[Foundation-l] One Wikipedia Per Person (regarding the distribution of and the ability to read Wikipedia)

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/5/31 Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org>:
> On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 10:38 PM, Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
>
>> I propose a cheap cellphone-sized device (OWPP) whose only purpose is to
>> read Wikipedia.
>
>
> That's probably both the wrong form (too small) and the wrong content (too
> flighty) for people permanently without access to the Internet (who
> presumably also are without access to television - otherwise why not beam
> Wikipedia through whatever network carries the television signal?).

Wikipedia over TV would never work. There isn't the bandwidth for it.
TV is a broadcast medium, that means you have to be constantly sending
everything anyone could want (or, at least, sending it fairly
frequently, like teletext does). There is no way that is ever going to
work for even a small portion of Wikipedia. You need to either give
people the whole lot in one go (as the suggestion here is) or have it
in a way they can request and article and promptly receive it (which
is what the web does).