The Wikipedia Business (The Non-profit Search Engine)
I remember the days when I would go to the library to get the meaning of a word or check for a meaning of something. It took me hours to get the meaning of words as I must check through several large books. I remember my dad had to get several editions of encyclopedia and he loved having his library loaded with these books but soon technology took over.
Source
There came Wikipedia by Jimmy Wales in January 2001. The aim of the search engine was to create a a decentralized encyclopedia for everyone. Wikipedia became the free encyclopedia where anyone can find out about anything. The site has got a lot of information/data which was put there by volunteer. Unlike in the past where encyclopedia get updated in years, Wikipedia get the updates on a regular basis as volunteers can add and remove from the data.
How does Wikipedia make their money?
Sites like Facebook, YouTube and others often generate income from advertisement and service sales. This is often the regular way for them to generate income but for Wikipedia, it is a different ball game. The site is regarded as non-profit and it is funded through donations. They do not pay anything in government tax and interestingly, the business has always had excess money in net asset after expenses have been made from the donations they get.
How Wikipedia Gets their Information?
People who add things up on Wikipedia are regarded to as volunteers and they do it for free. Although, staff of the company get paid, but this does not mean that volunteers get paid. People who contribute articles to Wikipedia do it of free will.
Is it cool that Volunteer do not get paid?
One of the major reasons why Wikipedia is filled with a lot of untrusted data is because they run on free data contributions. People who contribute do it for free and that’s why contents are added and subtracted without the data properly being checked before being published on the site.
Woah great information. I always knew it's non profit but I was not aware of these details about volunteering for free to write on Wikipedia.
Thank you for sharing this valuable information!
Great information. Sometimes I really wonder how do Wikipedia makes their money because it is rarely to see ads and ADVERTISEMENT on the website.
Hi @benedom
This detail of volunteering is very well known, but I didn't know about the donations.
Good information you shared.
Many people post information that is not at all reliable, so it makes it less reliable than other sites,
Interesting information my friend, the truth is that I also launched a lot when I was little, but I also know that there are other pages much more reliable. I didn't know anything about how this industry or this website was managed, it's good to know now. Greetings!
@ben-edom this is one of the best search engine in terms of accurate and in-depth knowledge one has to get. I am using bit from long time and I am very happy about its working and it's huge knowledge.
This is a nice article. So much info I didn't know. True, Wikipedia is unreliable for the 100% valid information. Yet it's the get-to website for people almost all the time. Because they have info on almost all topic.
It is a good work the volunteers are doing already — without operating an open-source strategy, wiki will not have such a massive data and information. It's only unbelievable that the volunteers are not paid. If it was to be used incentivesed, I think it would only increase the level of unverified infov