wikipedia


Wikipedia

 

ideas and principles that have made Wikipedia so successful–strong community emphasis, transparency, freedom to contribute and free licensing

 

www.wikipedia.com

 

About Wikimedia Foundation

 

The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an international non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. Wikimedia relies on public donations to meet its goal of providing free knowledge to every person in the world.

 

 

 

here are some articles discussing the wikipedia (lack of a) business model:

 

Dec 2005 - growing on volunteer power

 

 

The founder says they have "no ads, no business deals"

To keep the business running, they have 120 servers located across the world which handle the huge traffic to the site are all managed by volunteers. "There are only two employees at the Wikipedia Foundation. Rest are all volunteers" he says

 

 

Where does the money currently come from?

1. Most of the revenue of the Wikipedia Foundation comes from donations and grants. For instance, Yahoo! donated some servers.

2. Wales says. "As for bandwidth, it does not cost much anyway these days"

 

Future potential revenue streams:

1. There is always the possibility of adding ads in the future.

2. Could license the Wikipedia trademark to other sites. For example: Answers.com will create a software-based co-branded version of Answers.com to be called 1-Click Answers, Wikipedia Edition, from which advertising revenues will be split with the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia will create a Tools page on its English-language site to promote tools that access Wikipedia, and 1-Click Answers, Wikipedia Edition, will receive charter placement on that page

 

3. In Germany, (2005), Wikipedia launched a CD version of its encyclopedia, for sale on Amazon

 

 

 

Video Wikipedia?

 

Kaltura introduces video mashups to Wikipedia — Kaltura lets you and others upload videos, then mash the videos together into a creation that is hopefully more meaningful than the sum of its parts (sample, above). Israel and New York-based Kaltura is now partnering with Wikipedia, hoping to bring community-edited video to the community-edited encyclopedia, and to other wiki pages. The company launched at the Techcrunch 40 conference (our coverage) — although we didn’t think the company was a stand-out at the time, its features look to be a good fit with Wikipedia. It includes wiki-like revision features, such as the ability to view a chronological lists of people who helped create the mashed-up video, as well as previous versions of the video.

 

 

Collect info with wikipedia to drive other businesses

 

My thoughts: wikipedia is just the model for collection of information, but then to make money you need to take that information and find useful ways to deliver. The wiki is a great tool for allowing various parts of society / organization to contribute information. But then to make a business model, its important that you find way to leverage the ownership of that information. I bet that the owners of wikipedia information are using the free info, and are finding ways to use that info to drive the other commercial applications.

 

 

 

Doubts:

But how long would a user be motivated to volunteer for Wikipedia, constantly monitoring and editing articles? Will people eventually get bored (with Wikipedia) and leave everything? "I don't know," says Wales. But going by the ever-growing popularity of Wikipedia, it seems Wales can ignore that question.

 

 

 

Payments for contribution

At Wikipedia, Illustrators May Be Paid  —  The foundation that runs Wikipedia has finally agreed to pay contributors to the online encyclopedia a modest fee for their work.  But it won't pay the thousands of people who participate in creating the wiki pages — just artists who create "key illustrations" for the site.
 
 
 

Challenge from Google

 

Google’s Knol, a challenge to Wikipedia?

knoltop1.pngGoogle is working on a product called “Knol” — a sort of competitor to online, nonprofit encyclopedia Wikipedia.

 

While Wikipedia lets anyone edit its articles, Google’s Knol is encouraging “people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it” (official announcement here).

So why is Google doing this? Well, Wikipedia has posed a threat: Wikipedia entries frequently show up as top results in Google searches, redirecting Google searchers to Wikipedia instead of to any other site on the web.

 

We have no choice but to be skeptical, considering Google’s many so-far-fruitless efforts to challenge incumbent online competitors.

 

Google’s Knol will place author’s names next to their Knol article pages, which Google thinks will help users make better use of web content. Instead of a collaborative editing process, like what happens on Wikipedia, Knol authors will compete to have the most popular page on a topic. Users will be given the option to grade each page, to help clarify which author is best. (See below; a larger Knol screenshot here.)

 

knolscreenshot.png

Knol is Google-centric at its core. Its pages will be hosted by Google. Authors of Knol pages will be able to run Google ads and get some part of the revenue they generate — Google will get the other part. Google will also offer a Knol-specific search option.

 

Google will also apparently favor Knol pages over Wikipedia pages: “A knol on a particular topic is meant to be the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read.”

 

But this seems like a crass, commercial move that will marginalize the hard work of millions of Wikipedia volunteers, and breach the principle of objectivity that Google has more or less followed for delivering search results thus far.

 

Maybe Knol’s focus on giving individual authors a say will convince experts to contribute? That same idea was implemented awhile back for Google News. “Sources” could respond to news articles about in which they are mentioned. As far as we can tell, these “sources” haven’t used Google’s service.

 

Knol lets you create a web page, then put your content on it. This is akin to Google Base — remember, Google’s classified ad pages. Many thought it would destroy Craiglist and other online classified sites. It hasn’t.

 

Then there’s Google Checkout, the online payment system that was supposed to destroy incumbent Paypal. That effort has seen top engineers leave and, from what we hear, is at a stand-still.

Then there was OpenSocial, the developer platform that was supposed to make Facebook’s developer platform irrelevant. OpenSocial itself may become irrelevant, as Facebook licenses out its developer platform to other social networks, like Bebo.

 

 

Controversy

 
On the surface, all is well in Wikiland. Just last week, a headline from The San Francisco Chronicle told the world that "Wikipedia's Future Is Still Looking Up," as the paper happily announced that founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales plans to expand his operation with a high-profile move to the city by the bay.

 

But underneath, there's trouble brewing.

 

Controversy has erupted among the encyclopedia's core contributors, after a rogue editor revealed that the site's top administrators are using a secret insider mailing list to crackdown on perceived threats to their power.

 

Many suspected that such a list was in use, as the Wikipedia "ruling clique" grew increasingly concerned with banning editors for the most petty of reasons. But now that the list's existence is confirmed, the rank and file are on the verge of revolt.

 

Revealed after an uber-admin called "Durova" used it in an attempt to enforce the quixotic ban of a longtime contributor, this secret mailing list seems to undermine the site's famously egalitarian ethos. At the very least, the list allows the ruling clique to push its agenda without scrutiny from the community at large. But clearly, it has also been used to silence the voice of at least one person who was merely trying to improve the encyclopedia's content.

 

"I've never seen the Wikipedia community as angry as they are with this one," says Charles Ainsworth, a Japan-based editor who's contributed more feature articles to the site than all but six other writers. "I think there was more hidden anger and frustration with the 'ruling clique' than I thought and Durova's heavy-handed action and arrogant refusal to take sufficient accountability for it has released all of it into the open."

 

Kelly Martin, a former member of Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee, leaves no doubt that this sort of surreptitious communication has gone on for ages. "This particular list is new, but the strategy is old," Martin told us via phone, from outside Chicago. "It's certainly not consistent with the public principles of the site. But in reality, it's standard practice."

Meanwhile, Jimbo Wales has told the community that all this is merely a tempest in a teacup. As he points out, the user that Durova wrongly banned was reinstated after a mere 75 minutes. But it would seem that Jimbo has done his best to suppress any talk of the secret mailing list.

 

Whatever the case, many longtime editors are up-in-arms. And the site's top administrators seem more concerned with petty site politics than with building a trustworthy encyclopedia. "The problem with Wikipedia is that, for so many in the project, it's no longer about the encyclopedia," Martin wrote in a recent blog post. "The problem is that Wikipedia's community has defined itself not in terms of the encyclopedia it is supposedly producing, but instead of the people it venerates and the people it abhors."

 

Bang! Bang! You're dead

On November 18, Durova banned a Wikipedia editor known as "!!". Yes, "!!". Some have taken to calling him "Bang Bang." At Wikipedia, everyone has the right to anonymity, and user names are often, shall we say, inexplicable.

 

In banning this account, Durova described it as an "abusive sock puppet," insisting it was setup by someone dead set on destroying the encyclopedia. "This problem editor is a troublemaker whose username is two exclamation points with no letters," read the block. "He is a ripened sock with a padded history of redirects, minor edits, and some DYK work. He also indulges in obscene trolling in German, and free range sarcasm and troublemaking. If you find this user gloating, or spot his nasty side, hit him with the banhammer." DYKs are edits made to the "Did You Know" section of the Wikipedia home page.

 

Durova then posted a notice to the site's public forum, insisting the ban was too important for discussion outside the purview of the Arbitration Committee, Wikipedia's Supreme Court. "Due to the nature of this investigation, our normal open discussion isn't really feasible," she said. "Please take to arbitration if you disagree with this decision."

 

But it was discussed. At length. Countless editors were nothing less than livid, many arguing that the banned user was actually a wonderfully productive editor. "Durova, you're really going to have to explain this," wrote one editor. "I see no transgressions of any kind on the part of this user; indeed, with over 100 DYKs, he seems to be a pretty positive force around here."

Meanwhile, Durova continued to insist that she had some sort of secret evidence that could only be viewed by the Arbitration Committee. "I am very confident my research will stand up to scrutiny," she said. "I am equally confident that anything I say here will be parsed rather closely by some disruptive banned sockpuppeteers. If I open the door a little bit it'll become a wedge issue as people ask for more information, and then some rather deep research techniques would be in jeopardy."

 

Then someone posted a private email from Durova in which she divulged her evidence - and revealed the secret mailing list.

 

Wikiparanoia

Basically, Durova's email showed that Bang Bang was indeed a wonderfully productive editor. She was sure this was all a put-on, that he was trying to gain the community's "good faith" and destroy it from within.

 

We're not joking.

 

This sort of extreme paranoia has become the norm among the Wikipedia inner circle. There are a handful sites across the web that spend most of their bandwidth criticizing the Wikipedia elite - the leading example being Wikipedia Review - and the ruling clique spends countless hours worrying that these critics are trying to infiltrate the encyclopedia itself.

 

Bang Bang was a relatively new account. Since this new user was a skilled editor, Durova decided, he must be "a vandal" sent by Wikipedia Review. "I need to show you not just what Wikipedia Review is doing to us, but how they're doing it," she said in her email. "Here's a troublemaker whose username is two exclamation points with no letters: !! It's what I would call [a] 'ripened sock'...Some of the folks at WR do this to game the community's good faith."

 

Former Arbitration Committee member Kelly Martin confirms that this bizarre attitude is now par for the course inside the Wikipedia inner circle. "Anyone who makes large changes to anything now is likely to get run over by a steamroller," she says. "It's not a matter of whether your edit was good or bad. All they see is 'large edit my person not known to me' and - boom! They smack you on the head because vandals are so bad."

 

As it turned out, Bang Bang was an experienced user. He had set up a new account after having privacy problems with his old one. Once her secret email was posted, Durova removed the ban, calling it "a false positive."

 

Durova then voluntarily relinquished her admin powers, and over the weekend, the Arbitration Committee admonished her "to exercise greater care when issuing blocks."

 

The secret mailing list

But this particular false positive was only part of the problem. With her email, Durova also revealed that the ruling clique was using that secret mailing list to combat its enemies - both real and imagined. "The good news," she said, was that the Wikipedia Review "trolls" didn't know the list existed. And then she linked to the list's sign-up page.

 

The list is hosted by Wikia, the Jimmy Wales-founded open source web portal that was setup as an entirely separate entity from the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation that oversees Wikipedia.

The sign-up page explains that the list is designed to quash "cyberstalking" and "harassment." But it would seem that things have gotten a bit out-of-hand. Clearly, the list is also used to land "the banhammer" on innocent bystanders.

 

"The problem is that their false positive rate is about 90 per cent - or higher," says Kelly Martin. "It's possible that every last person Durova has identified is innocent."

 

Recently, in another effort to quash "harassment," several members of the Wikipedia elite tried to ban the mention of certain "BADSITES" on the encyclopedia, and naturally, Wikipedia Review was on the list. Dan Tobias was one of the many editors who successfully fought this ban, and as he battled, he marveled at how well organized his opponents seemed to be.

 

"Over the months that I've been fighting people over issues like the BADSITES proposal, it looks like a lot of these people I was fighting were on this secret email list - at least I suspect they were," says the Floridia-based Tobias. "They always seemed to be show up in right place, at the right time, to gang up on people."

 

Yes, it all sounds like the most ridiculous of high school squabbles. But Tobias was merely trying to protect free speech on a site where free speech is supposedly sacred.

 

The irony, Tobias points out, is that in using this mailing list, the Wikipedia inner circle is guilty of the same behavior they're trying to fight. "They're villainizing the so-called attack sites because these sites are promoting pernicious ideas about Wikipedia," he says. "The argument is that when a bunch of like-minded people get together, they're sounding boards for one another, and they end up getting way off base because there's not an opposing viewpoint around.

 

"But you could say the exact same thing about this secret email list: a bunch of like-minded people are encouraging each other's possibly wacked-out views and, in the end, making trouble on Wikipedia."

 

Oversight

If you take Wikipedia as seriously as it takes itself, this is a huge problem. The site is ostensibly devoted to democratic consensus and the free exchange of ideas. But whether or not you believe in the holy law of Web 2.0, Wikipedia is tearing at the seams. Many of its core contributors are extremely unhappy about Durova's ill-advised ban and the exposure of the secret mailing list, and some feel that the site's well-being is seriously threatened.

 

In a post to Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales says that this whole incident was blown out of proportion. "I advise the world to relax a notch or two. A bad block was made for 75 minutes," he says. "It was reversed and an apology given. There are things to be studied here about what went wrong and what could be done in the future, but wow, could we please do so with a lot less drama? A 75 minute block, even if made badly, is hardly worth all this drama. Let's please love each other, love the project, and remember what we are here for."

 

But he's not admitting how deep this controversy goes. Wales and the Wikimedia Foudation came down hard on the editor who leaked Durova's email. After it was posted to the public forum, the email was promptly "oversighted" - i.e. permanently removed. Then this rogue editor posted it to his personal talk page, and a Wikimedia Foundation member not only oversighted the email again, but temporarily banned the editor.

 

Then Jimbo swooped in with a personal rebuke. "You have caused too much harm to justify us putting up with this kind of behavior much longer," he told the editor.

 

The problem, for many regular contributors, is that Wales and the Foundation seem to be siding with Durova's bizarre behavior. "I believe that Jimbo's credibility has been greatly damaged because of his open support for these people," says Charles Ainsworth. And if Jimbo can't maintain his credibility, the site's most experienced editors may not stick around. Since the banhammer came down, Bang Bang hasn't edited a lick.