Seems they're perpetually short of funds, but a "funded by X" tag at the bottom and some branding of the effort might make a go of it. And Wikipedia seems weaker on the "History of the Roman Empire" type of articles that you need to spend time in dead-tree libraries to do correctly.
... sad to say, history majors who didn't go into law aren't exactly expensive.
Not really. In 2015 the Wikimedia Foundation made 76 M$ in support and revenue, and spent 53 M$. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/0/0b/Audit... p5
(In fact, I don't really understand why their donation campaigns are so obtrusive, given that they could afford to receive 30% less even with their current level of spending. I guess it is understandable that they want to receive as much support as they can, but I wonder whether it really serves their long-term interests, as it probably sends the wrong signal.)
> a "funded by X" tag at the bottom
Wikimedia doesn't allow ads on its properties (which I think is very important), and I would say that advertising donors on articles would be against that goal. (Think about what happens when an article gets edited in a way that isn't approved by the advertised donor.)
But yeah, it would be possible to do something pretty crazy like 500 40k scholarships though, which is a super interesting idea. The cost of the beauracracy to administer them would suck pretty hard though.
I would caution against many of these articles so dominated by a single person. They may be great. They may be 100% accurate and full of lots of interesting detail, but they do not necessarily have a broad base to support their upkeep once that one person moves on. I've also seen some rather messy arguments where the original author takes subsequent edits very personally. There is advantage to not allowing one person or group to become too attached to a particular article.
Say "I'm a fighter pilot" and you can edit the F-15's page to your hearts content. But "I'm a lawyer with 40 years constitutional law experience" means nothing if you plan on contributing to anything on the "landmark decisions" list. That is the domain of law review students and their pet cases.
I cannot count the number of times I've found myself typing out half a lecture's worth of information in reply to an online article, only to delete the entire thing before posting it. Certain subjects just cannot be taught in a public forum. That's why lawyers discuss such things in special schools and private email lists. (Email lists are like 90+% of what the ABA does.)
I'll admit I'm basing this opinion only on my usage of Wikipedia and noting some glaring gaps or lack of depth in niche historical articles.
Why? Is there any evidence it's not currently working?
Seems like a false premise.