Jimmy Wales On "Advertising On Wikipedia" - Never Said Never

Online advertising has helped many websites flourish and programs like Google Adsense have made it easier for anyone to display advertising on their website and earn revenues through it. We interviewed#-Link-Snipped-# in our Small Talk which is an interesting read. One website that has potential to make millions of dollars in revenues through online advertisements has opted to remain ad-free throughout its life and it's none other than Wikipedia.
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The free online encyclopedia maintained by non-profit organization, Wikimedia Foundation has been top 10 most trafficked sites in the world generating millions of page-views. At present, Wikipedia has over 17 million articles and new articles are being created every day. The site has over 365 million readers. With this readership Wikipedia can attract thousands of advertisers and earn revenues. Such a large website needs lot of infrastructure and staff to run and the revenue from ads can be used to take care of all the expenses. However, Wikipedia, for years, has relied on donations by generous donors all over the world. Jimmy Wales Wikipedia:advertisements -

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.

Wikipedia recently raised over $16 million through donations from over 500000 users worldwide to remain ad-free for entire 2011. Time Magazine interviewed Jimmy Wales about whether Wikipedia will show advertisements on the site and here's what he said -

While we’ve always said that we’re opposed to having advertising on Wikipedia, we’ve never said “absolutely never.”

Here's the video -



Should Wikipedia display advertisements on the site? If you ever notice ads on Wikipedia, will it disturb you?