The Hive     The Atlantic Monthly September 2006

Can thousands of Wikipedians be wrong? How an attempt to build an online encyclopedia touched off history’s biggest experiment in collaborative knowledge by Marshall Poe

Several months ago, I discovered that I was being “considered for deletion.” Or rather, the entry on me in the Internet behemoth that is Wikipedia was.

For those of you who are (as uncharitable wikipedians sometimes say) “clueless newbies,” Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. But it is like no encyclopedia Diderot could have imagined. Instead of relying on experts to write articles according to their expertise, Wikipedia lets anyone write about anything. You, I, and any wired-up fool can add entries, change entries, even propose that entries be deleted. For reasons I’d rather not share outside of therapy, I created a one-line biographical entry on “Marshall Poe.” It didn't take long for my tiny article to come to the attention of Wikipedia’s self-appointed guardians. Within a week, a very active—and by most accounts responsible—Scottish Wikipedian named “Alai” decided that … well, that I wasn't worth knowing about. Why? “No real evidence of notability,” Alai cruelly but accurately wrote, “beyond the proverbial average college professor.” - More

The Knowledge Dump feed covers articles rejected by Wikipedia 

Wikimedia's latest Federal 990 as found on GuideStar: Wikimedia 990

Special Section on Wikimedia's Year Ended 6/30/06 IRS Form 990:

Here’s my take on Wikimedia’s Year Ended 6/30/06 IRS form 990: There is a nice growth in Revenue that is up to $1.4 million. A year ago it was $.36 million so that’s close to quadrupling. Their fund balances now stand at about $1 million and that is almost an increase of 300%. Their ending cash was about $500,000. The return shows that it is in a non-interest bearing account. This may be a typo since later there is reported a reasonable amount of interest income. Most of the rest of their assets is equipment and we can guess what that is. They own about $78,000 of Google stock, which by the way had appreciated as of 6/30/06, and someone might ask, why not diversify?

Their debt isn’t even worth mentioning. T-Shirt sales brought in only $8,575 and I am disappointed with the volunteers about that. None of the big five on the Board is getting paid as far as I can see. They disclose Wikimedia's relationship with Wikia, Inc. If the general question is, do they have anything in common with another entity, the answer is Yes. Have a look at page 6 of the 990 for the exact wording.

To sum up what they spend money on it is, servers and what appears to be a modest payroll of around $100,000. There was about a $400,000 increase in fixed assets for the year, and I assume most of that is servers. What they didn’t spend money on, went to build up the cash account mentioned above.

My final take on this form 990 is that the accountants aren’t charging enough to do it.

I have not audited, reviewed, compiled or in any way gotten within a thousand miles of Wikimedia’s books, and therefore do not express any sort of opinion on them as a Certified Public Accountant. The thing that CPAs fear the most is not the IRS, it’s lawyers.

The Wikimedia Foundation's IRS form 990 Tax Returns:

These copies were obtained from GuideStar.org who most likely got them from the IRS. An annual filing of this form is required if a non-profit is big enough, and Wikimedia is. Public disclosure is also required. A few quick notes: Wales drew no salary from Wikimedia for the three years ended 6/30/06. All dollar amounts seem small. How's that for an accounting opinion? I expected to see more revenue and expenses. The next report was due November 15, 2006, and it arrived at GuideStar on about 6/17/07. Its lateness is understandable and not much of an issue. Wikipedia's page on Wikimedia used to have a link that pointed to its year ended 6/30/06 return, but it was dead because one can't put .pdf files on Wikipedia. I attempted to link to this above file using my domain, but one Angela Beesley removed it as a suspect link. (I felt honored by this.) I made an effort it to restore it, including asking Wikimedia to upload the file to their domain, but that effort failed, and I decided to move on with the thought that I would be more of a source on their returns than Wikimedia is.

The image on the left pulls the 12 months ended 6/30/04 and the one on the right the 12 months ended 6/30/05. Find the 12 months ended 6/30/06 higher up on this page.

A note of caution, whether or not these statements capture all of what Wikipedia is, has not yet been determined by me? I am leaning towards saying they do, but there is at least the issue of Wikia, Inc to consider. If you are a CPA, and want to help on this issue, drop me an email. Better yet, edit Wikipedia's Wikimedia page with your take what on the financials are telling us, and drop me an email about how that went?

"It is said that if you place a million monkeys in front of a million keyboards, they will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. This is simply not true. They cannot even produce an encyclopedia." - From Wikipedia Watch

Published: 2005-12-01 Author: Steve Rubel

Wikipedia Is The Next Google

Fear. You can just feel it in the air, can't you? There is fear everywhere that Google has become too powerful. As John Battelle notes, the tide of public opinion is starting to turn from loving Google to fearing them.

Perhaps. But I have news for you. Google's not the only monarch to watch - or fear - anymore. Despite the media's fascination with all things search, Wikipedia is waiting in the wings as the next Google. They (or maybe that's "we") are the emerging king disruptor; the one entity that we will soon fear most, if not already.

Let's take a walk through history. King Disruptor I was Microsoft. For years this king attracted legions of fans for providing access to information; for making getting on the Internet easy. However, soon the once-loved king saw its popularity erode once Microsoft invaded one too many industries.

- For more of the story from: Webpronews.com, click on the GoogPedia icon.

IHateWikipedia.com - Mostly Hat, a Few Cattle

Andrea True is the only adult film star to top the Billboard charts according to Wikipedia. What I Know Is (WIKI), Jimmy Wales and Tim Shell are the only Bomis-type website founders to also contribute heavily to the founding of an online encyclopedia. More. More. More was released in 1976, and rose to number 4 on the charts. Watch it below.