To find the meaning of a phrase used in another post here, I turned to Wikipedia, one of my very few trusted information sources in the Information Trash Heap.

At the top of the page was a link requesting donations. This gave me more than a few mixed emotions:
"Oh no, getting money involved with a great free project will lead to corruption."
"But this is Wikipedia, a mecca of truth..... just like Google once was."
"Great, when will they be forced to sell themselves to AOL or Yahoo?"
"I'll donate, but where is my money going?"

A few clicks later, I found their 2005 budget. Now this is interesting. I can trust that page like I trust their site (I hope). This starts me thinking that contributors should have a say in the future of Wikipedia, but that's so "corporate shareholder". I'm not sure what to think, except that I'll donate until I see their budget include unnecessary items or their site changes direction for the worse.

Most resources on the Internet are only good during their pioneering, start up phase before they go corporate and are controled by money. Maybe Wikipedia can become the first Internet "open business" by maintaining its individuality and purpose free from the evils of money.

I am giving them the benefit of doubt for now - I don't see anything to be suspicious of. BTW, browsing the donations page, I saw quite a few entries of $100 and even one of $400 (compared to my paltry $10).

Look a bit at their traffic figures - they have grown 50% in two months or so! They surely need these donations.

BTW, I saw somewhere that Nature journal estimates accuracy of articles on scientific topics to be about as good in Wikipedia as in Britannica. While that might be the case for political and historic topics, too, one has no way to complain about sometimes wildly inaccurate and biased texts in publications like Britannica, unlike about those in Wikipedia. (I had on-line Britannica subscription for two or three years, but discontinued it a year ago; now Wikipedia is my main on-line reference.)

They've run fund drives at least a couple of times before. Yup. Twice, according to the botom the Fundraising page.