Wikipedia, a user made encyclopedia, is the world’s 5th largest website. It does not run ads and appears to be on the verge of solvency. One can see more than 32,000 search results on fund raising necessities of it. The whole discussion is on whether it will run ads to support it or not.

With Saturday, January 15, 2011, marking the completion of a decade of existence of Wikipedia - the online encyclopedia solely financed by reader donations -, it is clear that the globally crowd-sourced encyclopedia has effectively weathered severe criticism about its reliability and banishment from the academia.

According to a recent release by the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization - the parent of the popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia - has raised over $16 million in what apparently is the "shortest fundraiser in Wikimedia history."

In what apparently is one of the most successful fundraisers in Wikipedia parent's - the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation's - history thus far, Wikipedia has collected donations totaling nearly $16 million during the 2010 holiday season.

It is a natural first click to Wikipedia when anyone is searching to check out something that is not known, and it is similarly normal to double-check the source, just to confirm the that info provide by the site is accurate.

Reports say that Wikimedia Foundation Websites is planning to bring about some changes, after which the Wikipedia users would be allowed to export encyclopedic material to .pdf or printed book format.

It has been said that the planned lay out would be positioned by April and intends to develop the customer experience and usability of Wikipedia.

According to a Twitter post by the Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, the colossal, volunteer-driven Web encyclopedia has received a $2-million grant from Internet search giant Google. The Twitter post was followed by a formal announcement about the grant.

Going by a Monday report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the Internet-specific democratization branding of Wikipedia. org, the world’s fifth-ranking Web site in terms of popularity, may suffer a setback, as an unprecedented number of volunteers are reportedly taking the ‘exit’ route!