I agree with Gerard. The Wikimedia Foundation invested substantial money,
and substantial reputational capital, into Wikipedia Zero, for many years.
A sober analysis of the consequences of those decisions would be valuable
Jason Koebler wrote a fascinating and somewhat disturbing series of
articles for Vice, about unintended consequences of the program; not long
after, the program was shut down.
For a major, multi-year effort of one of the world's top web sites, which
is known to have had complex outcomes, it would be really worthwhile to
have solid, well-vetted research into what the consequences and lessons
were. I thought Koebler's take was fascinating, but it wasn't peer reviewed
analysis, and I'm not aware of anybody else who dug into things the way he
did, or any basis to confirm or challenge his conclusions.
If anyone knows of internal Wikimedia program evaluation, or of independent
research, it would be good to know about it.
-Pete
--
Pete Forsyth
User:Peteforsyth
On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 9:34 PM Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hoi,
Kiwix and off line Wikipedia did exist at the start of Wikipedia Zero. It
is great that you brought some to Africa but you do not scale and it is not
a study into the effects of what the effects are of terminating Wikipedia
Zero.
No idea what "Starlink" is but it is not a reality for a few more years..
It sounds like we have thrown all these kids under the bus but hey, we have
plan. A plan/action is having our own caches in Africa and providing edit
and read capabilities for all who care to use it... and then measure the
extend it helps us recover from our Wikipedia Zero public.
Thanks,
GerardM
On Tue, 26 Nov 2019 at 02:48, James Heilman <jmh649(a)gmail.com> wrote:
We have offline Wikipedia. I have shipped devices
to Kinshasa, and
they arrived :-)
Of course they do not at all address the need for two way communication.
I am hoping Starlink will help when it comes online in a few years.
James
On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 12:19 AM Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi,
The BBC shows how dramatically expensive internet is in Africa.. For in
my
> opinion local political reasons Wikipedia Zero has terminated. That is
ok
> up to a point; the point being that we
understand the consequences from
> this action.
>
> Given that our data is NOT local, people have to pay a premium. What
are
we
> going to do to compensate for expensive Wikipedia that replaced
Wikipedia
Zero? Did
we study the effects or are we not interested in the
consequences
of our actions?
Thanks,
GerardM
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-50516888
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