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Why would Google pay for this when they already crawled and are crawling whole Wikipedia and have complete index of it? Better way for Wikipedia to earn extra

Why would Google pay for this when they already crawled and are crawling whole Wikipedia and have complete index of it? Better way for Wikipedia to earn extra revenue are affiliate links. A lot of people when they read and learn about some topic go to Amazon and buy a book about that topic. Wikipedia could embed book affiliate links and earn commission from book sales.

judge2020 6y ago
Well, they are already a big donor: https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/annualreport/2019-annual-report/donors/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/annualreport/2019-annu... > Google Matching Gifts Program
- Clewza313 6y ago
  If you work at Google, they will 1:1 match donations to virtually any non-profit, plus there's various charity drives where employees get to donate company money. So the match program can become a huge donor just off random Googlers donating.
  - throwaway53453 6y ago
    The distinction doesn't really matter though, does it? Makes no different if it's Googlers as opposed to Google itself.
superluserdo 6y ago
That sounds like a horribly perverse incentive for the world's main free and open source of information.
- mrkramer 6y ago
  I mean Wikipedia offers basic information about some topic it's not like you are about to get deep insight unless you buy a book. And I bet Wikipedia generated millions of book sales like I said people who read an article from Wikipedia and went to Amazon or Google to search for a book.
  - robjan 6y ago
    If Wikipedia starts to receive commission for selling books the incentive changes from recommending the best book to the one who pays then the most
    - mrkramer 6y ago
      It's not about "who pays the most" it's about the best book. Book authors compete against each other to write the best book and therefore generate more sales. Imagine reading an article from Wikipedia and at the end of the article it says "If you want to learn more about this topic take a look at our recommended books" and link leads you to dedicated page which lists let's say top 20 most popular books about that topic. It can even replace Goodreads in a sense that Wikipedia community can rate, review and recommend books to each other.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  Perverse incentives for book authors too. You could create a industry generating books to cite on Wikipedia.
vosper 6y ago
> Why would Google pay for this when they already crawled and are crawling whole Wikipedia and have complete index of it? Google's not the only enterprise out there :) I believe Wikipedia's taxonomy is used by lots of people for ML purposes, for example.
- easton 6y ago
  But for ML you’d probably want to download the whole thing anyway, considering it’s only like 47GB. I doubt many people want to make a model on only soccer pages or something.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
xwx 6y ago
Affiliate links seems like a type of advert or they at least share some of the arguments against implementing them on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Funding_Wikipedia_through_advertisements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Funding_Wikipedia_th...
busyant 6y ago
> affiliate links Sounds well-intentioned, but it would be immediately gamed by every unscrupulous entity and ruin Wikipedia.
markdown 6y ago
Google has already set a precedent by agreeing to pay massive corporations for news. If they're willing to do that, why shouldn't they pay WikiMedia for all the content they use?
ckoerner 6y ago
There’s an SLA involved in this service. Business people like SLAs. :)
PopePompus 6y ago
I do a lot of Wikipedia editing, and I'm fine with them monetizing an Enterprise API. But affiliate links are too close to advertising. IMHO one of the best features of Wikipedia is the lack of Ads, and if they start going down that route I'm gotta there.
m463 6y ago
That will lead to many unexpected, possibly perverse, incentives.

judge2020 6y ago

Well, they are already a big donor: https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/annualreport/2019-annual-report/donors/ https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/annualreport/2019-annu... > Google Matching Gifts Program

Clewza313 6y ago
If you work at Google, they will 1:1 match donations to virtually any non-profit, plus there's various charity drives where employees get to donate company money. So the match program can become a huge donor just off random Googlers donating.
- throwaway53453 6y ago
  The distinction doesn't really matter though, does it? Makes no different if it's Googlers as opposed to Google itself.

superluserdo 6y ago

That sounds like a horribly perverse incentive for the world's main free and open source of information.

mrkramer 6y ago
I mean Wikipedia offers basic information about some topic it's not like you are about to get deep insight unless you buy a book. And I bet Wikipedia generated millions of book sales like I said people who read an article from Wikipedia and went to Amazon or Google to search for a book.
- robjan 6y ago
  If Wikipedia starts to receive commission for selling books the incentive changes from recommending the best book to the one who pays then the most
  - mrkramer 6y ago
    It's not about "who pays the most" it's about the best book. Book authors compete against each other to write the best book and therefore generate more sales. Imagine reading an article from Wikipedia and at the end of the article it says "If you want to learn more about this topic take a look at our recommended books" and link leads you to dedicated page which lists let's say top 20 most popular books about that topic. It can even replace Goodreads in a sense that Wikipedia community can rate, review and recommend books to each other.
MattGaiser 6y ago
Perverse incentives for book authors too. You could create a industry generating books to cite on Wikipedia.

vosper 6y ago

> Why would Google pay for this when they already crawled and are crawling whole Wikipedia and have complete index of it? Google's not the only enterprise out there :) I believe Wikipedia's taxonomy is used by lots of people for ML purposes, for example.

easton 6y ago
But for ML you’d probably want to download the whole thing anyway, considering it’s only like 47GB. I doubt many people want to make a model on only soccer pages or something.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

xwx 6y ago

Affiliate links seems like a type of advert or they at least share some of the arguments against implementing them on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Funding_Wikipedia_through_advertisements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Funding_Wikipedia_th...

busyant 6y ago

> affiliate links Sounds well-intentioned, but it would be immediately gamed by every unscrupulous entity and ruin Wikipedia.

markdown 6y ago

Google has already set a precedent by agreeing to pay massive corporations for news. If they're willing to do that, why shouldn't they pay WikiMedia for all the content they use?

ckoerner 6y ago

There’s an SLA involved in this service. Business people like SLAs. :)

PopePompus 6y ago

I do a lot of Wikipedia editing, and I'm fine with them monetizing an Enterprise API. But affiliate links are too close to advertising. IMHO one of the best features of Wikipedia is the lack of Ads, and if they start going down that route I'm gotta there.

m463 6y ago

That will lead to many unexpected, possibly perverse, incentives.