hi,
most people know some advantage of wikipedia zero and everybody can look up the advantages by just typing wikipedia zero into some search engine. as i am not sure about the answer and anyway get asked in rare cases what i think of wp:zero i guess it should be best answered on the mailing list:
is wikipedia zero illegal in some countries because it violates net neutrality? and if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? or should wikimedia foundation apply a higher moral standard and just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere?
just for the ones not so sure about net neutrality [1]: Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
rupert.
It's fine (and necessary) to hold ourselves to our own ethical standards, but if we start trying to avoid activity that might be perceived as illegal in any country, we would run in to a lot of problems awfully fast. Trying to avoid activity that might be perceived as illegal somewhere in the world would result in Wikipedia being quite thoroughly censored and rather useless. I like Wikipedia Zero and don't see a problem with it, but if we do want to have a debate about whether or not it's a morally acceptable project, it should at least be framed as 'does this project violate the Wikimedia movement's principles?' and not 'does this project violate the law in any country in the world?'
---- Kevin Gorman
On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 11:50 AM, rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.comwrote:
hi,
most people know some advantage of wikipedia zero and everybody can look up the advantages by just typing wikipedia zero into some search engine. as i am not sure about the answer and anyway get asked in rare cases what i think of wp:zero i guess it should be best answered on the mailing list:
is wikipedia zero illegal in some countries because it violates net neutrality? and if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? or should wikimedia foundation apply a higher moral standard and just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere?
just for the ones not so sure about net neutrality [1]: Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
rupert.
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There is a crucial difference: Wikipedia Zero is not a general way to provide access to the Internet for free, it provides access to parts of Wikipedia for free through partnering carriers. Wikipedia Zero is not in violation of net neutrality in the first place, as Wikipedia Zero is not an internet service provider and thus it cannot violate net neutrality.
I cannot see how Wikipedia Zero can violate any net neutrality laws in any countries, as they simply do not apply in this case.
Having said that, I wonder what even the motivation is in trying to suggest to close programs that provide easier and affordable access to the contents of Wikimedia sites to a wider population.
The usual disclaimers apply, IANAL, etc.
Cheers, Denny
2013/8/25 rupert THURNER rupert.thurner@gmail.com
hi,
most people know some advantage of wikipedia zero and everybody can look up the advantages by just typing wikipedia zero into some search engine. as i am not sure about the answer and anyway get asked in rare cases what i think of wp:zero i guess it should be best answered on the mailing list:
is wikipedia zero illegal in some countries because it violates net neutrality? and if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? or should wikimedia foundation apply a higher moral standard and just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere?
just for the ones not so sure about net neutrality [1]: Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
rupert.
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To the best of my knowledge, every jurisdiction that has legislated on net neutrality has concentrated on preventing ISPs from blocking, degrading or charging extra for particular services; not one of them has a problem with providers giving away certain data for free.
S On 26 Aug 2013 04:51, "rupert THURNER" rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
hi,
most people know some advantage of wikipedia zero and everybody can look up the advantages by just typing wikipedia zero into some search engine. as i am not sure about the answer and anyway get asked in rare cases what i think of wp:zero i guess it should be best answered on the mailing list:
is wikipedia zero illegal in some countries because it violates net neutrality? and if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? or should wikimedia foundation apply a higher moral standard and just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere?
just for the ones not so sure about net neutrality [1]: Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
rupert.
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Dutch telecommunication law, article 7.4a (the net neutrality article), paragraph 3:
"Aanbieders van internettoegangsdiensten stellen de hoogte van tarieven voor internettoegangsdiensten niet afhankelijk van de diensten en toepassingen die via deze diensten worden aangeboden of gebruikt."
"Offerers of internet access services do not make the tariffs for internet access services dependent on the services and applications that are offered or used via these services."
If an isp offers Wikipedia for free, and some other internet usage not, then it has a different tariff dependent on the service that is offered.
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 6:05 PM, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.comwrote:
To the best of my knowledge, every jurisdiction that has legislated on net neutrality has concentrated on preventing ISPs from blocking, degrading or charging extra for particular services; not one of them has a problem with providers giving away certain data for free.
S On 26 Aug 2013 04:51, "rupert THURNER" rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
hi,
most people know some advantage of wikipedia zero and everybody can look up the advantages by just typing wikipedia zero into some search engine. as i am not sure about the answer and anyway get asked in rare cases what i think of wp:zero i guess it should be best answered on the mailing list:
is wikipedia zero illegal in some countries because it violates net neutrality? and if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? or should wikimedia foundation apply a higher moral standard and just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere?
just for the ones not so sure about net neutrality [1]: Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
rupert.
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"And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? "
As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries in every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state by the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After that, are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way more morally wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to ISP, which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high ethical and moral standards.
JP Beland aka Amqui
2013/8/26, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com:
Dutch telecommunication law, article 7.4a (the net neutrality article), paragraph 3:
"Aanbieders van internettoegangsdiensten stellen de hoogte van tarieven voor internettoegangsdiensten niet afhankelijk van de diensten en toepassingen die via deze diensten worden aangeboden of gebruikt."
"Offerers of internet access services do not make the tariffs for internet access services dependent on the services and applications that are offered or used via these services."
If an isp offers Wikipedia for free, and some other internet usage not, then it has a different tariff dependent on the service that is offered.
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 6:05 PM, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.comwrote:
To the best of my knowledge, every jurisdiction that has legislated on net neutrality has concentrated on preventing ISPs from blocking, degrading or charging extra for particular services; not one of them has a problem with providers giving away certain data for free.
S On 26 Aug 2013 04:51, "rupert THURNER" rupert.thurner@gmail.com wrote:
hi,
most people know some advantage of wikipedia zero and everybody can look up the advantages by just typing wikipedia zero into some search engine. as i am not sure about the answer and anyway get asked in rare cases what i think of wp:zero i guess it should be best answered on the mailing list:
is wikipedia zero illegal in some countries because it violates net neutrality? and if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? or should wikimedia foundation apply a higher moral standard and just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere?
just for the ones not so sure about net neutrality [1]: Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
rupert.
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-- André Engels, andreengels@gmail.com _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
"And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? "
As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries in every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state by the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After that, are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way more morally wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to ISP, which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high ethical and moral standards.
JP Beland aka Amqui
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at least sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we believe that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position for a paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is, but the opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
2013/8/26, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com:
Dutch telecommunication law, article 7.4a (the net neutrality article), paragraph 3:
"Aanbieders van internettoegangsdiensten stellen de hoogte van tarieven voor internettoegangsdiensten niet afhankelijk van de diensten en toepassingen die via deze diensten worden aangeboden of gebruikt."
"Offerers of internet access services do not make the tariffs for
internet
access services dependent on the services and applications that are
offered
or used via these services."
If an isp offers Wikipedia for free, and some other internet usage not, then it has a different tariff dependent on the service that is offered.
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 6:05 PM, Stephen Bain <stephen.bain@gmail.com
wrote:
To the best of my knowledge, every jurisdiction that has legislated on
net
neutrality has concentrated on preventing ISPs from blocking,
degrading or
charging extra for particular services; not one of them has a problem
with
providers giving away certain data for free.
S On 26 Aug 2013 04:51, "rupert THURNER" rupert.thurner@gmail.com
wrote:
hi,
most people know some advantage of wikipedia zero and everybody can look up the advantages by just typing wikipedia zero into some search engine. as i am not sure about the answer and anyway get asked in
rare
cases what i think of wp:zero i guess it should be best answered on the mailing list:
is wikipedia zero illegal in some countries because it violates net neutrality? and if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? or should wikimedia foundation apply a higher moral standard and just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere?
just for the ones not so sure about net neutrality [1]: Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially
by
user, content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, and modes of communication.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
rupert.
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On 26/08/2013 18:14, Martijn Hoekstra wrote:
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at least sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we believe that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position for a paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is, but the opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
Wikipedia Zero seeks to increase (free) access to one of our project. If we don't think that's a good idea, what the heck are we doing running the project in the first place?
KTC
2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
"And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? "
As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries in every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state by the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After that, are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way more morally wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to ISP, which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high ethical and moral standards.
JP Beland aka Amqui
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at least sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we believe that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position for a paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is, but the opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving free access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not undermining the market position for a paid open internet is getting us closer to our vision.
JP Béland aka Amqui
On Aug 26, 2013, at 10:42 AM, JP Béland lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
"And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? "
As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries in every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state by the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After that, are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way more morally wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to ISP, which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high ethical and moral standards.
JP Beland aka Amqui
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at least sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we believe that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position for a paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is, but the opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving free access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not undermining the market position for a paid open internet is getting us closer to our vision.
JP Béland aka Amqui
I believe a nonstandard interpretation of net neutrality is being used here.
It's intended - as originally posed - to prevent a service provider from advantaging their own bundled services and disadvantage independent services via tariff structure.
What competitors for Wikipedia exist?
And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this provider in some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to their or our benefit? What benefit do we get?
Sent from Kangphone
On Aug 26, 2013 7:53 PM, "George William Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013, at 10:42 AM, JP Béland lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
"And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? "
As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries in every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state by the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After that, are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way more morally wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to ISP, which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high ethical and moral standards.
JP Beland aka Amqui
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at least sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we
believe
that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position for a paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is, but
the
opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving free access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not undermining the market position for a paid open internet is getting us closer to our vision.
JP Béland aka Amqui
I believe a nonstandard interpretation of net neutrality is being used
here.
It's intended - as originally posed - to prevent a service provider from
advantaging their own bundled services and disadvantage independent services via tariff structure.
What competitors for Wikipedia exist?
And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this provider in
some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to their or our benefit? What benefit do we get?
We get a wider readership, at least in the short term. Why else would we be doing this? Or was the question rhetorical, as the answer was rather obvious to me. If it was, I don't understand the point you were trying to make with it.
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It was not rhetorical, but you missed the point.
Net neutrality is an issue because service providers (can / may / often do) become a local monopoly of sorts. Monopilies are not necessarily bad (how many water and natural gas line providers can you choose from? how many road networks?) but are generally felt to be bad if they enable the monopolist to leverage themselves into other markets.
With regards to network neutrality, the problem is if the provider uses their network monopoly to encourage the customers to use their (or their preferred, with some sort of mutual advantage) search engine, email service, etc., or discourage use of an alternative streaming media service, and issues of the like.
Again: with Wikipedia, we do not have particular mutually beneficial relationships which this would be encouraging, and the service provider isn't really in a position to damage a Wikipedia competitor by doing this, as far as I can see.
One can argue that even a free (to use, contribute, participate), functionally monopolized, public service organization could benefit somehow and the ISP could benefit somehow, and that the strict terms of the particular law in question might come into play.
However, from a moral stance, the underlying goal of network neutrality seems unharmed by this, in any realistic or reasonable manner. Your interpretation seems excessively legalistic rather than factually or morally based; while it may be that we should avoid even trivial legalistic issues, we do not as a project make special efforts to comply with 180+ countries laws (other than copyright issues, and "free" definitions for Commons, that I can see).
If you can explain a manner in which the underlying monopoly / advantage issue IS a problem here, please point it out. If there is one that I do not see then that forms a valid reason to reconsider.
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 11:04 AM, Martijn Hoekstra < martijnhoekstra@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013 7:53 PM, "George William Herbert" < george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013, at 10:42 AM, JP Béland lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
"And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? "
As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries
in
every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state
by
the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After that, are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way more morally wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to ISP, which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high ethical and moral standards.
JP Beland aka Amqui
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at
least
sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we
believe
that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position for
a
paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is, but
the
opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving free access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not undermining the market position for a paid open internet is getting us closer to our vision.
JP Béland aka Amqui
I believe a nonstandard interpretation of net neutrality is being used
here.
It's intended - as originally posed - to prevent a service provider from
advantaging their own bundled services and disadvantage independent services via tariff structure.
What competitors for Wikipedia exist?
And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this provider in
some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to their or our benefit? What benefit do we get?
We get a wider readership, at least in the short term. Why else would we be doing this? Or was the question rhetorical, as the answer was rather obvious to me. If it was, I don't understand the point you were trying to make with it.
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On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 2:13 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote: <snip>
Again: with Wikipedia, we do not have particular mutually beneficial relationships which this would be encouraging, and the service provider isn't really in a position to damage a Wikipedia competitor by doing this, as far as I can see.
<snip>
If you can explain a manner in which the underlying monopoly / advantage issue IS a problem here, please point it out. If there is one that I do not see then that forms a valid reason to reconsider.
I'm willing to play devil's advocate here. Personally, I don't see Wikipedia Zero as bad or a serious threat to net neutrality, but I can certainly understand the argument that free access to Wikipedia might disadvantage other content providers and discourage people from paying for mobile internet.
To give a timely (if rather American) example, the Video Music Awards were last night. If I wanted to know what happened, I could visit the VMA site, or many news sites, or Wikipedia which was updated in near real time. In the framework of Wikipedia Zero, getting the info from Wikipedia is free which would rationally discourage traffic to other news sites or VMA's own site.
The same argument can be made for other reference websites (e.g. About.com, Encyclopedia Britannica Online). If they cost money to visit and we don't, then they are at a disadvantage when it comes to getting traffic.
Free information is incredibly powerful, and I think we all agree that it is generally a Good Thing. This is doubly true in many of the poor nations where Wikipedia Zero partnerships have been formed, as poverty can make data charges seem prohibitive. However, the presence of free information is also disruptive to for-profit information providers. For example, we all know how the internet has impacted newspaper sales, or how the internet (and sites like Wikipedia) ultimately led Encyclopedia Britannica to close their print operation. Free information is powerful, and sometimes that power will disrupt or destroy for-profit information providers.
Consider for a moment, how the story might sound if we changed the names a bit. Suppose National Monopoly Telecom partnered with Google to bring Maps and News to poor people with no data charges? Is that just as good? What if they had ads on the pages which were presented without data charges? What if it were Microsoft instead of Google? Etc. The end users get a free service, and presumably that service is useful, and quite possibly most users will be glad they have it. Still, it is true that Wikipedia Zero and similar programs do cause some content to have a privileged place in the marketplace over other content, and that will drive traffic to the free option and reduce traffic to competitors. Depending on your point of view, maybe that's not a big deal, but if you are a hardcore advocate of net neutrality then one might well argue that ISPs should treat all content equally and not have different rates for equivalent amounts of data coming from different sources. It is well-formed criticism of the Wikipedia Zero project. Personally, I don't think the principle of net neutrality should be so rigidly adhered to as to discourage the broad dissemination of knowledge among people who have historically lacked access to it, but I suppose some people might disagree.
-Robert Rohde
If customers would be signing up for access to the net, and if the ISP would charge differently whether they access Wikipedia or whether they access Facebook, yes, that would be a violation of net neutrality.
But in this case we are not talking about providing access to the net. We are talking about providing access to Wikipedia. That's like saying "printing out an article of Wikipedia and giving it to a student is a violation of net neutrality because we didn't print out the rest of the Web and gave it to them too".
I still think the question "does Wikipedia zero violate net neutrality" is simply a categorical error (i.e. it errs in the sense that the categories in the question do not match), and nothing I have seen convinced me otherwise so far.
P.S., and just a sidenote: Britannica did not loose most of its reach due to Wikipedia, but most of its business crumbled due to Encarta and cheap CD-ROM based encyclopedias. When Wikipedia appeared in 2001, Encyclopedias were already in a dismal state.
2013/8/27 Robert Rohde rarohde@gmail.com
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 2:13 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
<snip> > Again: with Wikipedia, we do not have particular mutually beneficial > relationships which this would be encouraging, and the service provider > isn't really in a position to damage a Wikipedia competitor by doing this, > as far as I can see. > <snip> > > If you can explain a manner in which the underlying monopoly / advantage > issue IS a problem here, please point it out. If there is one that I do > not see then that forms a valid reason to reconsider.
I'm willing to play devil's advocate here. Personally, I don't see Wikipedia Zero as bad or a serious threat to net neutrality, but I can certainly understand the argument that free access to Wikipedia might disadvantage other content providers and discourage people from paying for mobile internet.
To give a timely (if rather American) example, the Video Music Awards were last night. If I wanted to know what happened, I could visit the VMA site, or many news sites, or Wikipedia which was updated in near real time. In the framework of Wikipedia Zero, getting the info from Wikipedia is free which would rationally discourage traffic to other news sites or VMA's own site.
The same argument can be made for other reference websites (e.g. About.com, Encyclopedia Britannica Online). If they cost money to visit and we don't, then they are at a disadvantage when it comes to getting traffic.
Free information is incredibly powerful, and I think we all agree that it is generally a Good Thing. This is doubly true in many of the poor nations where Wikipedia Zero partnerships have been formed, as poverty can make data charges seem prohibitive. However, the presence of free information is also disruptive to for-profit information providers. For example, we all know how the internet has impacted newspaper sales, or how the internet (and sites like Wikipedia) ultimately led Encyclopedia Britannica to close their print operation. Free information is powerful, and sometimes that power will disrupt or destroy for-profit information providers.
Consider for a moment, how the story might sound if we changed the names a bit. Suppose National Monopoly Telecom partnered with Google to bring Maps and News to poor people with no data charges? Is that just as good? What if they had ads on the pages which were presented without data charges? What if it were Microsoft instead of Google? Etc. The end users get a free service, and presumably that service is useful, and quite possibly most users will be glad they have it. Still, it is true that Wikipedia Zero and similar programs do cause some content to have a privileged place in the marketplace over other content, and that will drive traffic to the free option and reduce traffic to competitors. Depending on your point of view, maybe that's not a big deal, but if you are a hardcore advocate of net neutrality then one might well argue that ISPs should treat all content equally and not have different rates for equivalent amounts of data coming from different sources. It is well-formed criticism of the Wikipedia Zero project. Personally, I don't think the principle of net neutrality should be so rigidly adhered to as to discourage the broad dissemination of knowledge among people who have historically lacked access to it, but I suppose some people might disagree.
-Robert Rohde
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Denny Vrandečić, 27/08/2013 11:39:
That's like saying "printing out an article of Wikipedia and giving it to a student is a violation of net neutrality because we didn't print out the rest of the Web and gave it to them too".
This analogy doesn't work very well because the "we" here is most likely not an ISP and it's only ISP being subject to net neutrality.
Nemo
2013/8/27 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com
Denny Vrandečić, 27/08/2013 11:39:
That's like saying
"printing out an article of Wikipedia and giving it to a student is a violation of net neutrality because we didn't print out the rest of the Web and gave it to them too".
This analogy doesn't work very well because the "we" here is most likely not an ISP and it's only ISP being subject to net neutrality.
Nemo
Exactly. Neither is Wikipedia Zero an ISP, which is why the analogy does work. :)
Denny
On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 1:32 PM, Denny Vrandečić < denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de> wrote:
2013/8/27 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com
Denny Vrandečić, 27/08/2013 11:39:
That's like saying
"printing out an article of Wikipedia and giving it to a student is a violation of net neutrality because we didn't print out the rest of the Web and gave it to them too".
This analogy doesn't work very well because the "we" here is most likely not an ISP and it's only ISP being subject to net neutrality.
Nemo
Exactly. Neither is Wikipedia Zero an ISP, which is why the analogy does work. :)
Denny
I'm rather amazed that I'm the one being called out by George Herbert for making "excessively legalistic rather than factually or morally based" remarks (which I find odd, and rather insulting at that. I don't think I made a legalistic argument anywhere, and indeed, law tends to be the last thing I consider in where we should stand on ethical issues). I find this reasoning to be rule lawyering. We're not the ISP violating net neutrality, no. It's the ISP's we actively work together with and strongly encourage.
I now find myself in the somewhat uncomfortable position where I defend the position where I say that this isn't a black and white issue, and net neutrality does play a role, which makes it appear as if I think we are doing horrible, horrible things to the world by providing Wikipedia Zero. For clarity, that is not at all how I feel about the issue.
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Denny Vrandečić, 27/08/2013 13:32:
Exactly. Neither is Wikipedia Zero an ISP, which is why the analogy does work. :)
Sure, but ISP conducting Wikipedia Zero programs are. :) WMF is just facilitating the activities being speculated about as potentially illegal in some countries, I don't think anyone here suggested that WMF is breaching the law.
The whole thread is rather speculative of course; perhaps an analogous question would be whether it would be appropriate for a WMF grant to fund an activity e.g. in France which would be illegal in Germany. WMF did and does force (some) entities in other countries to follow (some?) USA laws, out of moral or legal reasons. All this just to say that the question of the original poster should not be considered an attack...
Nemo
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 10:13 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.comwrote:
It was not rhetorical, but you missed the point.
Net neutrality is an issue because service providers (can / may / often do) become a local monopoly of sorts. Monopilies are not necessarily bad (how many water and natural gas line providers can you choose from? how many road networks?) but are generally felt to be bad if they enable the monopolist to leverage themselves into other markets.
Of course there is a desire to leverage the Foundation into other markets. Wikivoyage is one example, Wikidata is another. The latter in particular is envisaged to play a central role as a global information hub.
The other day, Jimmy Wales said, "We are a start-up in stealth mode."[1]
With regards to network neutrality, the problem is if the provider uses their network monopoly to encourage the customers to use their (or their preferred, with some sort of mutual advantage) search engine, email service, etc., or discourage use of an alternative streaming media service, and issues of the like.
How is this not happening when one service is free and the others are not? Wikipedia is well known (and quite highly regarded, rightly so) for providing up-to-the-minute coverage of breaking news. When something like the Japan earthquake happens, or someone like Michael Jackson dies, many people check Wikipedia to see the latest update. That means they do not go to, say, CNN. Wikipedia may *cite* CNN, but it inevitably takes away some of CNN's page views.
Again, IIRC, Jimbo proudly said at Wikimania that Wikipedia gets more page views than the world's top-20 or so newspapers together. And he suggested that he might like to set up a semi-crowdsourced journalism project to compete against traditional news outlets.
Again: with Wikipedia, we do not have particular mutually beneficial relationships which this would be encouraging, and the service provider isn't really in a position to damage a Wikipedia competitor by doing this, as far as I can see.
See above.
One can argue that even a free (to use, contribute, participate), functionally monopolized, public service organization could benefit somehow and the ISP could benefit somehow, and that the strict terms of the particular law in question might come into play.
However, from a moral stance, the underlying goal of network neutrality seems unharmed by this, in any realistic or reasonable manner. Your interpretation seems excessively legalistic rather than factually or morally based; while it may be that we should avoid even trivial legalistic issues, we do not as a project make special efforts to comply with 180+ countries laws (other than copyright issues, and "free" definitions for Commons, that I can see).
The question is whether monopolisation of information is desirable. I prefer pluralism. Monopolies sooner or later end up not being in the public's best interest.
If you can explain a manner in which the underlying monopoly / advantage
issue IS a problem here, please point it out. If there is one that I do not see then that forms a valid reason to reconsider.
Here is one that makes me uneasy: Wikimedia projects are particularly vulnerable to manipulation – look at how long Qworty was allowed to do what he did,[2] look at the plastic surgery (and likely sockpuppeting) case presently at AN/I,[3] the Arnie Draiman story,[4] the Klee Irwin[5] or Monsanto[6] articles, or indeed any of a good number of arbitration cases commenting on neutrality, BLP violations etc.
In light of that vulnerability, the idea of making crowdsourced Wikimedia projects stewards of the world's information, to the detriment of professionally published and edited news and reference sources, seems to have some obvious drawbacks. And the higher the stakes are, the more concerted efforts at manipulation will be. In Wikimedia's case, such efforts can be made anonymously.
News reporting and information providers have always been biased. But it is good to be able to read both The Guardian and The Telegraph. Monopolisation means that you get only one or the other. And while we know the biases of The Guardian or The Telegraph, and can compensate for them, with Wikimedia information the consumer never knows the bias of the person who last edited a page or data record.
Andreas
[1] http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/wikipedia-wants-you...
[2] http://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/revenge_ego_and_the_corruption_of_wikipedia/
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
[4] http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.530285
[5] http://wikipediocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Klee-Irwin.gif
[6] http://wikipediocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/monsanto.gif
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 11:04 AM, Martijn Hoekstra <
martijnhoekstra@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013 7:53 PM, "George William Herbert" < george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013, at 10:42 AM, JP Béland lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
"And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? "
As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries
in
every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state
by
the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After
that,
are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way more morally wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to
ISP,
which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high ethical and moral standards.
JP Beland aka Amqui
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at
least
sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we
believe
that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position
for
a
paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is,
but
the
opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
in
the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving free access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not undermining the market position for a paid open internet is getting
us
closer to our vision.
JP Béland aka Amqui
I believe a nonstandard interpretation of net neutrality is being used
here.
It's intended - as originally posed - to prevent a service provider
from
advantaging their own bundled services and disadvantage independent services via tariff structure.
What competitors for Wikipedia exist?
And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this provider
in
some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to
their
or our benefit? What benefit do we get?
We get a wider readership, at least in the short term. Why else would we
be
doing this? Or was the question rhetorical, as the answer was rather obvious to me. If it was, I don't understand the point you were trying to make with it.
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This is a huge question and problem, however:
Andreas:
The question is whether monopolisation of information is desirable. I prefer pluralism. Monopolies sooner or later end up not being in the public's best interest.
If you view Wikipedia / WMF projects getting very slightly preferred net access as the primary barrier to WMF / Wikipedia not edging towards an open information monopoly, I object.
The primary barrier is that nobody has proposed a more functional, feasible model and launched a project to implement that better model.
No matter what happens with network access, that does not change the unrelated entry barrier, which is at the conceptual level.
Us not taking advantage of network opportunities does not change that, it just degrades our ability to deliver to our existing mission.
If you feel that the WMF should do its job worse, to enable alternatives to flourish, I disagree.
On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 10:13 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.comwrote:
It was not rhetorical, but you missed the point.
Net neutrality is an issue because service providers (can / may / often
do)
become a local monopoly of sorts. Monopilies are not necessarily bad
(how
many water and natural gas line providers can you choose from? how many road networks?) but are generally felt to be bad if they enable the monopolist to leverage themselves into other markets.
Of course there is a desire to leverage the Foundation into other markets. Wikivoyage is one example, Wikidata is another. The latter in particular is envisaged to play a central role as a global information hub.
The other day, Jimmy Wales said, "We are a start-up in stealth mode."[1]
With regards to network neutrality, the problem is if the provider uses their network monopoly to encourage the customers to use their (or their preferred, with some sort of mutual advantage) search engine, email service, etc., or discourage use of an alternative streaming media
service,
and issues of the like.
How is this not happening when one service is free and the others are not? Wikipedia is well known (and quite highly regarded, rightly so) for providing up-to-the-minute coverage of breaking news. When something like the Japan earthquake happens, or someone like Michael Jackson dies, many people check Wikipedia to see the latest update. That means they do not go to, say, CNN. Wikipedia may *cite* CNN, but it inevitably takes away some of CNN's page views.
Again, IIRC, Jimbo proudly said at Wikimania that Wikipedia gets more page views than the world's top-20 or so newspapers together. And he suggested that he might like to set up a semi-crowdsourced journalism project to compete against traditional news outlets.
Again: with Wikipedia, we do not have particular mutually beneficial relationships which this would be encouraging, and the service provider isn't really in a position to damage a Wikipedia competitor by doing
this,
as far as I can see.
See above.
One can argue that even a free (to use, contribute, participate), functionally monopolized, public service organization could benefit
somehow
and the ISP could benefit somehow, and that the strict terms of the particular law in question might come into play.
However, from a moral stance, the underlying goal of network neutrality seems unharmed by this, in any realistic or reasonable manner. Your interpretation seems excessively legalistic rather than factually or morally based; while it may be that we should avoid even trivial
legalistic
issues, we do not as a project make special efforts to comply with 180+ countries laws (other than copyright issues, and "free" definitions for Commons, that I can see).
The question is whether monopolisation of information is desirable. I prefer pluralism. Monopolies sooner or later end up not being in the public's best interest.
If you can explain a manner in which the underlying monopoly / advantage
issue IS a problem here, please point it out. If there is one that I do not see then that forms a valid reason to reconsider.
Here is one that makes me uneasy: Wikimedia projects are particularly vulnerable to manipulation – look at how long Qworty was allowed to do what he did,[2] look at the plastic surgery (and likely sockpuppeting) case presently at AN/I,[3] the Arnie Draiman story,[4] the Klee Irwin[5] or Monsanto[6] articles, or indeed any of a good number of arbitration cases commenting on neutrality, BLP violations etc.
In light of that vulnerability, the idea of making crowdsourced Wikimedia projects stewards of the world's information, to the detriment of professionally published and edited news and reference sources, seems to have some obvious drawbacks. And the higher the stakes are, the more concerted efforts at manipulation will be. In Wikimedia's case, such efforts can be made anonymously.
News reporting and information providers have always been biased. But it is good to be able to read both The Guardian and The Telegraph. Monopolisation means that you get only one or the other. And while we know the biases of The Guardian or The Telegraph, and can compensate for them, with Wikimedia information the consumer never knows the bias of the person who last edited a page or data record.
Andreas
[1]
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/wikipedia-wants-you...
[2]
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/revenge_ego_and_the_corruption_of_wikipedia/
[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
[4] http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.530285
[5] http://wikipediocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Klee-Irwin.gif
[6] http://wikipediocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/monsanto.gif
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 11:04 AM, Martijn Hoekstra <
martijnhoekstra@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013 7:53 PM, "George William Herbert" < george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013, at 10:42 AM, JP Béland lebo.beland@gmail.com
wrote:
2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com
wrote:
> > "And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, > netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in > countries where the law is less developed? " > > As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all
countries
in
> every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current
state
by
> the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just > abstain from any > activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After
that,
> are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" > countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is
way
> more morally wrong in my opinion. > > That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to
ISP,
> which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it. > > But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep
high
> ethical and moral standards. > > JP Beland > aka Amqui
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at
least
sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not
offering
Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if
we
believe
that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position
for
a
paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is,
but
the
opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
in
the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving free access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not undermining the market position for a paid open internet is getting
us
closer to our vision.
JP Béland aka Amqui
I believe a nonstandard interpretation of net neutrality is being
used
here.
It's intended - as originally posed - to prevent a service provider
from
advantaging their own bundled services and disadvantage independent services via tariff structure.
What competitors for Wikipedia exist?
And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this
provider
in
some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to
their
or our benefit? What benefit do we get?
We get a wider readership, at least in the short term. Why else would
we
be
doing this? Or was the question rhetorical, as the answer was rather obvious to me. If it was, I don't understand the point you were trying
to
make with it.
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Unless WMF signed a contract of exclusivity with all major ISPs for Wikipedia to be the only "information" website to be distributed for free on their mobile networks, then I don't think there is an act of unfair competition from the part of WMF, nothing refrains others actors to set up the same thing with the ISPs. As George said, we are not to do something worse just for the sake of letting others catch up.
JP Béland
2013/8/27 George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
This is a huge question and problem, however:
Andreas:
The question is whether monopolisation of information is desirable. I prefer pluralism. Monopolies sooner or later end up not being in the public's best interest.
If you view Wikipedia / WMF projects getting very slightly preferred net access as the primary barrier to WMF / Wikipedia not edging towards an open information monopoly, I object.
The primary barrier is that nobody has proposed a more functional, feasible model and launched a project to implement that better model.
No matter what happens with network access, that does not change the unrelated entry barrier, which is at the conceptual level.
Us not taking advantage of network opportunities does not change that, it just degrades our ability to deliver to our existing mission.
If you feel that the WMF should do its job worse, to enable alternatives to flourish, I disagree.
On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 10:13 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.comwrote:
It was not rhetorical, but you missed the point.
Net neutrality is an issue because service providers (can / may / often
do)
become a local monopoly of sorts. Monopilies are not necessarily bad
(how
many water and natural gas line providers can you choose from? how
many
road networks?) but are generally felt to be bad if they enable the monopolist to leverage themselves into other markets.
Of course there is a desire to leverage the Foundation into other
markets.
Wikivoyage is one example, Wikidata is another. The latter in particular
is
envisaged to play a central role as a global information hub.
The other day, Jimmy Wales said, "We are a start-up in stealth mode."[1]
With regards to network neutrality, the problem is if the provider uses their network monopoly to encourage the customers to use their (or
their
preferred, with some sort of mutual advantage) search engine, email service, etc., or discourage use of an alternative streaming media
service,
and issues of the like.
How is this not happening when one service is free and the others are
not?
Wikipedia is well known (and quite highly regarded, rightly so) for providing up-to-the-minute coverage of breaking news. When something like the Japan earthquake happens, or someone like Michael Jackson dies, many people check Wikipedia to see the latest update. That means they do not
go
to, say, CNN. Wikipedia may *cite* CNN, but it inevitably takes away some of CNN's page views.
Again, IIRC, Jimbo proudly said at Wikimania that Wikipedia gets more
page
views than the world's top-20 or so newspapers together. And he suggested that he might like to set up a semi-crowdsourced journalism project to compete against traditional news outlets.
Again: with Wikipedia, we do not have particular mutually beneficial relationships which this would be encouraging, and the service provider isn't really in a position to damage a Wikipedia competitor by doing
this,
as far as I can see.
See above.
One can argue that even a free (to use, contribute, participate), functionally monopolized, public service organization could benefit
somehow
and the ISP could benefit somehow, and that the strict terms of the particular law in question might come into play.
However, from a moral stance, the underlying goal of network neutrality seems unharmed by this, in any realistic or reasonable manner. Your interpretation seems excessively legalistic rather than factually or morally based; while it may be that we should avoid even trivial
legalistic
issues, we do not as a project make special efforts to comply with 180+ countries laws (other than copyright issues, and "free" definitions for Commons, that I can see).
The question is whether monopolisation of information is desirable. I prefer pluralism. Monopolies sooner or later end up not being in the public's best interest.
If you can explain a manner in which the underlying monopoly / advantage
issue IS a problem here, please point it out. If there is one that I
do
not see then that forms a valid reason to reconsider.
Here is one that makes me uneasy: Wikimedia projects are particularly vulnerable to manipulation – look at how long Qworty was allowed to do
what
he did,[2] look at the plastic surgery (and likely sockpuppeting) case presently at AN/I,[3] the Arnie Draiman story,[4] the Klee Irwin[5] or Monsanto[6] articles, or indeed any of a good number of arbitration cases commenting on neutrality, BLP violations etc.
In light of that vulnerability, the idea of making crowdsourced Wikimedia projects stewards of the world's information, to the detriment of professionally published and edited news and reference sources, seems to have some obvious drawbacks. And the higher the stakes are, the more concerted efforts at manipulation will be. In Wikimedia's case, such efforts can be made anonymously.
News reporting and information providers have always been biased. But it
is
good to be able to read both The Guardian and The Telegraph.
Monopolisation
means that you get only one or the other. And while we know the biases of The Guardian or The Telegraph, and can compensate for them, with
Wikimedia
information the consumer never knows the bias of the person who last
edited
a page or data record.
Andreas
[1]
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/wikipedia-wants-you...
[2]
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/revenge_ego_and_the_corruption_of_wikipedia/
[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice...
[4] http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/.premium-1.530285
[5] http://wikipediocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Klee-Irwin.gif
[6] http://wikipediocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/monsanto.gif
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 11:04 AM, Martijn Hoekstra <
martijnhoekstra@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013 7:53 PM, "George William Herbert" < george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013, at 10:42 AM, JP Béland lebo.beland@gmail.com
wrote:
2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com: > On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com
wrote:
>> >> "And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, >> netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it
in
>> countries where the law is less developed? " >> >> As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all
countries
in
>> every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current
state
by
>> the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just >> abstain from any >> activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After
that,
>> are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" >> countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is
way
>> more morally wrong in my opinion. >> >> That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to
ISP,
>> which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to
it.
>> >> But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep
high
>> ethical and moral standards. >> >> JP Beland >> aka Amqui > > I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument,
at
least
> sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not
offering
> Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if
we
believe
> that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only
of
> Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market
position
for
a
> paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it
is,
but
the
> opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty
defensible.
> > -Martijn
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely
share
in
the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving
free
access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not undermining the market position for a paid open internet is
getting
us
closer to our vision.
JP Béland aka Amqui
I believe a nonstandard interpretation of net neutrality is being
used
here.
It's intended - as originally posed - to prevent a service provider
from
advantaging their own bundled services and disadvantage independent services via tariff structure.
What competitors for Wikipedia exist?
And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this
provider
in
some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to
their
or our benefit? What benefit do we get?
We get a wider readership, at least in the short term. Why else would
we
be
doing this? Or was the question rhetorical, as the answer was rather obvious to me. If it was, I don't understand the point you were
trying
to
make with it.
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On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 2:05 AM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
This is a huge question and problem, however:
Andreas:
The question is whether monopolisation of information is desirable. I prefer pluralism. Monopolies sooner or later end up not being in the public's best interest.
If you view Wikipedia / WMF projects getting very slightly preferred net access as the primary barrier to WMF / Wikipedia not edging towards an open information monopoly, I object.
The primary barrier is that nobody has proposed a more functional, feasible model and launched a project to implement that better model.
Good point. So the question you are asking is "How can we legalize Wikipedia Zero in all countries and avoid such a discussion in future?". What do you think of doing the following:
First, WMF should declare officially if it wants to follow net neutrality or not. This eases the future design of offerings. And it facilitates dealing with net neutral borderline countries, like China. "we like net neutrality, but we do think it does not apply for our own contents" might bear a reputational risk, and therefor impact donors money inflow, weaken negotiation position. Essential is that this does _not_ mean "promote net neutrality" - which at least i cannot read out of the vision or mission.
Second, find a way to legalize Wikipedia Zero. A simple proposal might be a contract in the lines of: "If one reads a Wikipedia article on the mobile device, then he shall get 3 MB free internet traffic for this day."
This would have the following advantages:
1. it is a real teaser to people to read wikipedia every day 2. there is no cost trap when clicking out of zero.wikipedia.org. 3. people can really participate in the movement, e.g. read/write emails, facebook groups, read blog.wikimedia.org. 4. mobile applications traffic is included 5. compared to today, the conditions would be simple 6. it is cheaper because no effort goes into separating our contents into zero.wp.org, m.wikipedia.org, etc.
Rupert
I guess the benefit to the Wikipedia Zero providers is that making Wikipedia available for free to their subscribers is a competitive advantage for them. That seems obvious enough, and it is acknowledged in the Wikimedia Foundation FAQ, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships:
---o0o---
*Q: Will these operators be putting Wikipedia in their advertising?*
A: Many of them will put out various communication materials (ranging from leaflets to billboards) about the program in order to promote it and encourage usage. Anytime the Wikipedia logo is used, the Wikimedia Foundation will have to give approval to ensure that the use is in line with the mission.
---o0o---
The 2009 deal with Orange (which I believe ran for three years) did involve advertising being placed on Wikipedia content, with part of the advertising revenue paid to the Wikimedia Foundation:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Orange_and_Wikimedia_anno...
I haven't seen any figures released on how much Orange paid the Foundation as part of the advertising deal.
At any rate, the new deal with Orange no longer includes that financial arrangement, according to the Mobile partnerships FAQ. See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships:
---o0o---
*Q: Is there money involved?*
A: No. There is no money involved with this partnership. Orange is not paying Wikimedia Foundation, and Wikimedia Foundation is not paying Orange.
---o0o---
I don't know whether Zero providers are allowed to place ads on the content, and if so, whether that gets them additional revenue.
The most obvious benefits of the arrangement to the Wikimedia Foundation are increased page views, an enhanced Alexa ranking, enhanced worldwide brand name recognition, and an even more dominant role in the global information market place.
Andreas
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 6:52 PM, George William Herbert < george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013, at 10:42 AM, JP Béland lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
"And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? "
As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries in every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state by the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After that, are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way more morally wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to ISP, which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high ethical and moral standards.
JP Beland aka Amqui
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at least sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we
believe
that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position for a paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is, but
the
opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving free access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not undermining the market position for a paid open internet is getting us closer to our vision.
JP Béland aka Amqui
I believe a nonstandard interpretation of net neutrality is being used here.
It's intended - as originally posed - to prevent a service provider from advantaging their own bundled services and disadvantage independent services via tariff structure.
What competitors for Wikipedia exist?
And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this provider in some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to their or our benefit? What benefit do we get?
Sent from Kangphone _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia movement and the WMF are not advocates for net neutrality, but for free access to knowledge for everybody. Sure we want to respect legal, moral and ethical standards while doing so, but the only arguments I`ve read here where Wikipedia Zero could be at the inverse of those standards is because it may give WMF an unfair advantage over its competitors. From the moral point of view a lot of people claimed to use in this thread, you have to ask yourself what brings more "good" in providing free access to Wikipedia or avoiding to give "ourselves" an unfair competitive advantage... Why not let WMF competitors decide about that, because I'm sure not many for-profit entreprises will do any actions against WMF because it facilitates, through non-financial partnerships with ISPs, free access to Wikipedia in countries where poverty is important.
JP Béland aka Amqui
2013/8/27, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com:
I guess the benefit to the Wikipedia Zero providers is that making Wikipedia available for free to their subscribers is a competitive advantage for them. That seems obvious enough, and it is acknowledged in the Wikimedia Foundation FAQ, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships:
---o0o---
*Q: Will these operators be putting Wikipedia in their advertising?*
A: Many of them will put out various communication materials (ranging from leaflets to billboards) about the program in order to promote it and encourage usage. Anytime the Wikipedia logo is used, the Wikimedia Foundation will have to give approval to ensure that the use is in line with the mission.
---o0o---
The 2009 deal with Orange (which I believe ran for three years) did involve advertising being placed on Wikipedia content, with part of the advertising revenue paid to the Wikimedia Foundation:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Orange_and_Wikimedia_anno...
I haven't seen any figures released on how much Orange paid the Foundation as part of the advertising deal.
At any rate, the new deal with Orange no longer includes that financial arrangement, according to the Mobile partnerships FAQ. See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships:
---o0o---
*Q: Is there money involved?*
A: No. There is no money involved with this partnership. Orange is not paying Wikimedia Foundation, and Wikimedia Foundation is not paying Orange.
---o0o---
I don't know whether Zero providers are allowed to place ads on the content, and if so, whether that gets them additional revenue.
The most obvious benefits of the arrangement to the Wikimedia Foundation are increased page views, an enhanced Alexa ranking, enhanced worldwide brand name recognition, and an even more dominant role in the global information market place.
Andreas
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 6:52 PM, George William Herbert < george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013, at 10:42 AM, JP Béland lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
"And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? "
As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries in every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state by the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After that, are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way more morally wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to ISP, which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high ethical and moral standards.
JP Beland aka Amqui
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at least sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we
believe
that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position for a paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is, but
the
opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving free access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not undermining the market position for a paid open internet is getting us closer to our vision.
JP Béland aka Amqui
I believe a nonstandard interpretation of net neutrality is being used here.
It's intended - as originally posed - to prevent a service provider from advantaging their own bundled services and disadvantage independent services via tariff structure.
What competitors for Wikipedia exist?
And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this provider in some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to their or our benefit? What benefit do we get?
Sent from Kangphone _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Andreas:
The most obvious benefits of the arrangement to the Wikimedia Foundation are increased page views, an enhanced Alexa ranking, enhanced worldwide brand name recognition, and an even more dominant role in the global information market place.
Is this not our organizaitonal goal being fulfilled?
On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 6:31 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
I guess the benefit to the Wikipedia Zero providers is that making Wikipedia available for free to their subscribers is a competitive advantage for them. That seems obvious enough, and it is acknowledged in the Wikimedia Foundation FAQ, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships:
---o0o---
*Q: Will these operators be putting Wikipedia in their advertising?*
A: Many of them will put out various communication materials (ranging from leaflets to billboards) about the program in order to promote it and encourage usage. Anytime the Wikipedia logo is used, the Wikimedia Foundation will have to give approval to ensure that the use is in line with the mission.
---o0o---
The 2009 deal with Orange (which I believe ran for three years) did involve advertising being placed on Wikipedia content, with part of the advertising revenue paid to the Wikimedia Foundation:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Orange_and_Wikimedia_anno...
I haven't seen any figures released on how much Orange paid the Foundation as part of the advertising deal.
At any rate, the new deal with Orange no longer includes that financial arrangement, according to the Mobile partnerships FAQ. See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships:
---o0o---
*Q: Is there money involved?*
A: No. There is no money involved with this partnership. Orange is not paying Wikimedia Foundation, and Wikimedia Foundation is not paying Orange.
---o0o---
I don't know whether Zero providers are allowed to place ads on the content, and if so, whether that gets them additional revenue.
The most obvious benefits of the arrangement to the Wikimedia Foundation are increased page views, an enhanced Alexa ranking, enhanced worldwide brand name recognition, and an even more dominant role in the global information market place.
Andreas
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 6:52 PM, George William Herbert < george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013, at 10:42 AM, JP Béland lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
"And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? "
As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries
in
every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state
by
the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After that, are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way more morally wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to ISP, which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high ethical and moral standards.
JP Beland aka Amqui
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at
least
sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we
believe
that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position for
a
paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is, but
the
opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving free access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not undermining the market position for a paid open internet is getting us closer to our vision.
JP Béland aka Amqui
I believe a nonstandard interpretation of net neutrality is being used here.
It's intended - as originally posed - to prevent a service provider from advantaging their own bundled services and disadvantage independent services via tariff structure.
What competitors for Wikipedia exist?
And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this provider in some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to
their
or our benefit? What benefit do we get?
Sent from Kangphone _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 9:17 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.comwrote:
Andreas:
The most obvious benefits of the arrangement to the Wikimedia Foundation are increased page views, an enhanced Alexa ranking, enhanced worldwide brand name recognition, and an even more dominant role in the global information market place.
Is this not our organizaitonal goal being fulfilled?
Well, you asked, below: [1]
---o0o---
And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this provider in some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to their or our benefit? What benefit do we get?
---o0o---
I was answering your question.
Andreas
[1] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2013-August/127746.html
On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 6:31 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
I guess the benefit to the Wikipedia Zero providers is that making Wikipedia available for free to their subscribers is a competitive advantage for them. That seems obvious enough, and it is acknowledged in the Wikimedia Foundation FAQ, http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships:
---o0o---
*Q: Will these operators be putting Wikipedia in their advertising?*
A: Many of them will put out various communication materials (ranging
from
leaflets to billboards) about the program in order to promote it and encourage usage. Anytime the Wikipedia logo is used, the Wikimedia Foundation will have to give approval to ensure that the use is in line with the mission.
---o0o---
The 2009 deal with Orange (which I believe ran for three years) did
involve
advertising being placed on Wikipedia content, with part of the
advertising
revenue paid to the Wikimedia Foundation:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Orange_and_Wikimedia_anno...
I haven't seen any figures released on how much Orange paid the
Foundation
as part of the advertising deal.
At any rate, the new deal with Orange no longer includes that financial arrangement, according to the Mobile partnerships FAQ. See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mobile_partnerships:
---o0o---
*Q: Is there money involved?*
A: No. There is no money involved with this partnership. Orange is not paying Wikimedia Foundation, and Wikimedia Foundation is not paying
Orange.
---o0o---
I don't know whether Zero providers are allowed to place ads on the content, and if so, whether that gets them additional revenue.
The most obvious benefits of the arrangement to the Wikimedia Foundation are increased page views, an enhanced Alexa ranking, enhanced worldwide brand name recognition, and an even more dominant role in the global information market place.
Andreas
On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 6:52 PM, George William Herbert < george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
On Aug 26, 2013, at 10:42 AM, JP Béland lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
2013/8/26, Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
On Aug 26, 2013 6:30 PM, "JP Béland" lebo.beland@gmail.com wrote:
"And if it is illegal or borderline according to, say, netherlands, swiss, or german law, is it appropriate to do it in countries where the law is less developed? "
As said Kevin, it is impossible to respect the law of all countries
in
every country (Wikipedia already fails at that in its current state
by
the way, with or without Wikipedia Zero). So no we cannot "just abstain from any activity which might be perceived as illegal somewhere". After
that,
are you suggesting we should apply the laws of some "developed" countries to all countries and just ignore the others, this is way more morally wrong in my opinion.
That being said, the law on net neutrality you cited applies to
ISP,
which Wikipedia Zero or the WMF isn't, so it doesn't apply to it.
But of course, we as a community and the WMF should still keep high ethical and moral standards.
JP Beland aka Amqui
I do think there is some merit in the net neutrality argument, at
least
sufficiently so to be open to discussion on whether or not offering Wikipedia Zero is a good thing. It comes down to the question if we
believe
that having a walled garden variety of internet consisting only of Wikipedia for free, and with that undermining the market position
for
a
paid, open internet is a net positive. I'm inclined to say it is,
but
the
opposite position, though counter-intuitive, is pretty defensible.
-Martijn
"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
in
the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision)
I agree with you that it is good to discuss about it. The real question we have to ask is what between Wikipedia Zero giving free access to Wikipedia or avoiding that for net neutrality and not undermining the market position for a paid open internet is getting
us
closer to our vision.
JP Béland aka Amqui
I believe a nonstandard interpretation of net neutrality is being used here.
It's intended - as originally posed - to prevent a service provider
from
advantaging their own bundled services and disadvantage independent services via tariff structure.
What competitors for Wikipedia exist?
And to the extent there are such, are we associated with this provider
in
some way that causes us to be their service in some preferred way to
their
or our benefit? What benefit do we get?
Sent from Kangphone _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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