Honestly, I've seen that stupid ad of Jimbo Wales or whoever and the "please give us money" sign, but I thought it was just the standard "donate plz" stuff that a lot of places do. 

But their latest ad says "X million collected, X million to go, please help keep Wikipedia free!" 

Wait, what?  Wikipedia is threatening to become a for-pay site?! 

Number one, good luck with that.  Wikipedia is a great resource for quick and dirty info, in fact they're the #1 site for general information on whatever topic you need to look up in the next thirty seconds IMO, but honestly it's not something I'd ever pay for. 

Number two, it's an empty threat IMO if they have any brains.  Wikipedia depends on a huge army of people editing their sites; a for-pay version would dry up most of those people.  Articles would become outdated; new articles wouldn't be as good; malicious edits would be much less common but much harder to stay on top of.  Edit wars and people with axes to grind would become a much bigger problem. 

What do you guys think?  Did you know about this?  Do you agree with me or do you think they know what they're doing?  Do you think Wikipedia has a decent reason for this?  Do you think that I'm just getting worked up over nothing -- that Wikipedia is bluffing? 

They aren't threatening to become a pay-to-use site, they are just reminding you that it's free to use.

Its been going on for a while, but I didn't think they were threantning to be a for-pay site, but then again, I havn't been there for a while. Yeah, there are plenty other sources of information that are free so its most likely an empty threat for more donations to come, most likely the users.

...twesterm?

Is that you?

They aren't threatening to become a pay-to-use site

They mean that they would have to put ads on the site if they can't keep servers up with donations.

LOL... huge fail... wikipedia is the good guy... is the only way we can see true socialism in the making of the biggest library of information in the world by common individuals each helping for a larger goal

Wouldn't it be funny if no one actually donated all the money that the indicator states and the little increases you see it make is to tempt you to finally donate? XD

Actually that would be pretty sad. Anyway, I'm pretty sure someone or some people would pay that off before New Years or the owner of Wikipedia will stop asking for donations because I doubt anyone would donate after the Holiday season is over which was when this donation thing probaby started from anyway. 

I don't get why they just don't put in a couple adds.

Adds have never ruined my expierence on any of the various "Wikia" sites.

It'd allow them to branch out stuff more back how it used to be before Wikipedia got so popular.

I've seen the ad its not new I've seen it for ages. All it is saying is help them keep Wikipedia free. Not threatening to charge for the service just asking for help to maintain the site. If it became a paid site then I would expect it to offer way more info and to create that info indipendantly not relying on users bias.

But you know what if I were not so poor and ran out of better charities to donate too, or if I were a technology giant I would donate my money to Wikipedia its a great cause. But then again I'd rather feed starving kids in africa then keep a online encyclopedia!

It's always been like that. Wikipedia will be free to use regardless.

The donations are apparently to help with the bandwidth and server costs. However it doesn't cost nearly that much to do it, some of their capacity is donated for free anyway and most of the money is actually spent on "expenses" for the Wikimedia board. It's actually a huge scam.

If  you want to contribute to Wikipedia, edit an article. Don't give money, it won't help the quality of the site and it's not transparent how it is spent. It's a great resource with poor management - have you seen Jimmy Wales' history? He keeps making arbitrary decisions that aren't his to make with no debate (making certain/all pages needing approved editors) and editing articles under a huge conflct of interest.

tl;dr You donating doesn't help Wikipedia's mission, improving articles with your time does

Well, my mistake.  But on the other hand I don't even understand what you are talking about with Wikipedia paving the way to true world socialism, I mean are you even listening to yourself? 

Wikipedia evangelism is a strange beast.