11 ms·

Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers

202 points by abbe98 4y ago

dmarchand90 4y ago
I really don't like this. The foundation already has many multiples more money than it needs to cover its core goal: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais... This can, at best, be useless, at worst, corrupt its mission to serve corporations. There used to be an expression "don't fix what ain't broke." I feel like this old maxim is now completely ignored.
- endisneigh 4y ago
  Why would an organization limit the amount of money they have?
  - aunty_helen 4y ago
    Because it’s unnecessary and brings outside influences that could corrupt it’s stated goals
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      You can be corrupt without having a lot of money. There are countless examples of such. I applaud the their moves. The more money they have, the more likely they are to exist in perpetuity. Needlessly limiting their revenue isn’t going to solve anything.
      - grapeskin 4y ago
        It’s good in the way that a gym that sells soda and ice cream is running a good business. They’ll definitely see short term profit gains. But they’re losing sight of their original goals and risk losing their long term market.
      - marcinzm 4y ago
        >Needlessly limiting their revenue isn’t going to solve anything. But they've done exactly that since day 1 by refusing to show any ads.
        endisneigh 4y ago
        Not exactly, because ads would result in people not donating and go against their mission. Forming into Wikimedia Enterprise allows them to get enterprise revenue without compromising the experience of reading the content
      - usrusr 4y ago
        The more money Wikimedia has, the less likely it gets that they keep recurring expenses in a sustainable range. And you can be corrupt without money, true. But corrupt people tend to avoid organisations that don't have a lot of money, they all try to work where the money is. And the do-gooders that are the other group of people likely to push into an org like Wikimedia tend to be particularly defenseless against the first kind.
      - wpietri 4y ago
        > The more money they have, the more likely they are to exist in perpetuity. I think the opposite is true. Consider examples like broke lottery winners, the resource curse [1], and the long history of startups getting lots of money and then cratering, from Webvan to WeWork. With Wikipedia in particular, I'm concerned that the more money there is, the more attractive it is to people who want to be near large streams of money for various reasons, including living large and diverting money to their own friends, pet projects, and grand visions. I'm also concerned that even if they are able to avoid those people entirely, large budgets pose other risks, including inflexibility in downturns, which I think increase the odds of a setback turning into a full collapse. Corruption, like cancer, is statistically inevitable for organizations. The only question is whether they have the right mechanisms to detect and exercise the tumors when they're small. But the scrappier Wikipedia stays, the less we have to worry about that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
    - hulitu 4y ago
      Some people just don't have enough. For them it is necessary. The only thing that is sad is that is difficult to explain to a child that wiki{m,p}edia is just another "news" outlet and everything there shall be taken with a grain of salt.
  - Nebasuke 4y ago
    I think it's a bit worse than that though. Why does an organisation that has more than enough money to achieve its current and long term goals, appeal to their site visitors that they really need more money? The ads are in my opinion dishonest and emotionally manipulative, and have actively put me off supporting Wikimedia as a foundation.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      Goals can be expanded to infinity, uncertainty and inflation is always a thing, thus the need to diversify revenue streams to ensure survival and sustainability.
      - marcinzm 4y ago
        >Goals can be expanded to infinity And thus diluting and losing sight of their original goals. This isn't a corporation driven inherently by eternal desire for more profit.
        endisneigh 4y ago
        Sure, but goals change as the world does.
        robonerd 4y ago
        Wikipedia tells me the last time a new Wikimedia project was launched was Wikidata, 10 years ago in 2012.
    - 20after4 4y ago
      What I'd like to see happen (though it's extremely unlikely) would be to rely less on emotionally charged banners thanks to the new revenue provided by the enterprise product. But the current fundraising strategy works extremely well so I really can't see it changing it at all. Full disclosure: Until very recently I was employed by Wikimedia as a Release Engineer. I was there for 7 years, however, I left for a new opportunity in February of this year. I am not a fan of the direction the organization seems to be headed. During the past few years there has been rapid growth and increased corporate culture. Seems to be kind of similar to what happened with the Mozilla foundation and that really hasn't worked out well for them so I am not entirely optimistic about the future of Wikipedia and the free knowledge movement in general.
  - greyface- 4y ago
    In this case, it strongly incentivizes them to provide poor service to non-paying, non-enterprise API users. Wikimedia Enterprise apparently generates daily snapshots for paying customers[1]. The general public only gets them twice a month[2]. Wikimedia's goal should be to serve the public. [1]: https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/docs/snapshot/ https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/docs/snapshot/ [2]: https://dumps.wikimedia.org/ https://dumps.wikimedia.org/
  - markvdb 4y ago
    Been there, done that. It detracts from the scope.
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    Why would a non-profit organization with like 10x more money than they need to achieve their mission beg me for even more money? With multiple screens worth of banners and paragraphs that actually push the article I'm trying to read out of the way in order to nag me for donations? Even ads aren't this bad.
- flipbrad 4y ago
  Have a read of this: https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay#Why_charge https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay...?
  - jerry1979 4y ago
    So summarize, are they more-or-less capping their APIs and charging for content they serve beyond that cap?
    - danuker 4y ago
      Not quite. > access to Wikimedia content by reusers is currently achieved through three broad means: Scraping of web pages; data dumps; and APIs. These services are provided freely to all reusers of Wikimedia content. They are and will remain free, libre and gratis, to everyone. > What many of the largest commercial technology organizations require in order to effectively utilize Wikimedia content goes beyond what we currently provide.
- echelon 4y ago
  Time to fork it. It's a wiki with open licensed content and a bloated stack that could easily be hosted on pared down infra and staffing. Fork it and remove the largesse.
  - andrepd 4y ago
    Mate, if there's one thing Wikipedia isn't is bloated. It serves one of the biggest websites on the internet with a fraction of the infrastructure of similar sites.
    - colinmhayes 4y ago
      Wikimedia is certainly bloated. They're spending upwards of $100 million a year.
      - mhh__ 4y ago
        How much is the correct amount for a site that serves such a huge amount of the internet?
        colinmhayes 4y ago
        Depends on their services? Wikipedia serves static sites. Their hosting costs are 3 million a year according to their accountants. They have no real recommendation engine, or really dynamic content at all. 100% of their content is free for them. They can easily store their entire site in ram on a small cluster. Given that I'd say 10-30 million would be reasonable.
        bawolff 4y ago
        Did you know that wikipedia's tagline is "anyone can edit"? That makes it not static.
        colinmhayes 4y ago
- skybrian 4y ago
  With alternative sources of revenue, maybe there could be less nagging during the yearly donation drive?
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  If ISOC had shunted its profits into an endowment like it should have, it might not have ended up as a corrupt organization. This should be a legal requirement for non-profits with positive cash flow.
cgb223 4y ago
So now, if a Google related Wikipedia article has something added to it that Google doesn’t like, they can suggest to Wikimedia they might not renew their contract unless things are “made right” Google is just one example of this. Any company now has a pathway to do so. I think this is terrible incentives, and destroys the goal of having an Encyclopedia free from interference where only truth can come through
- endisneigh 4y ago
  Google could already do this per your hypothetical given that Google donates millions.
  - danuker 4y ago
    That doesn't argue for going further in serving Google.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    [Citation needed] Pretty sure google is not a big enough donor to really matter.
    - endisneigh 4y ago
      They’re a non profit, you can go and see Google’s contributions easily yourself. Google is one of the biggest single entity donors
      - bawolff 4y ago
        Where? All i could find is they donated > $50,000 but i dont see how much more. I guess it depends how much more, but that doesn't particularly seem like a lot relative to WMF's annual budget.
        endisneigh 4y ago
        https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/22/google-org-donates-2-million-to-wikipedias-parent-org/amp/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/22/google-org-donates-2-milli... You’d have to look at their annual reports to get more granular info
LordDragonfang 4y ago
Google already scrapes and utilizes all of Wikipedia's contents to use in its "knowledge graph", and donates a substantial amount to the WMF in return. This simply formalizes the financial agreement and moves the data exchange to an api that is presumably more convenient and less resource intensive for both parties, while offering the same access for any other enterprise customer (and the internet archive gets it for free). This seems like a good idea for both the WMF and the open internet. (Contrary to what seem to be a lot of early knee-jerk negative responses in this thread - I suspect I'm seeing a bit of "early-thread contrarian dynamic")
- 20after4 4y ago
  This is accurate. It isn't a big money grab for wikimedia nor does it really substantially change things for anyone. There is a constant drive for growth at Wikimedia and many of the concerns expressed in this thread are valid but Wikipedia Enterprise doesn't represent a threat to the freedom of Wikipedia. It really just represents a formalized way for commercial entities to donate to the foundation while accounting for it in their budget as a service rather than a charitable donation. It makes total sense if your business depends on Wikipedia in some way then you should contribute to it's continued existence. This is a totally sensible way to do that.
- nickvincent 4y ago
  Yeah, I think this is spot on. The version of WMF Enterprise being described here is formalizing / codifying an informal relationship that already existed (Google using Wikipedia content all over the place, and making various one-off donations to WMF), and as you say, formalizing has benefits for both parties! Certainly ways this could have some long-term negative impacts, but WMF is obviously thinking pretty hard about mitigations, it seems. The discussion linked in a comment above (https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay#Why_charge https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay...) also provides a pretty nice FAQ to the negative responses.
- abbe98 4y ago
  It also ensures that Google follows the license requirements of Wikimedia data as as it becomes a contractual issue rather than a license issue with each contributor. It seems for example that Google has recently resolved some long standing issues with attribution in various products(YouTube Music comes to mind).
boomboomsubban 4y ago
Google is their first customer, and they're giving IA free access. And what they're buying let's them >detect vandalism or important updates at the article level. So it gives them a better ability to control a Wikipedia page's content? Ostensibly both want the unlimited retreivals, but this entire program seems suspicious.
- LordDragonfang 4y ago
  Read it again, it gives them quicker notification that an article has been vandalized/changed in an important way by normal editors, it doesn't give them any special control over any page's content.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    Quicker notification is somewhat special control, though I prefer my term of "better ability." There's a meaningful difference between detecting vandalism in a minute vs an hour.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    Quicker notifications means a tighter OODA loop, e.g. more control.
    - danuker 4y ago
      Time for me to look into downloading Wikipedia and using it offline.
      - cbm-vic-20 4y ago
        Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
actuator 4y ago
This is not good at all. Wikipedia has lot of money from donations. Google or its founders already were donors. Rather than fixing the issue with moderation and editing biases creeping into Wikipedia, they seem to be focussing on being more profligate with their money.
exolymph 4y ago
At this point, Wikimedia the organization is parasitic on Wikipedia the open-source information project. The latter generates all the goodwill and the former fucks around doing vanity projects with the ensuing resources. What's that pithy "law" about eventually any organization existing simply to perpetuate itself and serve the insiders who work there, rather than further its mission? Ironically what came to mind is Cunningham's Law which is the wrong one... https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law
- robonerd 4y ago
  Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.
  - icelancer 4y ago
    Nice. I hadn't seen this, or his related quotes. Quite usable for business.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    Doesn't this apply to any organization? If you care about the goals of an organization you are going to be promoted because of your value to that task nor would you seem it. Those that don't are going to care more about the organizations structure and focus on improving their standing.
    - coderintherye 4y ago
jrochkind1 4y ago
OK, can anyone explain succinctly what "Wikimedia Enteprise" actually is, as a product? It is described as a product. What does it do? The press release isn't helping me much.
- david_allison 4y ago
  https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/ https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/ - an API to access Wikimedia content: * Snapshots of a Wikimedia project - updated daily * On-demand access to articles * Hook into a stream of changes to articles
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    Huh. Some of that I think some people hoped would be available (for free) via things like WikiData. I guess nobody should wait for that. My somewhat concern is that the wikipedia project has kind of put a flag in the ground to say that providing free access to wikipedia is no longer part of their mission if it's automated/bulk access.
    - kemayo 4y ago
      For what it's worth, WikiData is something different -- it's a knowledge graph, and so is mostly a way to get a list of facts about a specific item. Which is useful, and gets used as an input into a lot of things on Wikipedia, but is unrelated to this sort of firehose-API.
    - M2Ys4U 4y ago
      >My somewhat concern is that the wikipedia project has kind of put a flag in the ground to say that providing free access to wikipedia is no longer part of their mission if it's automated/bulk access. I think this is more about paying for an SLA and support agreement which is less tenable as an open free-for-all
- bawolff 4y ago
  My personal theory is that its a mildly better bulk api, with that less being a needed thing, but more a way for big org to justify "donating" by paying for something.
abbe98 4y ago
I think the big benefit for Google and Co here is SLA and support, Wikimedia gives contributors and partners access for free... A win for Wikimedia beyond diversified funding is also that Google and other corporations gets an contractual obligation to follow Wikimedia licensing.
jll29 4y ago
The site mentions "credibility" as available information, but the online documentation does not refer to that topic. Does anyone know more about this? (I'm doing research in modeling text credibility for fake news detection.)
H8crilA 4y ago
For the critics, this is basically a way for Wikimedia to charge for high throughput access from commercial users, as well as normalizing the API. These corporations already crawl the entirety of this space, both the HTML and the wikitext. Why wouldn't they if the license allows it? As long as dumps remain available for free (which as I understand they have to) the community loses nothing, and corporate actors get to contribute a bit more. I don't see things like Kiwix going away any time soon.
- hansword 4y ago
  Yes, contribute a bit more is good. But contribute to what? Server costs are (compared to WMF budget) small, the actual contributors never have and never will see a cent.
  - ryan_lane 4y ago
    Stop spreading misinformation. The budget data is open. You're discussing server costs, but need to also consider hosting and data center costs, as well as employee salaries. Running Wikimedia is a pretty decent percentage of their budget. Part of the reason for other parts of the budget is attempting to increase editor numbers in a world where direct readership is declining (because of products like Google's knowledge graph), and improving inclusiveness, so that content will better represent the world. They are also building an endowment to be able to weather bad fundraising years.
    - hansword 4y ago
      Yes it is open, and for some reason you forgot to link it: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2020-2021_Audit_Report.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim... As you can see, from 112M total expenses, internet hosting is 2.4M (or 2%), and 'other operating expenses' is 10M (or 9%). This is 11% of expenses. This compares to 56M for salaries and 23M for awards and grants. Where is the misinformation? (Conflict of interest statement: I am an editor on Wikipedia for 15+ years and a member of my national Wikimedia chapter.)
macspoofing 4y ago
Now that Wikimedia will start getting serious cash, I hope it doesn't lose focus the way Mozilla did.
1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
It appears this was launched in March 2021 https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-finally-asking-big-tech-to-pay-up/ https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-finally-asking-big-tec... https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#Revenue_goal https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#Re...
nr2x 4y ago
Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft better cough up as well. They all use the data for voice assistance, etc.
streamlining 4y ago
I really don't like that Wikimedia has harsh rate limits for traffic in some regions when downloading that data dumps...
O__________O 4y ago
See a lot of criticism for how Wikipedia is run, but never any well reasoned solutions that offer an actionable path forward; as in click to donate to do ABC so that XYZ will happen. As is, to me, what this is missing is an explicit explanation of why this requires being paid for and metered API with public pricing that does not require “enterprise” effort to use. I could easily see numerous people and organizations wanting real-time notifications to pages of interest to them, but few wanting this for the whole of Wikipedia.

202 points by abbe98 4y ago

I really don't like this. The foundation already has many multiples more money than it needs to cover its core goal: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais... This can, at best, be useless, at worst, corrupt its mission to serve corporations. There used to be an expression "don't fix what ain't broke." I feel like this old maxim is now completely ignored.

endisneigh 4y ago
Why would an organization limit the amount of money they have?
- aunty_helen 4y ago
  Because it’s unnecessary and brings outside influences that could corrupt it’s stated goals
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    You can be corrupt without having a lot of money. There are countless examples of such. I applaud the their moves. The more money they have, the more likely they are to exist in perpetuity. Needlessly limiting their revenue isn’t going to solve anything.
    - grapeskin 4y ago
      It’s good in the way that a gym that sells soda and ice cream is running a good business. They’ll definitely see short term profit gains. But they’re losing sight of their original goals and risk losing their long term market.
    - marcinzm 4y ago
      >Needlessly limiting their revenue isn’t going to solve anything. But they've done exactly that since day 1 by refusing to show any ads.
      - endisneigh 4y ago
        Not exactly, because ads would result in people not donating and go against their mission. Forming into Wikimedia Enterprise allows them to get enterprise revenue without compromising the experience of reading the content
    - usrusr 4y ago
      The more money Wikimedia has, the less likely it gets that they keep recurring expenses in a sustainable range. And you can be corrupt without money, true. But corrupt people tend to avoid organisations that don't have a lot of money, they all try to work where the money is. And the do-gooders that are the other group of people likely to push into an org like Wikimedia tend to be particularly defenseless against the first kind.
    - wpietri 4y ago
      > The more money they have, the more likely they are to exist in perpetuity. I think the opposite is true. Consider examples like broke lottery winners, the resource curse [1], and the long history of startups getting lots of money and then cratering, from Webvan to WeWork. With Wikipedia in particular, I'm concerned that the more money there is, the more attractive it is to people who want to be near large streams of money for various reasons, including living large and diverting money to their own friends, pet projects, and grand visions. I'm also concerned that even if they are able to avoid those people entirely, large budgets pose other risks, including inflexibility in downturns, which I think increase the odds of a setback turning into a full collapse. Corruption, like cancer, is statistically inevitable for organizations. The only question is whether they have the right mechanisms to detect and exercise the tumors when they're small. But the scrappier Wikipedia stays, the less we have to worry about that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
  - hulitu 4y ago
    Some people just don't have enough. For them it is necessary. The only thing that is sad is that is difficult to explain to a child that wiki{m,p}edia is just another "news" outlet and everything there shall be taken with a grain of salt.
- Nebasuke 4y ago
  I think it's a bit worse than that though. Why does an organisation that has more than enough money to achieve its current and long term goals, appeal to their site visitors that they really need more money? The ads are in my opinion dishonest and emotionally manipulative, and have actively put me off supporting Wikimedia as a foundation.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    Goals can be expanded to infinity, uncertainty and inflation is always a thing, thus the need to diversify revenue streams to ensure survival and sustainability.
    - marcinzm 4y ago
      >Goals can be expanded to infinity And thus diluting and losing sight of their original goals. This isn't a corporation driven inherently by eternal desire for more profit.
      - endisneigh 4y ago
        Sure, but goals change as the world does.
        robonerd 4y ago
        Wikipedia tells me the last time a new Wikimedia project was launched was Wikidata, 10 years ago in 2012.
  - 20after4 4y ago
    What I'd like to see happen (though it's extremely unlikely) would be to rely less on emotionally charged banners thanks to the new revenue provided by the enterprise product. But the current fundraising strategy works extremely well so I really can't see it changing it at all. Full disclosure: Until very recently I was employed by Wikimedia as a Release Engineer. I was there for 7 years, however, I left for a new opportunity in February of this year. I am not a fan of the direction the organization seems to be headed. During the past few years there has been rapid growth and increased corporate culture. Seems to be kind of similar to what happened with the Mozilla foundation and that really hasn't worked out well for them so I am not entirely optimistic about the future of Wikipedia and the free knowledge movement in general.
- greyface- 4y ago
  In this case, it strongly incentivizes them to provide poor service to non-paying, non-enterprise API users. Wikimedia Enterprise apparently generates daily snapshots for paying customers[1]. The general public only gets them twice a month[2]. Wikimedia's goal should be to serve the public. [1]: https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/docs/snapshot/ https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/docs/snapshot/ [2]: https://dumps.wikimedia.org/ https://dumps.wikimedia.org/
- markvdb 4y ago
  Been there, done that. It detracts from the scope.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  Why would a non-profit organization with like 10x more money than they need to achieve their mission beg me for even more money? With multiple screens worth of banners and paragraphs that actually push the article I'm trying to read out of the way in order to nag me for donations? Even ads aren't this bad.
flipbrad 4y ago
Have a read of this: https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay#Why_charge https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay...?
- jerry1979 4y ago
  So summarize, are they more-or-less capping their APIs and charging for content they serve beyond that cap?
  - danuker 4y ago
    Not quite. > access to Wikimedia content by reusers is currently achieved through three broad means: Scraping of web pages; data dumps; and APIs. These services are provided freely to all reusers of Wikimedia content. They are and will remain free, libre and gratis, to everyone. > What many of the largest commercial technology organizations require in order to effectively utilize Wikimedia content goes beyond what we currently provide.
echelon 4y ago
Time to fork it. It's a wiki with open licensed content and a bloated stack that could easily be hosted on pared down infra and staffing. Fork it and remove the largesse.
- andrepd 4y ago
  Mate, if there's one thing Wikipedia isn't is bloated. It serves one of the biggest websites on the internet with a fraction of the infrastructure of similar sites.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Wikimedia is certainly bloated. They're spending upwards of $100 million a year.
    - mhh__ 4y ago
      How much is the correct amount for a site that serves such a huge amount of the internet?
      - colinmhayes 4y ago
        Depends on their services? Wikipedia serves static sites. Their hosting costs are 3 million a year according to their accountants. They have no real recommendation engine, or really dynamic content at all. 100% of their content is free for them. They can easily store their entire site in ram on a small cluster. Given that I'd say 10-30 million would be reasonable.
        bawolff 4y ago
        Did you know that wikipedia's tagline is "anyone can edit"? That makes it not static.
        colinmhayes 4y ago
skybrian 4y ago
With alternative sources of revenue, maybe there could be less nagging during the yearly donation drive?
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
If ISOC had shunted its profits into an endowment like it should have, it might not have ended up as a corrupt organization. This should be a legal requirement for non-profits with positive cash flow.

cgb223 4y ago

So now, if a Google related Wikipedia article has something added to it that Google doesn’t like, they can suggest to Wikimedia they might not renew their contract unless things are “made right” Google is just one example of this. Any company now has a pathway to do so. I think this is terrible incentives, and destroys the goal of having an Encyclopedia free from interference where only truth can come through

endisneigh 4y ago
Google could already do this per your hypothetical given that Google donates millions.
- danuker 4y ago
  That doesn't argue for going further in serving Google.
- bawolff 4y ago
  [Citation needed] Pretty sure google is not a big enough donor to really matter.
  - endisneigh 4y ago
    They’re a non profit, you can go and see Google’s contributions easily yourself. Google is one of the biggest single entity donors
    - bawolff 4y ago
      Where? All i could find is they donated > $50,000 but i dont see how much more. I guess it depends how much more, but that doesn't particularly seem like a lot relative to WMF's annual budget.
      - endisneigh 4y ago
        https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/22/google-org-donates-2-million-to-wikipedias-parent-org/amp/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/22/google-org-donates-2-milli... You’d have to look at their annual reports to get more granular info

LordDragonfang 4y ago

Google already scrapes and utilizes all of Wikipedia's contents to use in its "knowledge graph", and donates a substantial amount to the WMF in return. This simply formalizes the financial agreement and moves the data exchange to an api that is presumably more convenient and less resource intensive for both parties, while offering the same access for any other enterprise customer (and the internet archive gets it for free). This seems like a good idea for both the WMF and the open internet. (Contrary to what seem to be a lot of early knee-jerk negative responses in this thread - I suspect I'm seeing a bit of "early-thread contrarian dynamic")

20after4 4y ago
This is accurate. It isn't a big money grab for wikimedia nor does it really substantially change things for anyone. There is a constant drive for growth at Wikimedia and many of the concerns expressed in this thread are valid but Wikipedia Enterprise doesn't represent a threat to the freedom of Wikipedia. It really just represents a formalized way for commercial entities to donate to the foundation while accounting for it in their budget as a service rather than a charitable donation. It makes total sense if your business depends on Wikipedia in some way then you should contribute to it's continued existence. This is a totally sensible way to do that.
nickvincent 4y ago
Yeah, I think this is spot on. The version of WMF Enterprise being described here is formalizing / codifying an informal relationship that already existed (Google using Wikipedia content all over the place, and making various one-off donations to WMF), and as you say, formalizing has benefits for both parties! Certainly ways this could have some long-term negative impacts, but WMF is obviously thinking pretty hard about mitigations, it seems. The discussion linked in a comment above (https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay#Why_charge https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay...) also provides a pretty nice FAQ to the negative responses.
abbe98 4y ago
It also ensures that Google follows the license requirements of Wikimedia data as as it becomes a contractual issue rather than a license issue with each contributor. It seems for example that Google has recently resolved some long standing issues with attribution in various products(YouTube Music comes to mind).

boomboomsubban 4y ago

Google is their first customer, and they're giving IA free access. And what they're buying let's them >detect vandalism or important updates at the article level. So it gives them a better ability to control a Wikipedia page's content? Ostensibly both want the unlimited retreivals, but this entire program seems suspicious.

LordDragonfang 4y ago
Read it again, it gives them quicker notification that an article has been vandalized/changed in an important way by normal editors, it doesn't give them any special control over any page's content.
- boomboomsubban 4y ago
  Quicker notification is somewhat special control, though I prefer my term of "better ability." There's a meaningful difference between detecting vandalism in a minute vs an hour.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Quicker notifications means a tighter OODA loop, e.g. more control.
  - danuker 4y ago
    Time for me to look into downloading Wikipedia and using it offline.
    - cbm-vic-20 4y ago
      Here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download

actuator 4y ago

This is not good at all. Wikipedia has lot of money from donations. Google or its founders already were donors. Rather than fixing the issue with moderation and editing biases creeping into Wikipedia, they seem to be focussing on being more profligate with their money.

exolymph 4y ago

At this point, Wikimedia the organization is parasitic on Wikipedia the open-source information project. The latter generates all the goodwill and the former fucks around doing vanity projects with the ensuing resources. What's that pithy "law" about eventually any organization existing simply to perpetuate itself and serve the insiders who work there, rather than further its mission? Ironically what came to mind is Cunningham's Law which is the wrong one... https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cunningham%27s_Law

robonerd 4y ago
Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration. Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc. The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.
- icelancer 4y ago
  Nice. I hadn't seen this, or his related quotes. Quite usable for business.
- themitigating 4y ago
  Doesn't this apply to any organization? If you care about the goals of an organization you are going to be promoted because of your value to that task nor would you seem it. Those that don't are going to care more about the organizations structure and focus on improving their standing.
  - coderintherye 4y ago

jrochkind1 4y ago

OK, can anyone explain succinctly what "Wikimedia Enteprise" actually is, as a product? It is described as a product. What does it do? The press release isn't helping me much.

david_allison 4y ago
https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/ https://enterprise.wikimedia.com/ - an API to access Wikimedia content: * Snapshots of a Wikimedia project - updated daily * On-demand access to articles * Hook into a stream of changes to articles
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  Huh. Some of that I think some people hoped would be available (for free) via things like WikiData. I guess nobody should wait for that. My somewhat concern is that the wikipedia project has kind of put a flag in the ground to say that providing free access to wikipedia is no longer part of their mission if it's automated/bulk access.
  - kemayo 4y ago
    For what it's worth, WikiData is something different -- it's a knowledge graph, and so is mostly a way to get a list of facts about a specific item. Which is useful, and gets used as an input into a lot of things on Wikipedia, but is unrelated to this sort of firehose-API.
  - M2Ys4U 4y ago
    >My somewhat concern is that the wikipedia project has kind of put a flag in the ground to say that providing free access to wikipedia is no longer part of their mission if it's automated/bulk access. I think this is more about paying for an SLA and support agreement which is less tenable as an open free-for-all
bawolff 4y ago
My personal theory is that its a mildly better bulk api, with that less being a needed thing, but more a way for big org to justify "donating" by paying for something.

abbe98 4y ago

I think the big benefit for Google and Co here is SLA and support, Wikimedia gives contributors and partners access for free... A win for Wikimedia beyond diversified funding is also that Google and other corporations gets an contractual obligation to follow Wikimedia licensing.

jll29 4y ago

The site mentions "credibility" as available information, but the online documentation does not refer to that topic. Does anyone know more about this? (I'm doing research in modeling text credibility for fake news detection.)

H8crilA 4y ago

For the critics, this is basically a way for Wikimedia to charge for high throughput access from commercial users, as well as normalizing the API. These corporations already crawl the entirety of this space, both the HTML and the wikitext. Why wouldn't they if the license allows it? As long as dumps remain available for free (which as I understand they have to) the community loses nothing, and corporate actors get to contribute a bit more. I don't see things like Kiwix going away any time soon.

hansword 4y ago
Yes, contribute a bit more is good. But contribute to what? Server costs are (compared to WMF budget) small, the actual contributors never have and never will see a cent.
- ryan_lane 4y ago
  Stop spreading misinformation. The budget data is open. You're discussing server costs, but need to also consider hosting and data center costs, as well as employee salaries. Running Wikimedia is a pretty decent percentage of their budget. Part of the reason for other parts of the budget is attempting to increase editor numbers in a world where direct readership is declining (because of products like Google's knowledge graph), and improving inclusiveness, so that content will better represent the world. They are also building an endowment to be able to weather bad fundraising years.
  - hansword 4y ago
    Yes it is open, and for some reason you forgot to link it: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikimedia_Foundation_FY2020-2021_Audit_Report.pdf https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim... As you can see, from 112M total expenses, internet hosting is 2.4M (or 2%), and 'other operating expenses' is 10M (or 9%). This is 11% of expenses. This compares to 56M for salaries and 23M for awards and grants. Where is the misinformation? (Conflict of interest statement: I am an editor on Wikipedia for 15+ years and a member of my national Wikimedia chapter.)

macspoofing 4y ago

Now that Wikimedia will start getting serious cash, I hope it doesn't lose focus the way Mozilla did.

1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago

It appears this was launched in March 2021 https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-finally-asking-big-tech-to-pay-up/ https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-finally-asking-big-tec... https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#Revenue_goal https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Enterprise#Re...

nr2x 4y ago

Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft better cough up as well. They all use the data for voice assistance, etc.

streamlining 4y ago

I really don't like that Wikimedia has harsh rate limits for traffic in some regions when downloading that data dumps...

O__________O 4y ago

See a lot of criticism for how Wikipedia is run, but never any well reasoned solutions that offer an actionable path forward; as in click to donate to do ABC so that XYZ will happen. As is, to me, what this is missing is an explicit explanation of why this requires being paid for and metered API with public pricing that does not require “enterprise” effort to use. I could easily see numerous people and organizations wanting real-time notifications to pages of interest to them, but few wanting this for the whole of Wikipedia.