[HN Gopher] Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet A... ___________________________________________________________________ Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as first customers Author : abbe98 Score : 129 points Date : 2022-06-21 17:26 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (wikimediafoundation.org) (TXT) w3m dump (wikimediafoundation.org) | dmarchand90 wrote: | 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-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 wrote: | Why would an organization limit the amount of money they have? | markvdb wrote: | Been there, done that. It detracts from the scope. | aunty_helen wrote: | Because it's unnecessary and brings outside influences that | could corrupt it's stated goals | endisneigh wrote: | 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. | usrusr wrote: | 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 wrote: | > 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 | marcinzm wrote: | >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 wrote: | 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 | grapeskin wrote: | 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. | hulitu wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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 wrote: | >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 wrote: | Sure, but goals change as the world does. | robonerd wrote: | Wikipedia tells me the last time a new Wikimedia project | was launched was Wikidata, 10 years ago in 2012. | 20after4 wrote: | 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- wrote: | 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/ [2]: | https://dumps.wikimedia.org/ | skybrian wrote: | With alternative sources of revenue, maybe there could be less | nagging during the yearly donation drive? | flipbrad wrote: | Have a read of this: https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedi | a_Enterprise/Essay...? | jerry1979 wrote: | So summarize, are they more-or-less capping their APIs and | charging for content they serve beyond that cap? | danuker wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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 wrote: | Wikimedia is certainly bloated. They're spending upwards of | $100 million a year. | mhh__ wrote: | How much is the correct amount for a site that serves | such a huge amount of the internet? | dougb5 wrote: | Google spent nearly 2000 times that, and a great deal of | its own value to the world is from indexing Wikipedia. | jimjimjim wrote: | why haven't you done it already? | echelon wrote: | You laugh, but I actually did! [1] | | Wikimedia was deleting all the video game guide content | from their wikibooks project for god knows what reason. | | I took it over and moved it to my existing wiki, | https://strategywiki.org | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Copy_to_gam | ing_w... | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | 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. | actuator wrote: | 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. | macspoofing wrote: | Now that Wikimedia will start getting serious cash, I hope it | doesn't lose focus the way Mozilla did. | jll29 wrote: | 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.) | abbe98 wrote: | 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. | cgb223 wrote: | 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 | roneythomas6 wrote: | Google has been huge contributor to wikipedia for over a decade | now. | endisneigh wrote: | Google could already do this per your hypothetical given that | Google donates millions. | danuker wrote: | That doesn't argue for going further in serving Google. | not2b wrote: | Alternatively, Google can modify their copy of whatever they | take from Wikipedia and display to their users. The license | permits this. They don't need Wikipedia to change anything. | exolymph wrote: | 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 | robonerd wrote: | _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._ | themitigating wrote: | 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 wrote: | Not necessarily no, not all organizations are hierarchal. | "Reinventing Organizations" has some good examples of such. | Miraste wrote: | There are no non-hierarchal organizations, only ones that | are written down and ones that aren't. Even Reinventing | Organizations talks about "fluid, natural hierarchies" - | i.e. cliques. | icelancer wrote: | Nice. I hadn't seen this, or his related quotes. Quite usable | for business. | wmfanon9973 wrote: | Two recent threads on wikimedia-l may be useful for those non- | versed in the WMF's present malignancy: | | https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@list... | | https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@list... | | MediaWiki is basically unmaintained at this point. | zozbot234 wrote: | The latest WMF "vanity project" is Wikidata, started in 2012. | It is currently getting _more_ edits than the most popular | version of Wikipedia, and has been playing a pivotal role in | the "open-source information" ecosystem. If that kind of thing | is "parasitic" then maybe we should welcome such parasitism. | wmfanon9973 wrote: | Wikidata is maintained by Wikimedia Deutschland | (https://www.wikimedia.de/), not the Wikimedia Foundation. | skybrian wrote: | Please don't post content-free reaction posts on on Hacker | News. If you don't like something, at least make some effort at | explaining why. | curiousgal wrote: | Same with Mozilla/Firefox imo. | onphonenow wrote: | I think they are doing 100M+ per year to run the servers, | manage PR / legal / HR issues. | wmfanon9973 wrote: | They have so much more money than they need, they're giving | away donor funds to other organizations: | | https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@list. | .. | exolymph wrote: | Sure. I was def exaggerating for effect -- there does need to | be an org running this project and as that org Wikimedia also | does good things. But as with Mozilla, the decision-makers | are too distracted by flavor-of-the-week bullshit. | formerly_proven wrote: | Actually, they're spending less than 3MM per year for | hosting. "Other operating expenses" are ~10MM, and everything | else on the list has essentially nothing to do with | Wikipedia. | | However, at the current rate it won't take long until they | actually do spend 100MM+ on their own salaries. | | https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/1/1e/Wikim. | .. | marcinzm wrote: | >everything else on the list has essentially nothing to do | with Wikipedia | | I would say that engineer/product/analytics salaries are | part of the cost of running and updating a webpage. Then | you have HR which is needed to support those employees and | Legal which is especially needed given the high risk nature | of Wikipedia. | | Good luck keeping Wikipedia up in a useful manner without | those people. | | edit: Then you need Finance to help handle the costs | responsibly. Then you need Fundraising to help raise the | money needed to pay for all that. Then you generally want | some Marketing/Branding/Communications to help with the | whole talking to external humans part. | nonameiguess wrote: | A friend of mine who worked there claimed the bulk of the | funding is spent on paying attorneys to defend Wikipedia | editors against hostile governments and companies that sue | and imprison them for writing unflattering material. | | Take it with a grain of salt, I guess, given the level of | cynicism Hacker News seems to have about Wikimedia | Foundation, and you could easily dismiss insiders defending | their own organization as shills. I don't really see a way | to tell from those financial statements. I'm guessing that | would count as program expense and break down between | salaries and professional services depending on the | relative proportions to which they keep attorneys on staff | versus contracting legal defense out to other firms. | boomboomsubban wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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 wrote: | Quicker notifications means a tighter OODA loop, e.g. more | control. | danuker wrote: | Time for me to look into downloading Wikipedia and using it | offline. | cbm-vic-20 wrote: | Here you go: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download | jrochkind1 wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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 wrote: | 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. | H8crilA wrote: | 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. | LordDragonfang wrote: | 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") | abbe98 wrote: | 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). | nickvincent wrote: | 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.wikime | dia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Enterprise/Essay...) also provides a | pretty nice FAQ to the negative responses. | danuker wrote: | > to an api that is presumably more convenient and less | resource intensive for both parties | | Not quite. It sounds like they will increase bandwidth for the | API. | | > What many of the largest commercial technology organizations | require in order to effectively utilize Wikimedia content goes | beyond what we currently provide. | 20after4 wrote: | 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-21 23:00 UTC)