Wikipedia in financial difficulty
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Society - The organization has more than $ 1 million cash. What it can pay its bills for 3 to 4 months. But the online encyclopedia does not necessarily disappear, ensures its president.
The Wikimedia Foundation will soon run out of cash. This is the alarm signal from last week's Florence Devouard, president of the nonprofit organization that publishes the online encyclopedia Wikipedia participatory. Unaware of the impact of this announcement, quickly dramatized by the blogosphere, ready to relay the complete closure of the encyclopedia.
 "Is Wikipedia going to close in four months? [The answer is] not. No. And Nona, "insists Florence Devouard in a message to the community today. And redefine these words: asked about the financial status of projects, she stressed that the foundation had sufficient funds to meet costs for only three or four months.
 "We currently have just over a million dollars in the bank or 1.5 million, our dispositionÂ," she writes.  "The current monthly expenses reached 75,000 dollars. We planned to invest $ 1.6 million by June in hardware. We can count on increased costs of bandwidth and hosting. We also need more staff, and should at least hire an executive director, technical director and probably several developers. (...) Make the accounts yourself, (...) we exceed the 1.5 million already we possédons ".
No funding from advertising
Wikipedia has yet to argue, as Yahoo which provides free accommodation or servers, or Google, which allocates some of its charge developers for the encyclopedia, says Florence Devouard to ZDNet.fr. But it is mostly new money which would require the organization:  "We can not multiply or centers [sources] of bandwidth, and we do have to turn the servers we are offered free of charge, because that 'they are too old: we must maintain a system homogène. "
The remark of the President was thus to boost the fundraising, rather than waving the red rag of the closure.  "I repeat that we will not disappear. We were in a worse state in the passéÂ, "she wrote to members of the Wikipedia community.
The revival of fundraising, however, must accelerate for the foundation: his appeal for donations he has raised just over $ 1.1 million so far. It should be  "créatifÂ", emitting royalties through the use of bandwidth, says Florence Devouard. However, with a line that it refuses to pass:  "No advertising on the pages of the encyclopedia, it's a question of neutrality and refusal is very légitime.Â"
Source: ZDnet
