-------- Original-Nachricht -------- Datum: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 06:13:18 -0500 Von: Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> Who is in defence of Google? Wikifoundation? The problem is, Jimmy is one of the founders of wikipedia, has nothing to do with wikiseek; and wikiasari is a concept supported by a lot of people. But: If wikifoundation makes a peerpedia-search, this means that there are several conflicts. Is wikiasari more in solidarity to wikiseek, because they both are for-profit ads-projects? or more in solidarity to peerpedia, to support the core competencies of the foundation? Wikifoundation need the courage, to steal Jimmies Idea to make it (a search project) really open with p2p and without ads. Ok, this is not about one person and I do not want to annoy anyone, so let´s talk about the peerpedia project of the foundation here on this list. Wikiasari is a different project on a different list. This simple sentence, said by Jim originally, means foe the rest of the foundation members, to have the courage, to first develop a similar project and split the development. This must be the rest of the foundation board members aware of. Acting like wikiseek and play a card against the wikisariproject. And this card here was suggested as a peerpedia-search, which means (as the url was announced with a concept) to set up several yacy.net servers to index the web p2p. (Or: Jim has to be asked, if he is agreeing to make wikiasari a kind of a peerpedia project and if we are pulling the same goals. He still has not announced, if nutch or yacy is on the three servers and/or if there is a cooperation with the foundation, last I guess not, but if this is clear, this means we need couraged people to do the same from the foundation side but only p2p with the community). I wonder, why the members here on the list doubt the core cometencies or Mission of the foundation, if the peerpedia-search project is in accordance. Here is the mission again: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement you see, several stars fit the project and social software is nutch not at all, it is yacy, this is why I recomment to ask Jim to join the peerpedia idea with his large knowledge and history experience. We could wook out a proposal (which jim announced the day before his disney journey on anotehr list, but still has not published) together, here is the peerpedia "blanket" for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_P2-search_peerpedia http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement The general purpose and objectives of the Foundation shall be the following: Wikimedia Foundation is dedicated to the development and maintenance of online *free*, *open content* encyclopedias, collections of quotations, textbooks *and other collections of documents*, *information*, and other informational *databases* in *all* the languages of the world that will be distributed free of charge to the public under a free documentation license such as the Free Documentation License written by the Free Software Foundation Inc. at http://www.fsf.org or similar licensing scheme, see http://www.wikimedia.org. The goals of the foundation are to *encourage* the further growth and development of *open content*, *****social software**** WikiWiki-based projects (see http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki) and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge. In addition to managing the already developed multilingual general encyclopedia and almanac named Wikipedia, (http://www.wikipedia.org) there is a multi-language dictionary and thesaurus named Wiktionary, an encyclopedia of quotations named Wikiquote, a collection of e-book resources aimed specifically toward students (such as textbooks and annotated public domain books) named Wikibooks and a collection of source works called Wikisource; other projects are envisioned like **peerpedia** - the open source search-engine yacy.net community in a p2p style. The Foundation also manages the operations of the largely dormant Nupedia project (which is not a wiki but is open content). >>>>>>>>> BTW: we discuss here only in a free brainstorming, and indeed the leader of foundation and the leader of wikia should meet at a round tabel and discuss, if a collaboration is possible, and if the foundation is behind the p2p idea, which several times was stated as the only way to have 1 Mio google servers in defence. If both leaders or the board does not agree, the question is open, if the foundation is willing to start and found a yacy-wikipedia-indexing serverfarm project with several servers. Ok, let´s say each year we add 2 servers. Is this too much? Yacysearch.com has done this in one weel with 7 servers. Kind regards. -- Der GMX SmartSurfer hilft bis zu 70% Ihrer Onlinekosten zu sparen! Ideal für Modem und ISDN: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/smartsurfer

Anthony schreef: I do not "blame" Google for that, I cherish Google for what it did for us. When Citizendium becomes "the next great thing", we will have ourselves to blame for it. I believe in the way /we /do our thing. I do not believe that Citizendium will be successful. At the same time, I give them the benefit of the doubt. I do not understand your reference to STDs. I want to learn more about this as I have an interest in those.. When Wikipedia and Citizendium have more or less the same data, there is no point in having both with the same relevance, just moving it down to number two does therefore not make sense. There is every reason to acknowledge when you benefit from the business practices of a friendly organisation. The absolute minimum that this realisation does is to allow you to acknowledge what it is that makes us a success. When we are smart it means we maintain friendly relations with those organisations that enable our success. Google fits that bill. Microsoft does not appreciate Wikipedia for what it does and as a consequence suffers in its appreciation. I do not touch Microsoft's search engine with a barge pole because of their bias. It is also something that enables the argument why Microsoft is "evil". If you want to improve on what Google does, please do. It does not make sense to decry your wish for an alternative where there is none. Google has been a boon to us. In my value system it is good to acknowledge this. I do not begrudge them being one of the most successful companies at this moment in time. Do better than Google and you may make a difference, but I am sure that Google is a moving target. Thanks, GerardM

Anthony schreef: Citizendium can only be considered "Free knowledge" when it is indeed Free knowledge. You mention that they may use the CC-by-ND license. Not only is that license incompatible with the GFDL, being more restrictive, it will prevent them from using the Wikipedia content as its source. This is likely to brake the back of their project as I am sure that a sufficient large group of people will create a class action that Citizendium cannot win. Here the law makes all the difference and prevent CZ from using the Wikipedia content. The fact that anyone uses a Microsoft OS makes no difference to the quality of their search engine. You can improve on Microsoft by not choosing their product as the basis of your entry to the computerised world. You can have a BSD, Apple, Linux desktop instead. There is anecdotal evidence that you are SO wrong. Thanks, GerardM

On 1/19/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote: The whole question of how does an enlightened, open information society engage with a closed, top-down one in which information is controlled by a somewhat hostile dictatorial government is both interesting and the subject of much hand-wringing and hyperbole. 1980s and 90s assumptions were that governments would ultimately be unable to balance in the middle, and information would either flow nearly completely freely, or not at all. China has shown that there is a middle ground that their government can balance in. The mere existence of a viable middle ground is a challenge for both the theory and practice of open information, as conceived in the 1990s by the "Open *" movements. A lot of "Open *" zealots are trying hard to put their head in the sand and refuse to reopen the fundamental ethical issues in light of an apparent paradigm failure. A lot of companies staffed and led by "Open *" people who have gotten somewhat more practical and pragmatic are engaging with China, in ways which are to some greater or lesser extent annoying to "Open *" zealots. However, with the terms of engagement being "Play ball, or don't play at all", it's not clear that the ultimate ethics and goals of the "Open *" movement aren't better served by playing ball for the moment and keeping the unwanted but functional middle ground's ultimate demise as a goal in our hearts. It's also not clear that playing ball IS ultimately the right answer - the question has not been adequately addressed. In most venues, it's not even being brought up or phrased properly. Not having met the "core" WP people in person or attended the conferences yet, I don't know the degree to which that discussion happens elsewhere, but on the mailing lists so far it's not being addressed here much better than anywhere else. If you fault Google for their policy, and Yahoo for theirs, that's fine... but for all of our sakes, don't just go around harshing on them on the Wikipedia foundation list. If you are going to bring up the question, bring it up in the context of what's really wrong here (nobody understands the "right" thing to do about it) and how WP can participate in fixing that (figuring out the right thing). This is not the place for merely bagging on the corporations. It's one of many places where real serious discussions could start on what to do next. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

On 1/19/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote: You're giving several people the impression that you are trying to bag on several corporations. It's not praising them to note that they're an integral part of how the Internet's typical user experience works, and how Wikipedia is being used by typical users. -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com

Anthony schreef: Hoi, The open content movement is not living in a vacuum. When you insists on everybody to behave like you would see the world and be overly negative about everyone that is not like that, you must live in a frustrating world. Google did and does a world of good. It is not an open source organisation but it has played a crucial role in making us what we are. It has contributed significantly to Open Source projects. One of their best policies is that they create their software in such a way that you can move away from Google if you so choose. If you want to reduce it to only "they did it for their own reason" fine, but you do not convince me. In the mean time, the WMF has a problem that is increasingly serious, we got a million and a bit out of our fund-raiser where we need a million and a half. Where we could use a million and one more. We predict that our growth is exponential. In my mind the biggest problem we have is a culture where other organisations, particular organisations that earn money are trash talked. Whoop-de-do that is just like it is baby; freedom of expression. And yes, but it is utterly irresponsible. In the case of Google, they made us and continue to make us as big as we are, and your aversion to selling ads does not detract one iota from that. They did not have to do such a thing. Were they in the pocket of the big content owners, they would not have done so and consequently we would not have been the big relevant movement that is changing the way people look at Open Content and licensing in the first place. I started this thread because to me it is essential to understand who our friends are. It is important to understand with whom we share values. It is important to understand for whom Open Content and Open Source can become more relevant and why. By engaging our friends and our could be friends, it is possible to increase the relevancy of what we do. We increase the potential for the WMF to realise its aims. It is sad that some choose to have such a narrow negative view on the world that they destroy opportunities. It is a fact of life that they are part of our community and it is for that reason that I feel it is necessary to repeat; Google has been good to us. Thanks, GerardM

On 1/20/07, Peter van Londen <londenp(a)gmail.com> wrote: If you know anything about me you'd know I'm not at all hostile to commerce. There's nothing at all wrong with commerce. I just don't think commerce is something to be praised. I also think it's a joke to say that Google is a proponent of open content. Google Video: DRM. Google Book Search: DRM. The list of Google's adoption of policies which go completely against open content goes on and on. Maybe they donate to some open source projects. In fact, if you want to say that "Google did a world of good to the Open" SOURCE movement, I won't object. But the original statement that touched off my objection was talking about Open Content, not Open Source. Anthony

On 1/20/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: I don't think you're right that 50% of Wikipedia traffic comes as a result of Google searches ([[Wikipedia:Search_engine_statistics]] says it's 33%). Nor do I believe that none of that traffic would have come to Wikipedia had Google not existed. Nor do I believe that Google should be praised simply for giving Wikipedia a fair ranking. Nor do I believe that traffic is the sole goal. Don't take my word for it. Read up on what Brewster Kahle from Internet Archive had to say about Google Book Search, or find out more about the Open Content Alliance he co-founded largely to respond to it. "They don't want the books to appear in anyone else's search engine but their own, which is a little peculiar for a company that says its mission is to make information universally accessible," Kahle said. "Google, for instance, is digitizing some great libraries. But their contracts (which were actually secret contracts with libraries – which is bizarre, but anyway, they were secret until they got sued out of them by some governments) are under such restrictions that they're pretty useless... the copies that go back to the libraries. Pretty much Google is trying to set themselves up as the only place to get to these materials; the only library; the only access. The idea of having only one company control the library of human knowledge is a nightmare. I mean this is 1984 – a book about how bad the world would be if this really came about, if a few governments' control and corporations' control on information goes too far." I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to choose sides on this one, and I'm going with Kahle, not with Google.

On 1/21/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote: When we consider them a corporation trying to make a buck, and not a friend or an enemy, we are best positioned to engage in that conversation. By all means this world we live in rewards those who form symbiotic relationships. If I ever referred to Google as the enemy, then I admit I was wrong for that. I prefer to see corporations as corporations, entities that are bound by law not to have friends or enemies but only to consider what is in the best interest of their shareholders in terms of making the most money (in terms of for-profit US corporations, anyway). By all means I think we should recognize that corporations do change their approaches. But that has nothing to do with them being a friend and everything to do with it being in the best interests of both of us to do, whatever. I'd love to see Google do a complete 180 on its relationship with the open content movement. Do you see any way they could do that without destroying their entire business? For now I think it's enough that they don't actively try to harm Wikipedia and other open content sites by biasing their search results against them. So thank you Google. Thanks for not destroying us. We love you. Anthony

Gerard Meijssen wrote: While I understand that we must find accomodation with Google, it would be naive to give them our complete trust. We don't know if their deals with the libraries are exclusive ones that would prevent anyone else from doing the same thing. For now, database protection laws are limited to Eueope, but if they were to be adopted in the United States they would be give a tremendous advantage to Google which could then develop a user pay system for which only they are capable of providing convenient access. The major future problems will not be with the publishers who are currently in court with Google. Control of the old material whose copyright has already expired will make for a far more important battle. For now I don't think we have the funding or organization to challenge them, certainly not by ourselves. Whether that level of collaboration can coallesce among a wide range of open access supporters is unclear. Ec

Gerard Meijssen wrote: As critical as I may be of capitalism I have to agree with the main thrust of Gerard's comments. Oddly enough these comments are closely related to my criticisms of those who wanted to import all of Northwestern University's database of African maps just because we could. One can never expect that enforceable rules can be written to deal with situation. It is more often a matter of having the vision of a wider view. We have already done very well in integrating the efforts of editors with diametrically opposed and severely conflicting opinions into articles that progressively approach NPOV. There is still much more to do, but at least we are heading in the right direction. Having advanced on this front internally, we also need to do so externally. Wikipedia is a part of an external community just as much as its editors are a part of an internal community. Open Access will bring about its own collapse unless the members of that club learn to work collaboratively. As long as some members of the club insist on maximizing their profits to extreme levels without regard to the effects of such a strategy, and some others remain dedicated to having everything free-as-in-beer confrontation is inevitable. Henry Ford had enough vision to see that if the workers could not buy his cars his business would not be profitable. We also need to be ever conscious that we are in uncharted business territory. Wikipedia may very well be a top-ten website, but it is also unique in being the only non-profit in that club. That's an awesome place. There are many people to whom the notion that a nonprofit could do so well is incomprehensible. We can't be throwing stones at those who could be our major collaborators, and we need to allow room for relatively smaller players to do their thing. Ec

On 1/20/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Can't do much worse, there are currently only about 10 active contributors to Citizendium. It seems to me they've already surpassed Nupedia. I'm not sure why you'd make the comparison, though. Wikipedia and Nupedia *both* started from scratch (Rambot and FOLDOC aside, anyway). Personally I'm a big supporter of them starting from scratch. It won't make things easy, but it's the only way I can see the quality of their articles truly surpassing that of Wikipedia. If an article can be improved incrementally, then Wikipedia is in the best position to do that, not Citizendium. Where I think CZ is going wrong is that they are making this policy too late and too abruptly. Mediawiki is not designed for the kind of writing that facilitates producing a really high quality article. There's a talk page attached to each article, but that's it. Nowhere to store notes from reading materials, nowhere to produce an outline, nowhere to store detailed information about your sources. Sure, you can put this information on the talk page, or you could put it into the article itself, probably using complicated templates that are only intuitive to the seasoned pros, but this isn't very convenient, and such a process hasn't really been adopted anyway. I suppose also you could put this information somewhere outside the wiki, but that's going to cause a serious setback to the ability to collaborate. None of this was talked about at CZ. Instead, Larry announced from very early on that being a fork was the best way to go, and so all the plans from there on out about how to proceed assumed that was how it was going to be. Maybe taking about CZ in this context is beyond the scope of this mailing list. I don't really think so, though, because watching CZ make mistakes and learn new things is a good exercise. Anthony

Tim 'avatar' Bartel schreef: Hoi, All search engines have metrics and these are adjusted to perform in the way that is considered best. Wikipedia has demonstrated in most languages great quality and this made sure that Google has valued us. When Citizendium proves that it does a better job, they deserve to be rewarded by a higher Google rating than us. Nothing special, nothing sinister. In contrast it is well known that Microsoft has downgraded Wikipedia because we compete with one of their products. It is this type of bias that makes their search offering unpalatable and why I advise against its use. Thanks, GerardM