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Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

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Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#81

Post by vincvinc »

fny wrote: post #78
dannyw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedian here. We edit because we're contributing to free information. Free information means anyone can use it for any purpose, including commercially. I think this move is great. I'd rather have this money go to the foundation, than ParseAPIco.

I'm another Wikipedian and donor, and I'm pissed about this. Creating an enterprise product with enterprise funding means Wikimedia is directing energy and resources to serve enterprise alone. These APIs were likely demanded by larger tech firms, and I imagine they discussed with Wikimedia the possibility of creating a commercial service. Now they got what they wanted, it won't be a public resource, and it's design w…

> A wiser strategy would have been to create a separate private entity.

Unless I am mistaken, seems like they did do that?

"the foundation’s newly created subsidiary, Wikimedia LLC"

https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-finally-asking-big-tec...

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#83

Post by sunir »

ROARosen wrote: post #49
dannyw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedian here. We edit because we're contributing to free information. Free information means anyone can use it for any purpose, including commercially. I think this move is great. I'd rather have this money go to the foundation, than ParseAPIco.

> Free information means anyone can use it ... Of course anyone can use it commercially and for whichever reason they like. But by creating a walled 'premium' offering you are going against the premise of 'anyone can use it' since not anyone can use the commercial api. Surely if Google or anyone wants the api so badly they're willing to pay for it, they should fund it. Why does that mean it needs to be 'locked'?

What is the difference between a funder and a paying customer?

They are both users who are paying for the service.

The difference is that funders have political power over the project beyond the scope of their own use.

Customers are always better and more fair to everyone than funders.

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#84

Post by elect_engineer »

oefrha wrote: post #62
hkai wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The altruistic model seems to be doing not that well. The number of editors peaked in 2007 and has been going down since. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians#Number_o...

Have you ever looked at funding statistics? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fundraising_statisti... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

This is being discussed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_... New Developments

I am pretty sure that they would welcome comments from Hacker News users on that page.

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#85

Post by jessriedel »

oefrha wrote: post #65
jessriedel wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't quite follow your point. Yes, donations continue to grow. Are you trying to rebut him?

This thread (or rather, this whole topic) is more about funding/business model than anything else, yet gp points to the slight decline in the number of active editors that is quite easily explained by other factors (see other replies) as evidence that Wikipedia is “not doing that well” (cerntainly not financially, so in what way exactly and how is that relevant?). Now that’s something hard to follow.

The thread is about whether a for-profit service for Wikipedia is a good idea. The healthy finances show this is completely unnecessary for keeping the lights on, while the "slight" decline in editors (a huge drop relative to where it should be with continued exponential growth) shows that the health of the community is much more concerning. That suggests that the decision should be informed much more by its impact of community healthy than its impact on finances. The more Wikipedia becomes an organization monetizing the work of volunteers, with that money spent on cancerous overhead while the contributor tools languish for decades without meaningful improvement, the fewer people will want to volunteer.

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#86

Post by cush »

ROARosen wrote: post #67
cush wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that's not an option. Everyone should get the public tier. And if you tried to pull a lot of data, you'd get throttled.

Totally, and if a big company like Google does not want to be throttled or they feel a need for a more advanced api, they can donate to Wikimedia for the purpose of creating such an api which will be available to everyone publicly.

Yes exactly. Google should pay whatever would be required such that it would be free to everyone.

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#87

Post by ROARosen »

sunir wrote: post #83
ROARosen wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free information means anyone can use it ... Of course anyone can use it commercially and for whichever reason they like. But by creating a walled 'premium' offering you are going against the premise of 'anyone can use it' since not anyone can use the commercial api. Surely if Google or anyone wants the api so badly they're willing to pay for it, they should fund it. Why does that mean it needs to be 'locked'?

What is the difference between a funder and a paying customer? They are both users who are paying for the service. The difference is that funders have political power over the project beyond the scope of their own use. Customers are always better and more fair to everyone than funders.

A service that's available to the 'public' is called a 'public service' even though it is funded by 'funders'. But a service that's available only to 'customers' is by definition not a 'public' service.

Re: Introducing the Wikimedia Enterprise API

#88

Post by anaganisk »

ROARosen wrote: post #66
anaganisk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The new API is an opt-in product, meaning that everyone (including those companies) can continue to use the current publicly-available tools at no cost and no restriction. The ability to freely access the knowledge across all Wikimedia projects remains unaffected–it is core to our mission. Not sure what you have to worry about.

>Not sure what you have to worry about. >From op: It's just too often that a commercial offering just disincentives bettering the 'free' product. Instead of the public foundation focusing on bettering and modernizing the public option, they are -and will continue to be - putting their efforts to create a better api to be used solely for private purposes (albeit with good intentions). Sure, it's opt-in to use the 'bet…

They state better API, is just a way to scrape data easier think like a structured JSON, regular public don't scrape data they visit for info once in a while, some people use other tens of apps to export data offline. Wikipedia wants to charge some money from freeloading corporates so, instead of facing the backlash about scraping being paid, they chose to charge these mega corps in a different way to avoid the hassle of commercial and non commercial BS. If they don't provide a fancy API, no different from free ways, corporates would rather use the free stuff than pay for the API.
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