Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, has taken the unusual step of making a personal appeal in the site’s latest fund-raising round.

If you don’t know what Wikipedia is, you can found out here.

It had some bad news coverage last year. While its foibles are real, they are few. And its virtues far outweigh them.

Now it needs donations. Why would you give? Jimmy Wales explains:

I can?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself. I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m doing this for the child in Africa who is going to use free textbooks and reference works produced by our community and find a solution to the crushing poverty that surrounds him. But for this child, a web site on the Internet is not enough; we need to find ways to get our work to people in a form they can actually use.

And I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m doing this for my own daughter, who I hope will grow up in a world where culture is free, not proprietary, where control of knowledge is in the hands of people everywhere, with basic works they can adopt, modify, and share freely without asking permission from anyone.

The proprietary control of knowledge is not a sexy topic. But it is a real danger.

Give to Wikipedia. I did. I want my kids to grow up in a world like that too.

It’s even tax-deductible if paid out of federally-taxable income in the United States.

Tags: culture, donations, Internet, knowledge, reference works, tax-deductible, Wikipedia

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