Wikipedia looking bad in the eyes of donors would be catastrophic considering the Wikimedia Foundation's sole source of revenue is donations.

I thought the idea of getting donations instead of having ads was to avoid the theoretical possibility of altering the content. If indeed this is related to donor perception you might as well rely on ads, which are not certain to alter the content AND will make Wikimedia a financial powerhouse able to pursue multiple other projects.

Although I must confess that at this stage, the thought of Jimmy Wales commanding a billion dollar empire does not necessarily excite me.

Now, I am a self-professed idealist sometimes, but it strikes me that what would really be catastrophic would be an encyclopedia altering their content solely in response to a moral hysteria whipped up by a partisan media organization (regardless of their affiliation).

At least they're not allowing donors to change facts, like this "history" project is doing: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1502076070/mondo-2000-an... (check out the prizes on the right-hand side).