Wikipedia's founder says the free, online encyclopedia has mulled ideas like trivia games and quiz programmes to raise funds to support the popular site, but has no plans to do so.
Jimmy Wales, who founded the multilingual virtual encylopedia in 2001, stated on the sidelines of a digital freedom conference in Cape Town on Thursday that he remains steadfastly opposed to using advertising, despite the trade-offs.
"When we're turning down millions and millions of dollars in advertising revenue that could be used, to for example, put computers in schools in Africa ... we have to very thoughtful and responsible about why we're doing it," he said.
"Right now I don't think it would be a good strategy for us, I think we will pursue other means of revenue," he said.
Wikipedia, which can be edited by anyone, is the ninth most popular website in the world, according to web traffic monitoring site Alexa.com.
The Wikipedia Foundation, which runs the encyclopedia website, last year raised about $1-million from donations and was expected to spend up to $3-million this year, Wales said.
He said he was looking at ways to capitalise on the strength of the Wikipedia brand - which is ranked among the world's top five - to raise funds.
Wales reiterated that his company, Wikia Inc, which is not linked to Wikipedia, was working on a search engine to rival Google and Yahoo, which it expects to finish towards the end of the year.
"Hopefully it's successful and would provide funding back to Wikipedia," Wales said.
Wales said last month Wikia was aiming to take as much as 5% of the internet search market.
The former futures trader, who has become an evangelist for the free sharing of technology, has said users should work together to improve search engines, working on the same principle as Wikipedia. - Reuters