[Foundation-l] getting Wikipedia to the 5.2 billion people who can't access it

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Wave in its reference implementation relies on HTML 5. This means that it
requires a modern browser. With a browser it is possible to access data that
is on a LAN or on the local computer. This would allow us to have
"Wikipedia" type content stored locally or on a LAN. One question is how
will resources will react when newer data becomes available, will it
synchronise? When a resource available to Wave *can *be updated, it makes no
difference if it on a system on a LAN or on the WAN / Internet when it is
the availability of data that is essential.

When you think of Wave as a replacement for e-mail it is easy to forget
about the other aspects of Wave. At its most basic it provides a platform
for data that can be approached with a browser.. This line of thought begs
the question, to what extend the Wave reference implementation will be able
to use gears for local data storage..
Thanks,
       GerardM

2009/5/31 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>

> 2009/5/31 Anthony <wikimail at inbox.org>:
> > If Waves works anything like email, then it will be possible to use it
> when
> > not directly connected to the Internet.  How's that for helping get
> > Wikipedia to people without Internet access?
>
> Not very. Waves, like email, should work for people with intermittent
> internet access, but it's pretty useless for people with no internet
> access.
>
> >> Wikipedia has already become a dominant information source for the 1.5
> >> >> billion people with Internet access thanks to Google.
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > How does being a dominant information source for people help the WMF
> >> achieve
> >> > its goals?
> >>
> >> I don't think being dominant helps in any way, but being an
> >> information source for people basically *is* the WMF's goal.
> >>
> >
> > The goal is for the information to get to the people.  Being the source
> is
> > only the means to that goal.
>
> Fair enough, but I think that's mostly a technicality. Information
> travels along a chain, wherever the WMF is in that chain you can
> probably call it a/the source.
>
> >> > Personally, I didn't even know the number was 5.2 billion.  Should I
> do
> >> this
> >> > further research myself, or can someone answer these questions for me?
> >>
> >> Wikipedia [1] tells me there are 1.58 billion internet users world
> >> wide. It also tells me [2] there are 6.78 billion people in the world.
> >> That leaves 5.20 billion non-internet users.
> >
> >
> > Ah.  :(  That's not very helpful...  What does it mean to be an "internet
> > user"?
>
> Don't know, I didn't look at the methodology of the statistics (rookie
> mistake, I know). Hang on... Ok, it looks like the data comes fro a
> variety of sources, so I doubt there is a common methodology. Take the
> statistics with a large pinch of salt!
>
> > While we can't directly help with things like getting
> >> people access to clean water, education is a very important part of
> >> any long term scheme to get people out of poverty, and we can
> >> certainly help there.
> >
> >
> > I'd say education is lower on the list than most people think, unless you
> > mean education as a means to get the hell out of the place you're living
> in.
>
> It depends if you are thinking long term or short term. Short term,
> education is pretty useless, but long term it is extremely important.
> I don't think getting people out of poverty by moving them is a
> sustainable strategy, you need to make the poor villages wealthier.
> That means enabling them to move beyond subsistence living, which
> education is a key part of.
>
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