Wikipedia Is Finally Asking Big Tech To Pay Up (wired.com) 83
The Big Four all lean on the online encyclopedia at no cost. With the launch of Wikimedia Enterprise, the volunteer project will change that -- and possibly itself too. From a report: From the start, Google and Wikipedia have been in a kind of unspoken partnership: Wikipedia produces the information Google serves up in response to user queries, and Google builds up Wikipedia's reputation as a source of trustworthy information. Of course, there have been bumps, including Google's bold attempt to replace Wikipedia with its own version of user-generated articles, under the clumsy name "Knol," short for knowledge. Knol never did catch on, despite Google's offer to pay the principal author of an article a share of advertising money. But after that failure, Google embraced Wikipedia even tighter -- not only linking to its articles but reprinting key excerpts on its search result pages to quickly deliver Wikipedia's knowledge to those seeking answers. The two have grown in tandem over the past 20 years, each becoming its own household word. But whereas one mushroomed into a trillion-dollar company, the other has remained a midsize nonprofit, depending on the generosity of individual users, grant-giving foundations, and the Silicon Valley giants themselves to stay afloat. Now Wikipedia is seeking to rebalance its relationships with Google and other big tech firms like Amazon, Facebook, and Apple, whose platforms and virtual assistants lean on Wikipedia as a cost-free virtual crib sheet.
Today, the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the Wikipedia project in more than 300 languages as well as other wiki-projects, is announcing the launch of a commercial product, Wikimedia Enterprise. The new service is designed for the sale and efficient delivery of Wikipedia's content directly to these online behemoths (and eventually, to smaller companies too). Conversations between the foundation's newly created subsidiary, Wikimedia LLC, and Big Tech companies are already underway, point-people on the project said in an interview, but the next couple of months will be about seeking the reaction of Wikipedia's thousands of volunteers. Agreements with the firms could be reached as soon as June.
Today, the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates the Wikipedia project in more than 300 languages as well as other wiki-projects, is announcing the launch of a commercial product, Wikimedia Enterprise. The new service is designed for the sale and efficient delivery of Wikipedia's content directly to these online behemoths (and eventually, to smaller companies too). Conversations between the foundation's newly created subsidiary, Wikimedia LLC, and Big Tech companies are already underway, point-people on the project said in an interview, but the next couple of months will be about seeking the reaction of Wikipedia's thousands of volunteers. Agreements with the firms could be reached as soon as June.
Co-Founder Of Wikipedia Says... (Score:4, Informative)
Wikipedia Is Badly Biased
By Larry Sangar
https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
https://archive.is/mcVhr
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Wikipedia Is Badly Biased
By Larry Sangar
https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
https://archive.is/mcVhr [archive.is]
And I don't see a big tech alliance improving the leftist bent of Wikipedia articles.
Make it worse, probably.
To be fair, it's a communal project (Score:1)
Honestly, Wikipedia is a community-driven project.
A project lots of people take from without paying anything or otherwise contributing, and a much smaller (but still large) number of people contribute, without renumeration.
Control is murky, supposed to be controlled by "the community", but what does that mean?
In other words, it's a communal thing.
It's going to attract contributors who have an interest in communal projects.
It's also going to attract people who want to get something for nothing.
What would you
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It's definitely notable that wikipedia is mostly edited by a small number of unpaid contributors, and the people who contribute the most are inevitably going to be of a certain variety that is either unemployed or doesn't do the work that they're actually paid to do. Given that, they almost certainly live in a first world country with a high GDP where it is considerably easier for that type of lifestyle to fly under the radar (in other words, there's enough money going around that nobody really notices.) Gi
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anybody can edit Wikipedia
No they can't. Touch anything that the leftists on Wikipedia don't want touched and they'll lock you out. They've honed their control of Wikipedia to a fine point and they've got an arsenal of weapons they use to keep they people they hate at bay.
Just try it. Only use a sockpuppet account, because they're going to shit on it.
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US conservatives have distances themselves so far from common sense these days, they have created a warm, cozy bubble of half-truths, denial and outright disinformation for themselves to feel good in. From within this bubble, science, truth, basic plain reality, has a liberal bias. I pin this development mostly on Fox News and their commentators that willfully spread disinformation and reach such a large audience in the US.
The consequences of this development gets more radical and detached with every passin
Re:Co-Founder Of Wikipedia Says... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been editing for a long time.
Weaponry pages, mostly.
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I've been editing for a long time.
Weaponry pages, mostly.
And you have massive problems with a pervasive leftist bent in weaponry articles?
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I read a lot more than weaponry pages.
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I read a lot more than weaponry pages.
Name some examples.
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Goes to show, there's a useful purpose for every creature on God's green earth, even the cockroaches.
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Re: Co-Founder Of Wikipedia Says... (Score:2)
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And add a paywall? Automatic fork. Crowdfunding is the healthy way to go. The danger of charging toll on the content aggregators is, big biz inevitably oozes itsel into editorial control. That said, Mozilla foundation's relationship with Google was more or less healthy, right up until Google did a Microsoft on them and forced its own browser down the internet's gullet. Just can't trust those guys.
Re: Co-Founder Of Wikipedia Says... (Score:2)
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Sure, it's quite trivial and cheap to redundantly host TBs of read-write data for a couple of hundred million unique visitors a month. Wikimedia reports it spends about 2.4 millions a year on hosting alone; that does not account for engineer salary nor hardware. No, it won't be cheaper in the cloud.
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It's possible - relatively trivial, even - for Wikipedia to continue unfettered, free access to individuals while restricting access to large customers who access data in excess of x per day/week/month.
A couple of quick value-adds such as an API by which to integrate wiki content into other sites seamlessly would sweeten the deal for business without affecting individual users, while providing the service much-needed revenue.
Keep the content and the large-scale access in different camps (the non-profit hand
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Gross exaggeration. it's where everybody gets their starting point on any new subject, even you.
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Your news sources are badly biased. You favorite history books, encyclopedia and dictionary are badly biased. Yet they are useful.
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Please just crawl back into your grievance hole. Wikipedia does indeed have its flaws, but as a repository of humanity's knowledge it sure beats some other cesspools that come to mind.
Re:Co-Founder Of Wikipedia Says... (Score:5, Insightful)
It wasn't always like this. 75 years ago, there were a lot of leftists running around spewing a combination of crazy talk and outright lies about how socialism and communism was going to fix all of capitalism's problems. Very few people bought it.
Nowadays, the shoe is on the other foot. The current right-wing agenda has been numerically proven to contain more falsehoods and lies. Sorry, righties, you're in the wrong here (see what I did there?). Every single unbiased assessment has reached this conclusion. NBC plays a bit fast and loose with the truth, but Fox hasn't put out a single truthful news story in over a decade. There is absolutely no equivalence. The amount of falsehoods being spewed by GOP figures and conservative talk-show shock jocks is absolutely staggering. Virtually every single conservative with actual intellectual cred has already left the movement in sorrow.
Wikipedia leans left. Currently, academia leans left. This isn't because of any nefarious conspiracy. It's because these institutions tend to promote actual facts and unbiased analysis. And conservatives are badly lagging in those areas. Again, it wasn't always like this.
I wish this wasn't the case. I'm getting older. I can feel myself getting more conservative year after year. I don't agree with every liberal position. But I'm fairly intelligent and I can't see myself voting GOP for the next 40 years, the way things are going right now.
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It's because these institutions tend to promote actual facts and unbiased analysis.
That you believe this is laughable. People have known about the problems in academia for over 20 years. one such essay [nyu.edu]
Re:Co-Founder Of Wikipedia Says... (Score:4, Informative)
. I can feel myself getting more conservative year after year. I don't agree with every liberal position. But I'm fairly intelligent and I can't see myself voting GOP for the next 40 years, the way things are going right now.
Do yourself a favor as an intellectual - don't give yourself a label. Don't be "liberal" "conservative" "Republication" "Democrat" or whatever labels society tries to create to simplify a complex system. Speak your mind on an individual issue basis, no matter where it falls on the spectrum. When it comes time to vote, I'd recommend giving https://www.isidewith.com/ [isidewith.com] a try. Asks you questions about issues, not labels, and matches you with candidates that are similar to your viewpoints.
Re:Co-Founder Of Wikipedia Says... (Score:5, Insightful)
No longer. In my opinion, there MUST be electoral consequences for a party that basically supported a right-wing coup attempt. The GOP absolutely refused to hold anyone to any consequence. Oh, they waggled their fingers and tutt-tutted' a bit but that was all. And the few Republicans who dared to speak up are currently getting stomped out of the party.
If they don't start losing elections as a result, we're going to see more Trumps and more attacks on our capitol. I can't abide that, and my vote is going to go to the other party. Possibly for the rest of my life.
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Wikipedia leans left. Currently, academia leans left. This isn't because of any nefarious conspiracy. It's because these institutions tend to promote actual facts and unbiased analysis.
Tell that to Bret Weinstein, or the authors of the dog-park papers, or James Damore, or James Watson.
Perhaps more amusing than an adult believer of Santa Claus telling me I'm going to hell, is a modern woke leftist claiming their flatulence doesn't stink.
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>"Wikipedia Is Badly Biased By Larry Sangar"
You can't be modded up even more, unfortunately.
Wikipedia has become horribly skewed [to the left] and biased. Any article that is even remotely about anything political, controversial, or social is nowhere near neutral or encyclopedic. It is very disappointing. And there is no point in trying to edit such pages to try and make them purely factual; changes are immediately reverted or they just get locked.
Fortunately, Wikipedia is still very useful for any "
Re: Co-Founder Of Wikipedia Says... (Score:2)
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>"If you're looking for truth, scroll past the article to the sources and start from there."
Maybe as a start, but the sources are only certain sites and there to support only what is in the article, not the stuff that refutes anything in the article. In many cases, it is just a group of like-minded editors searching for anything that only supports their bias. Sometimes there is a token counter-point, if we are lucky. More often it is only there to then be dismissed by the article.
I don't expect "the t
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Wikipedia has become horribly skewed [to the left] and biased. Any article that is even remotely about anything political, controversial, or social is nowhere near neutral or encyclopedic.
I imagine that from a US-centric perspective, a global resource such as Wikipedia must look like peak Stalinism.
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Larry Sangar is badly biased. What a total horseshit article. His examples aren't examples of NPOV violations. They're examples of critical thinking and evaluating evidence. When one side has volumes of documentation and the other side has a tingly feeling, that's not a legitimate disagreement. That's throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks.
Umpires are neutral, they donâ(TM)t care who wins â" but they still call balls and strikes. Larry would have them passively watch the game and sa
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Back in the day, Larry Sanger was peeved that Wikipedia treated homeopathy as pseudoscience. Of course he thinks it's biased.
Google is the question...Wikipedia is the answer (Score:3)
What more needs to be said?
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Yeah, we should probably be very thankful that - at least to this point in time - Google has sucked at the "extinguish" phase of "embrace, extend, extinguish".
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Yeah, we should probably be very thankful that - at least to this point in time - Google has sucked at the "extinguish" phase of "embrace, extend, extinguish".
Because they usually fail at the "extend" step first. They somehow never manage to create the must-have feature that makes their version crowd out the original. Quite the opposite. They usually never bother to implement all of the features of the original, in one way or another, and so they never have a shot at the "extinguish" phase. Instead they nuke their own version.
Google has forgotten their own history. They think search was used by a billion people on day one. Even if it was, the Internet is ve
Wikipedia is in coils (Score:2, Interesting)
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Re:Wikipedia is in coils (Score:4, Interesting)
This is becoming a bigger and bigger problem as countries chose to use the legislative stick to enforce their version of "historical truth". As a result articles promoting the "official truth" in one jurisdiction become illegal in another. Example - every version of the article on the Holocaust, WW2, etc are presently illegal or on the way to become illegal in at least one country. It does not matter which one you pick - if you translate it in all other European languages you will violate the law in at least one of them because they insist that their version of the truth is legally enforcible and they have a legal axe armed and ready.
Then there are the ever increasing bans on political content - German ban on Nazi symbols, Russian ban on some materials related to suicide and drug production, bans across the Middle East on various topics, etc.
While Wikipedia has been in scraps with countries, regulators and legal systems in the past those were not particularly fierce because it was given a lot of leeway as a "small volunteer driven non-profit". Becoming a commercial operation officially and contractually connected at the hip to companies with trillion size valuations changes things quite a bit. It will not be having any leeway next time it is in court. It has become a target.
Re:Wikipedia is in coils (Score:4, Insightful)
The same can be said for political maps.
Can you have a map that is legal in
both India, and Pakistan due to Kashmir
both Ukraine, and Russia due to Crimea
both Armenia, and Azerbaijan due to Karabakh
both Republic of China, and People's Republic of China due to well both?
Even if you mark those lands as "indeterminate" would you not be violating local laws?
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That's what cultural relativism gets you. Wikipedia is American, publish everything legal in US (which is pretty much everything). Let users in other countries use VPNs to bypass their governments' sucky censorship.
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Then there are the ever increasing bans on political content - German ban on Nazi symbols, Russian ban on some materials related to suicide and drug production
I'm beginning now to see now how you got to your silly assertion. There's more to laws than the title written above it. As such no, the "political bias" is usually far more finessed than you give it credit. Germany has a ban on the use of Nazi symbols in certain contexts. It hasn't banned the symbol itself. The wikipedia page isn't against the law, and neither are then many 100s of thousands of documents that contain the symbol littered in the libraries and academic institutes across the country.
This is jus
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you could say the same about any history book or encyclopedia, always cultural and social biases.
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Re:Wikipedia is a paragon of Fake News (Score:5, Insightful)
Otherwise they are less than trusthworthy and certainly not a source of unbiased news.
Your first mistake is using Wikipedia as a source of news. As long as your not looking for information on any sort of controversial (political) issue, and you're willing to at least check the primary sources, it's a perfectly fine source of information. As with any other source, you need to be skeptical of what you read. And if your looking for information on anything even tangentially political, good friggin luck finding any source of unbiased info.
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GP is obviously addicted to confirmation bias. Worse problem than opiods.
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So what's your suggestion for a "universal" source of information? Again, as with any source of information: Be skeptical. Verify primary sources. If it's anything political or current events, don't trust it.
Yeah, Wikipedia has its issues, 100% in agreement. But to completely disregard it because there are issues with certain types of articles is silly.
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There realy can't be a universal source of knowledge. Wikipedia is best as a source for trivia, and opular culture.
You need to reach well past the summary treatment to obtain substancial knowledge.
I'd say the same for my set of bound Britannica encyclopedias, though they don't focus on trivia and popular culture crap.
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Did a couple of idiot tests. For "metallurgy", Wikipedia was the top result. For "Trafalgar", a couple of business links got returned above the Wikipedia link. I presume DuckDuckGo gets a referral fee. Partial answer to the question?
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I just use Google and filter out WP with "-site:".
Umm $145 million... (Score:1)
Combined with being a cut-out for the National Democratic Institute (NDI) - what's to complain about.
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Sitting on their asses, successfully satisfying the majority of my searches? Useful asses.
Wikipedia is pretty darn good (Score:5, Insightful)
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It is an excellent starting point for almost any research.
Only because Google is shit. If we had a decent search engine WP would be superfluous. Actually, it is anyway.
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WTF? Google doesn't write articles giving overviews of subjects and pointing to reliable secondary sources.
Why would you expect them to do that?
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Paying for Crowd Sourced info? (Score:4, Insightful)
If Wikipedia is going to start charging anybody for their info, I would expect those paying to start making some demands that editors stop changing "facts" in various articles back and forth day by day in petty little info wars between individuals with different views on whatever the topic may be. In fact, if people are going to have to pay for the info, I would suspect there will be a demand for some form of legitimacy beyond, "because we said so," to the editing process.
I also don't see this going over incredibly well with the folks writing and editing the info on Wiki.
Something here just feels off. But in the end money talks, and everything else takes a back seat.
That Wikipedia button (Score:5, Interesting)
That Wikipedia button on your search toolbar... use it. It bypasses Google, saves the spyware latency and reduces your carbon footprint. Largely hides your search activity from the Google creepers.
I don't know about you, but the vast majority of my searches are in Wikipedia, and Wikipedia's lame-but-getting-better search engine just does fine on the majority of those. Occasionally I need to use Google's more sophisticated engine to search Wikipedia and that seems fair. But when Google is just basically acting as a site lookup for Wikipedia, that is freeloading.
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But when Google is just basically acting as a site lookup for Wikipedia, that is freeloading.
Well, I agree. WP is freeloading on Google's lazy search algorithm.
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That Wikipedia button on your search toolbar... use it. It bypasses Google
So promote an echo chamber? The best part about using Google is that you get multiple references along side Wikipedia in the results. Wikipedia is hardly free from bias in many cases and you are doing yourself no favours searching directly on the site on any topic which could be considered controversial.
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Google creeps me out. I avoid when convenient. You can suit yourself.
Creative Commons? (Score:3)
Isn't basically everything on Wikipedia licensed through Creative Commons?
So, Google could just copy all of Wikipedia and store it locally for their search results any bypass any new fee structure -which they probably do anyway.
Money corrupts (Score:2)
This is how open projects die. They get hooked on cash and it ultimately corrupts them.
I think Wiki should stick to donations and not try to monetize itself in this way.
Uhh no (Score:3)
Wikipedia just incentivized keeping its free data dump formats crappy. This isnt good at all. I mean, I dont like the big tech giants as much as the next guy but this slippery slope will be bad for everyone.
WikipediaPro (Score:3)
How long before Wikipedia,LLC decides to cash out and be sold to a big tech company and offer subscription based content, ability to post articles that only the author can modify etc.? While all the content is owned by the authors, the compilation belongs to Wikipedia. IMDB started out as a user created source of information on USENET and eventually became valuable enough for Amazon to buy it.
Ideally, Wikipedia could use the money to expand and improve the content and remain free, but the lure of money may prove too great. At some point, the owners of Wikipedia, LLC may simply decide it's time to retire and move on, and selling it would result in a nice retirement fund.