It is not the editing of the directory that is expensive. It is the auditing...

I read an article the other day that said that there is so much content that something like 55% of it has not been audited or read by consumers.

Imaging trying to audit that volume of information. Same for Craig's list - just to much info...

I've seen Yahoo Answers much worse than this selected as "best answer."

My next question would be "But if you didn't know the answeranything about the subject, why on earth did you even respondedit its Wikipedia article?"

I'm confused - what's he have to do with the WMF? His comments are completely removed from reality one way or another, of course, but I think I'm missing the context that led to you having an e-mail exchange with him on this subject.

Wikipedia is a non-profit resource that is helping millions of people to research and provide quality content. Like a School, Church or Non-Profit it takes a staggering amount of resources to accomplish those types of tasks.

There is a chance that many of their corporate supporters have pulled back the reigns a bit because of the economy and they are trying to fill the gaps by fund raising.

The good news is that they are willing to do the work first and to make it such a great resource for everyone to use and that they are fund-raising to offset some of the expenses like Public Broadcast Radio/TV does to operate.

Support the resources that you like to use and they will be around forever. Don't and they will disappear like so many businesses do in tough times overnight.

Chris Manning, CEO
www.CommunityFundraisingBooks.com

It is not the editing of the directory that is expensive. It is the auditing... I read an article the other day that said that there is so much content that something like 55% of it has not been audited...

Wikipedia is owned by a non-profit corporation, the Mediawiki Foundation. It gets the money. Jimmy Wales continues to play a substantial role in the Mediawiki Foundation, but is not entitled to funds.