Wikipedia:Funding Wikipedia through advertisements

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For a short period during the foundation's 2009 fundraiser, there was a banner titled "Wikipedia: Ad-free forever." The banner was soon removed along with other controversial banners. See: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Fundraising headers#Abolish the silly headers and meta:Fundraising 2009/Launch Feedback.

In a comment dated March 7, 2008 on his Wikipedia talk page Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has stated

While I continue to oppose the introduction of any advertising in Wikipedia, I also continue to agree that the discussion should evolve beyond a simple binary. I believe that if we looked at putting ads into the search results page (only), with the money earmarked for specific purposes (with strong community input into what those would be, either liberation of copyrights or support for the languages of the developing world or...). As the Foundation continues to evolve into a more professional organization capable of taking on and executing tasks (yay Sue and the growing staff!), it begins to be possible to imagine many uses of money that would benefit our core charitable goals. Lest I be misunderstood: I am not saying anything new, but saying exactly what I have said for many years.

The issue has been the topic of ongoing discussion. Revenue generated from advertisements could improve the website and help achieve its goals. On the other hand, advertising may be at odds with the mission of a neutral, non-profit website which aims to educate.

Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites on the web.^[1] Tens of millions of dollars could be generated if even just a few users allowed ads. With that money, the Wikimedia Foundation could increase server capacity, hire a larger staff, and improve various other Wikimedia projects such as Wiktionary and Wikinews. See: Possible uses for additional income.

There is a long history to this issue. See: strategy:Advertising, strategy:Category:Proposals on funding through advertising, meta:Polls, meta:Advertising on Wikipedia, meta:Opt-in Google-ads, Enciclopedia Libre, Wikipedia talk:Tools/1-Click Answers, and Wikipedia:User categories for discussion/Archive/December 2007#Wikimedia and advertising. See also the archives linked to the right of the table of contents on the talk page: Wikipedia talk:Funding Wikipedia through advertisements. This graph demonstrates some of the history of conversations about advertising on the Wikimedia Foundation's mailing list.^[2]