[btilly]

Your reference to boys town missed the point. Boys town didn't run out of orphans to spend money on. They simply failed to spend a large amount of it on orphans.

Do you have a source for that?

My understanding is that boys town did run out of orphans who met their requirements. There simply aren't enough orphans in the USA with no family to take care of them who slip through the cracks of the adoption system.

But that fact didn't slow their appeals for more money.

That said, my understanding is based on my memories of a book that I don't presently have a copy of.

[elect_engineer]

Ah. I had no idea that they ran out of orphans. If they did, then it would be a perfect analogy. Boys town takes care of all the orphans that it is their mission to take care of, keeps collecting donations and spending on other stuff. The Wikimedia Foundation does everything needed to put an encyclopedia -- the thing that it is their mission to take care of -- keeps collecting donations and spending on other stuff. Thanks for the great analogy, and I apologize for misunderstanding and assuming that there would always be plenty more orphans to take care of.

I am going to think about this, do some research, and see if I can turn it into an essay on Wikipedia about collecting money after the job is done. Thanks!

Didn't the march of dimes also keep taking in donations after polio was eradicated?

Full disclosure: I am the author of the Wikipedia essay "Wikipedia has cancer"