioned in relevant pages of the encyclopedia but I don’t think it is necessary a problem as the community is active enough to notice any bias and remove it promptly.

Of course for sponsors a more or less visible thank you from Wikipedia must be a better reason to donate than making it without expecting anything in return. After all, we are living in the global financial crisis and every investment should have at least some ROI, including a donation in Wikipedia. Besides, as a user I’d certainly be more than willing to pay a certain amount for Wikipedia on a monthly basis to still be able to access anything but the home page and I am probably not the only user thinking like this. So the opportunities to make money to support the project (and be proud in the quality of software and loading speed instead of taking pride in how tiny a budget this huge project can survive with) are here and probably it could be a good option to think about how to use them instead of only thinking about how to make more people donate approaching them with passionate requests every time they visit.