Wikipedia Founders Plea For Donations Successful

Even in an economic downturn the pleas of Jimmy Wales for donations to keep the Wikimedia Foundation afloat have netted the non profit organization an average of more than $215,000 in donations every day. The foundation has a budget of $6-million for operations in 2009 and the most recent call for donations is expected to reach the funds needed by the middle of January. “We're really thrilled that people have come out in force and made a clear statement that they care about this cause and they care about Wikipedia, even though we were kind of nervous after the economic news became really clear,” said Jay Walsh, a spokesman for the Wikimedia Foundation. The foundation has 23 paid staff members but relies on some 150,000 volunteers to keep the site running and reasonably accurate.

Source: Globe and Mail.

WikiScanner keeping things real

Wikipedia is a noble project with an aim to provide information on any topic imaginable and for the most part it works, but the knock on it has always been the credibility of the sources. Now, in an effort to keep Wikipedia more open and honest, graduate student Virgil Griffiths has developed WikiScanner, a website that traces IP addresses of computers that have edited Wikipedia topics. It's a great idea, and it has the support of Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. CBC story here.

Note: WikiScanner must be under heavy traffic as the site is taking some time to load.