Wikipedia stands out in a mass with integrity and undisputable value addition to the community. It marks the beginning of cultural revolution in internet history and a source of inspiration for today’s online social community. But what is happening with Wikipedia? Why is it that every year, the Wikipedia community have to beg for its existence to be justified? Every time you visit Wikipedia you find a donation bar staring for your support.

Donation bar in Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the top five websites in internet. No matter what you search in the Google, you are bound to get results from Wikipedia, such is the reach of Wikipedia.  Every month it receives 325 Million visitors. With such traffic, monetizing should have been easy, but the only way for such portal to earn is through advertising model which the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, is not open with.

The Wikipedia case introduces a very difficult economic dilemma, and brings certain fragility which may break any moment. There is very classic model for this case: Imagine a small town center where people are in need of street lights but only few care about it. These few people gather together to erect the lamp post and serve the society. But their act benefits all the people of that town center, even the one who were ignorant. Don’t you think there is a lack of equality in such society? In real world, normally in such cases Government takes care of the situation and poses tax on people. Should Wikipedia in a similar way be internationalized?  Because somebody is paying for the content through donation, shouldn’t  they be justified?

Recent news from Wall Street Journal have mentioned that thousands of volunteers of Wikipedia are leaving. This may cause problem to the value for which it stands for. Some of the reasons being speculated by Andrew Lih, the author of “Wikipedia Revolution” are:

1. Problem with usability of the site which discourages new contributors,
2. Most of the topics have already been covered so no new materials to write for,
3. Rejection of new contributors from an old community creating a community cocoon,
4. Wikipedia focusing on maintenance rather than growth,
5. Instability due to the nature of crowd sourcing which create more disputed in the community.

How is it possible for Wikipedia to sustain without any insecurity in future? Though many people tell that it’s impossible for such giants to fall, remember it is always the giants who fall first. The global recession is an example of failure of an economic system that stood on optimism and too much of faith.

Source of Image :http://www.ski-cross.ca/files/wikipedia-logo.png