You save Wikipedia. A few hours after celebrating its tenth birthday, which will be celebrated worldwide tomorrow, the encyclopedia "made by all for all" has reached an important goal: to collect the sum of $ 16 million, the equivalent of 12 2 million €, which will support the cost of servers and technical equipment and to ensure that Wikipedia remains free of advertising, at least for another year.A fundraising record, with nearly half a million users in 140 countries have paid in fifty days, an average of 16 € per person, information "only" to an appeal by the founder Jimmy Wales on the top of each of the 18 Global million articles. "Wikipedia - said the Deputy Executive Director Sue Gardner, Wikimedia - is the only major site of the top ten of the Internet remains free of advertising thanks to its users.
Advertising and business - he added - does not belong to us: we are like a library or a public park. " "Every time someone tells me that Wikipedia could generate a lot of money - it echoes Jimmy Wales - I always say that the Red Cross could do it, and it does not. We are a public service, and for the next ten years we want to continue with only text and images.
" Speaking of the Red Cross is perhaps a bit 'too much, but talk of public service is not. Every Internet user knows that, to search for any information on any subject of human knowledge, just enter the term on Google. Well, on average a page in Wikipedia appears in every search in the top ten results.
Wikipedia has made its first ten years, reaching many milestones and successes (there are now editions in over 250 languages and 17.5 million items that generate more than 65 million Web pages with over 60 million hits per day), taking with him also many criticisms, particularly regarding the reliability of the information.
Until recently, talk about Wikipedia at school or in the academic was considered heresy, slowly, thanks to the efforts of hundreds of volunteers who monitor the items, the myth of poor reliability is blurring, so that many users complain about the difficulty of modifying or adding new items because of 'excessive severity "of the moderators.
"As in all the encyclopedias - said Wales - there are the updated pages, as those that contain outdated and inaccurate data, but like all encyclopedias, we also are a good starting point to begin a search." The tenth anniversary will be celebrated with great pomp in 111 countries with hundreds of events, all gathered inside the site ten.
wikipedia. org. In Italy January 15 were organized a cocktail at the "Loft 21" in Milan, a group walk to the Imperial Forums in Rome and a party inside the complex "Park City" in Vicenza. What to expect for the next ten years? "In the future the site - explains Jimmy Wales - there are India, where Wikipedia is about to open its first headquarters outside the United States, Africa, the great challenge of the version in Swahili.
Wikipedia for me - he added - is the natural evolution of a trend that dates back to the invention of printing, which suddenly allowed the information to be within economic reach of all. We think that everyone brings to the table in the Commons a crumb of their knowledge: the table in no time, it was transformed into a banquet.
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