The email arrived today, right on schedule. It was from the Wikimedia Foundation, kindly reminding me that I had donated £5 last year and asking if I would consider renewing my support.
My immediate, gut reaction was to hesitate. “Do I still use Wikipedia that much?” I asked myself. And if I’m being honest, the answer is no.
My habits have changed. Like many people, when I want to know something now, I don’t open a new tab and type “wikipedia.org”. I open a chat with an AI. I ask my question in plain language and get a synthesized, conversational answer in seconds. It’s an incredible technology that has seamlessly integrated itself into my workflow.
So, why donate to the encyclopedia I seem to have replaced?
I was about to archive the email when I stopped and thought about the process more deeply. Where does this helpful AI get its information? How does it know the history of Paisley, the principles of thermodynamics, or the discography of my favourite band?
Of course, it learns from a vast corpus of data scraped from the internet. A massive, foundational pillar of that data is Wikipedia. It’s perhaps the most significant single source of structured human knowledge online.
That’s when it clicked. Wikipedia is no longer just a website I visit. It has become a fundamental piece of our shared digital commons.
It’s like Barshaw Park for the internet.
It’s a vast, open space, built and tended to by a global community of volunteers. It is free for everyone to enter. It doesn’t plaster its beautiful landscapes with ads or charge an entry fee. Its purpose isn’t to make a profit, but simply to exist for the public good.
My AI is like a fantastic personal tour guide. I can ask it anything about the park’s history or features, and it will instantly give me a brilliant, summarised tour. But that guide doesn’t build the paths, tend the gardens, or pick up the litter. The community does that.
And like any public space, if it is neglected, it will fall into disrepair. The paths will crack, the gardens will become overgrown, and misinformation will spread like graffiti. If the commons degrades, the quality of every service that relies on it, including the AI I now find so useful, degrades too.
That’s why I went back to that email and renewed my £5 donation.
I don’t see it as paying for a product I no longer use. I see it as an act of digital citizenship. I’m chipping in for the park’s upkeep. It’s a tiny contribution to help maintain this incredible non-commercial, human-curated resource in an online world that is becoming more automated and commercialised by the day.
By supporting Wikipedia, we are all helping to ensure that a neutral, verifiable source of knowledge remains healthy. We are funding the digital gardeners. We’re ensuring this public park remains a vital counterbalance to the noise and potential biases of the wider web.
So, while I may ask an AI for my facts these days, I know that my donation helps ensure the park my ‘tour guide’ relies on remains a beautiful, trustworthy, and essential place for all of us. It’s a small investment in the health of the internet itself.
If you also believe in that mission, perhaps you’ll consider joining me. Donate to Wikipedia here