To me Josh's point in the other thread settles this argument. I can't presume to know better than the people this service is made for what is good for them. People in other cultures have values as well. They might be different than ours, but more importantly, they have to be pitted against constraints that are completely different than ours. It's perfectly normal that the result of the moral equation people have to solve can be different than ours. It's also logical for it to evolve over time, as the constraints change. Let people in the countries where Wikipedia Zero operates decide whether it fits their vision of the movement or not. I'm sure that if users in a given country find it contrary to their beliefs or what they think to be the movement's values, they'll campaign against it on their own accord.
On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 8:34 PM, Jens Best best.jens@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Nathan and everybody,
Last time I checked my mail (containing my repsonse to Gerard) wasn't published and as I sent it yesterday morning I'm suprised that it took that long to "arrive".
Also, I would like you to stop your wrong assumptions about "off-topic" - As Gerard made a statement to Wikipedia Zero my answer to him isn't "surely off topic". I didn't decide to discuss the pros/cons of WP0 in the Welcome-Mail to Kourosh. In my welcoming response I just pointed out to Kourosh that one of his new responsibilities (highlighted by Lila) is a big problem for the global community which cares about an open and free web, inculding several NGOs of the Global South who spoke out clearly against Wikipedia Zero e.g. at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2014 in Istanbul (where net neutrality was a main subject of discussion). As this subject was subsequentially discussed in the threat my answer to Gerard's input was not off-topic at all.
Right now I don't feel any open-mindedness towards even the possibilitiy that The Great WMF could have made a mistake by going to bed with the telecoms to get zero-rated. As long as there isn't even the slightest willingness to acknowledge the possibility that WP0 was a mistake it becomes more and more senseless to talk with official and inofficial representatives of the WMF-system.
Maybe WMF and with it Wikipedia has to learn the consequences of its mistakes the hard way. But the ignorance towards facts which was presented over the last months when it comes to the glorious Wikipedia Zero and the fact that it is a violation of core principle of the free and open web is enourmous and without any excuse for an organisation carrying that amount of responsibility when it comes to stand for an open web which made Wikipedia possible in the first.
Hopefully with Kourosh the organisation will get somebody who has the outside-world experience and the professional courage to stop mistakes like Wikipedia Zero. We'll see. Apart from that I rest my case, all the recurring participants in the ongoing discussion exchanged their arguments already. I don't see new faces in the discussion and therefore I'm actually not interested to repeat my arguments over and over.
Just, because I promised him, two main answer to James:
- Of course net neutrality has a monetary aspect. Read the
definition[1]: "…treat all data on the Internet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet equally, not discriminating or *charging differentially* by content, site, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication". If you have to pay different prices for different data it is a basic violation of net neutrality. net neutrality isn't about techy aspects, it is about power and structural equality in the web.
- Wikipedia Zero can't offer the promised grow because by definition it is
a *Walled Wikipedia*. WP0 will always be just a marketing tool for telecoms to lure new customers in and train them that different data has different price tag. Their teachings are: "When you wanna leave Wikipedia, wanna follow the links to really enrich your knowledge by using all the other free content in the web - you have to pay." So therefore Wikipedia Zero is not about the free knowledge of the world, it is a Wikipedia which has chosen the wrong side of the play about a free and open web for the self-involved purpose of being the one and only source for knowledge. Welcome to world of first-world-owned telecoms teaching their new Global South-customers an "internet" far away from what the internet was supposed to be.
cheers
Jens
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
PS: @Marc No Marc, no "bits of my message were accidentally elided". When I write in a mailinglist I, of course, express my opinion and my points of view, but your nit-picking and pseudo-kind cynical remarks additionally prove how biased the whole discussion is at the moment in the WMF-universe. Critics are not welcome. Message recieved, continue with your holy mission. Hail Wikipedia, the mother of all knowledge available to the poor!
2015-04-01 19:20 GMT+02:00 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
Jens - your reply to Gerard on the other thread (where it is surely off topic) was published a couple of hours ago.
On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Jens Best best.jens@gmail.com wrote:
Dear James,
your praising of WP0 surely deserves or even needs an appropiated
answer,
but as I can't see my answering mail to Gerard's input from yesterday published in this mailinglist so I will wait until this "moderated".
When I see that my email with the answer to Gerard is published in the mailinglist I will take the time to explain you why net neutrality is
more
than you suggest and why we need to be a little bit less starry-eyed
when
it comes to the reasons why telecoms are behaving sooo nice to
Wikipedia.
Also I will add some remarks about why a little bit more humbleness
from
the "we are the knowledge of the world"-fraction would be appropiated
in
the whole discussion.
best regards
Jens
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