[WikiEN-l] Subscription idea

[Gwern Branwen]

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On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 5:56 PM, FT2  wrote:
> The following idea is based on a suggestion someone just came out with. A
> number of users were discussing BLPs and the point that verification of
> written sources and journals was not that easy in many cases.
>
>
>
> Many colleges or libraries use a subscription and their members or even
> members of the public can then read those references. I'm not an expert, but
> the following idea came to mind as worthwhile asking for thoughts on, if it
> has any merit.
>
>
>
> Suppose the Foundation subscribed to various key databases. A proxy (however
> one does it), gets set up that people can log in to, and then read those
> journals or databases. The Foundation sets a fee scale for access, in
> whatever way works, and any person who wants to subscribe, can do so. In
> some cases, subscription might be free. Anonymity, including anonymity of
> any payment, is easy (see below)
>
>
>
> * General and society benefits -- spread of knowledge; user and third party
> enjoyment at having access to information they might otherwise not have;
> less widely used subscription-only databases may be made more accessible
>
>
>
> * Wikipedia quality benefits -- users can purchase easy access to reliable
> sources that otherwise they may not conveniently have; users can verify
> citations and references that they might otherwise not be able to; articles
> will more regularly become exposed to updated research (if the idea takes
> off).
>
>
>
> * Other project benefits and possible features -- Financial (steady income
> stream from subscriptions); small trial ability; great scaleability if
> successful; inherently fairly safe in an income/expenditure sense.
>
>
>
> Payment can readily be made anonymous (the means to pay via anything from
> credit card to paypal to "internet gold" already exists) so that
> pseudonymous users can participate equally, a login account is issued with
> payment so no identification to WMF is needed, and given a login the login
> can be used from home, school, mobile, or work.
>
>
>
> One novel example of pricing differentiality might include, a lower rate (or
> free) for users who routinely add cited high quality content to the project,
> or who use/have used the sources directly to benefit articles. Perhaps a
> cheaper rate for users with at least one FA or two GAs, or a subjective
> decision for the year, for users who can show good cause in their
> contributions. Some ideas, but the principle is interesting.
>
>
>
> If there are practical issues, so be it, but I don't see an obvious problem,
> and it might be worth passing round for thoughts.
>
>
>
> FT2

Another service the Foundation could subscribe to: the Internet
Archive's on-demand-archiving service
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Internet_archive#Archive-It
. We lose many links to linkrot, and those links are often references
and in ever more instances, are unique. Many of them are already
covered in the publicly accessible portions of IA, but even when they
are, it is very rare for an editor to check.

And the benefits of this service are very clear. Given that we're
supposed to be friendly and have links with IA, perhaps WMF wouldn't
even have to pay for it.

- --
gwern
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