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Why am I not surprised "Wikipedian" showed up and lay the citation smackdown on us (scroll below, very good points). Yet, still failed to address the question of; Why not in any shape or form?

Is there A) simply some mantra behind their no-ad policy? Or B) is it complicated matter of maintaining certain not-for-profit type of protection in order to display or host written content that includes company trademarks and possibily "lightly" copywritten material about corporations, personal details about individuals, or even say governmental agencies who may not want their details to become someone else's commercial podium........?

If I had to hypothesize, I'd say some form of B, which would reinforce why their legal division seems so important to them.

Tom @ http//www.slowbox.org

that person may have became milliner. We should respect his contribution. Since he wants to be ads free he has no option of income. At this situation he needed fund to run site there the donation is not begging.

Let them find any other source of income. They should allow to the companies own pages to be customized by companies with ads for little fund.

Personally I think Wikipedia shold accept advertising from just a couple of big names as sidebar banners. These guys would pay big bucks and help keep a worthwhile website alive!

While advertising is baised it does not mean it's a bad thing, most people know the difference between advertising and facts and it will not distort the information inside it.

If Wikipedia took the most interesting and factual tidbits from across their website and put them in writing, people would likely buy. It would make a great Coffee Table book.

I think custom pages is a great idea. Companies could pay to get positive content.

But is Wikipedia independent then?

You shouldn't blindly copy everything you read in random blogs.

1) The Executive Director does not "get close to half a million". This is a departmental budget which includes three salaries, travel expenses, contractor fees, etc. The actual salaries are disclosed in the WMF's form 990. The last ED received a salary of about $150K, and I expect that the current ED is also in that range. Given her background (formerly ran the CBC website), that's an entirely appropriate salary.

2) Jimmy Wales does not receive a dime from the Wikimedia Foundation. He's an unpaid Board member whose job it is to show up at meetings, to speak to the media, and to write letters like this appeal. Whatever his lifestyle, it's not funded by donations: He runs a separate for-profit company, Wikia, and receives money from speaking engagements.

3) The person who alleged that Wales offered "special protection" is none other than Jeffrey Merkey, a notorious Internet crackpot who has been described by a judge as follows: "Merkey nonetheless regularly exaggerates or lies in his comments to others about events happening around him. It is as though he is creating his own separate reality." [http://scofacts.org/merkey.html] A simple google search reveals that he's a litigious nutcase, pure and simple.

What you're doing here is reproducing random allegations without making any effort at correcting them. At least Wikipedia is open to editing.

The simple fact is that an operation at the scale and impact of Wikipedia is likely to attract that kind of drama. All the more important for bloggers and journalists to separate facts from fiction.