Now that I'm subscribed to GrokDotCom's RSS feed - I'm picking up all kind of stuff, some of it I already know about and some I didnt like Wikipedia's funding woes from Search Marketing Gurus, I blog I never heard of before - here's the first part of that post:

"…

There's some articles out in the blogosphere right now quoting a speech given by Florence Devouard at the Lift '07 Conference in Geneva last week.  Florence Devouard is the chairwoman of the Wikimedia Foundation which runs the non-profit Wikipedia.  What has sparked a lot of buzz is what she said about Wikimedia's funding, that basically, one could summarize that Wikimedia is in pretty dire straights.

“At this point, Wikipedia has the financial resources to run its servers for about 3 to 4 months. If we do not find additional funding, it is not impossible that Wikipedia might disappear”.

Now that stated, Wikimedia's had to do some back pedaling on what was actually stated in the speech.  Sandra Ordonez, Wikimedia's communications director has been doing "cleanup" and posting on blogs that have the piece from Devouard's speech with the following:

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I don't believe it, and the post goes on to debunk the idea of Wikipedia closing anytime soon:

"…But then I saw one company, in particular that jumped out at me, on the $1,000 to $4999.99 category - Wikia, Inc.  So I guess Wikimedia Foundation expects the general public to believe they are in these dire straights, without absolutely no one to help, so that the general public will just open their wallets and donate. 

Me, I'm a bit more skeptical and less believing of speeches and hype.  Do you really believe that Wikia, Inc. would let Wikipedia - it's flagship "sister" site - close?  I don't doubt the the venture funding folks took a look at Wikipedia and that was one of their major reasons for investing that $4 million in Wikia, Inc.  If Wikipedia closed, just how would that look for Wikia, Inc. and their chances for future funding? 

To me, Wikipedia is like Dmoz, it'll never die but probably live mostly on donations - meaning there will be funding problems from time to time.

BTW, last year I painted an oil pastel study and large acrylic painting, both titled, Death of Wikipedia (see below):

Oil Pastel - 2006 - Marshall Sponder - Death of Wikipedia

 

 Death of Wikipedia - Acrylic on Canvass 3' x 4' - 2006 - Marshall Sponder

There's also plenty of people chiming in on the Death of Wikipedia - but at the end of the day, Wikipedia is an institution now and I don't think it's near death - and my paintings, while called "Death of Wikipedia" is really about search funnels and how Wikipedia is "eating" search queries and churning out….well, Wikipedia stuff.

Here's what I wrote last year:

"…The problem with doing this kind of visualization is it's so easy to just fall into literalism and stop at illustrating the idea rather than using the language of art, which is color, line form and the mystery that occurs when all three interact.   For me, a good work of art evokes feelings that go beyond the work.  What I really wanted to show was a funnel (both incoming and leaving Wikipedia) and a story  about the site.

I see that I failed to do what I set out to with the oil sketch, and then again, maybe it was the wine - if all else fails and I do a lousy painting - blame it on the wine!

Don't think Wikipedia is going anywhere.