
Wikipedia Zero - _pius
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero
======
itcmcgrath
I haven't looked at the details, but at initial glance - I love the direction.

While Wikipedia my not be the shining-light of data accuracy, it definitely
fits the bill for achieving good: "Perfect is the enemy of good" [1]

I believe removing barriers to knowledge access for everyone is a step in the
right direction. This tries to solve a single barrier. We still have a long
way to go.

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_is_the_enemy_of_good)

~~~
wrongc0ntinent
Yes. And the net neutrality article on wikipedia is pretty comprehensive,
maybe someone from sub-saharan Africa will come up with a better
implementation ;)

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tmcb
I can't help pondering about the implications this move could consequently
bring to the perceptions of net neutrality.

Not that I see this project as something inherently bad, it is just the
contrary, but it can give rise to some bad moral precedents.

~~~
livnev
Would you care to expand on these bad precedents that you are referring to?

~~~
kcorbitt
Well, presumably if carriers provide reduced- or no-cost access to Wikipedia
that's a direct violation of net neutrality, aka charging the same amount of
money for data moving through the pipes no matter what it is or who it comes
from.

Presumably the OP is concerned that this could degenerate from "breaking net
neutrality is fine as long as it favors sites we like" to "breaking net
neutrality is fine".

Note that I don't necessarily share the belief of the OP, but it's certainly a
point worth some real consideration.

~~~
_delirium
I do think there is some risk (though I'm not sure how much delta it adds to
the risk either way) that it plays into normalizing the proposals for tiering,
a specific kind of non-neutral net, where ISPs would give you access to
different levels of "internet content" based on your subscription level, like
cable TV packages for the internet. Example: a few sites are available in the
Free tier, a basic whitelisted set of sites (news, webmail, popular blogs,
etc.) are in the Lite tier, everything but high-bandwidth video and torrents
comes with the Standard tier, and the full internet is unlocked only by the
Premium tier. The free tier would be made up of "content partners" who are a
mixture of nonprofits like Wikipedia, and for-profits that pay for their
inclusion in the free tier (CNN, maybe).

~~~
6cxs2hd6
Which sounds like how cable TV works (at least in the US).

In the old days when city governments granted these monopolies to cable TV
companies, part of the deal was community access channels (Wayne's World!).
Even if these benefitted hardly anyone, they provided some moral cover and
justification.

If I were an old media guy, I'd see Wikimedia Zero as the germ of an idea --
maybe suggesting a way how to squeeze the genie back in the bottle and wrap
the internet in a cable TV model. And, hey, in the US most people's ISP is
also their cable company. So ... I don't see it as a definitely bad thing, but
I see the seeds of potential bad as well as good.

(In general, a lot of bad stuff flies under the flag of a good cause fighting
some other bad thing -- "because terrorism", "because children", "because
hyper-inflation", etc. Of course a lot of _good_ stuff also flies under good
flags. I'm just saying it's not obvious either way.)

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rsync
I want to love this idea. I want to love wikipedia.

But before I can do that, I need to _be able to use_ wikipedia. And by use, I
don't mean consume - I mean, be a full participant in a collective online
encyclopedia.

This is currently not possible.

Rather than explain or give examples, let me challenge you to start any new
article, or make any decent sized edit to any article, and let's assume for
the discussion that your facts, grammar, form, and adherence to wikipedia
style are _perfect_.

Come back and let us know how that goes.

~~~
throwaway092834
I've contributed casually and anonymously in the past without problem, but
it's been a while and I thought I'd take you up on your challenge.

But there's a complication: Wikipedia appears to be TOO COMPREHENSIVE. I can
no longer find a subject of general interest which isn't fleshed out to near
(or beyond) my level of knowledge. All my local landmarks are well
represented, as are the interesting areas I've travelled.

Do you have any ideas on an article Wikipedia needs? I'd be happy to spend
some of my own time on research and submit it anonymously.

~~~
DanBC
Here's a list of requested articles
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles)

Here are some stubs that might need expanding into proper articles
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Stubs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Stubs)

Here are articles that need more information
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_articles_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_articles_in_need_of_updating)

~~~
nl
It's been a few years, but I've started a number of articles on the "Requested
Articles" list.

Most are pretty obscure, but thankfully Google Books and Amazon "search
inside" gives access to information published before the web was born. There
are also some services where you can ask a librarian online to look something
up in a book for you. I've had some luck previously with
[http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian](http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian)

~~~
voltagex_
Hey, that's my "local" library!

Trove is also amazing, but fairly biased towards Australian history (for
obvious reasons).

[http://trove.nla.gov.au/](http://trove.nla.gov.au/)

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smn
We built the SMS & USSD connectivity for last week's launch in Kenya with
Airtel [1] using
[http://github.com/praekelt/vumi](http://github.com/praekelt/vumi). Happy to
answer any questions about this, USSD isn't used as much and as such largely
unknown outside of the majority world.

[1]: [http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/10/25/wikimedia-
foundatio...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/10/25/wikimedia-foundation-
teams-airtel-provide-offline-wikipedia-access-via-text-message/)

~~~
smn
We being Praekelt Foundation [1].

[1]: [http://www.praekeltfoundation.org](http://www.praekeltfoundation.org)

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TrainedMonkey
I think this is very important step. If this works, then we will have real
data to argue about providing free basic internet connectivity (Enough for
text for example) for entire world population.

This would allow for text only MOOC's accessible by everyone at the very
least.

~~~
001sky
I think you are right to point out the value proposition to a text-only
internet. But the implementation risks are probably more second-order and
worth considering.

The contra case is that someone will twist this into a model to charge <up>
for everything else. its better to create better public goods, than bargain
for special access to private assets, when the quid-pro-quo will surely be
some form of reciporacal monopoly rights (ie, special interest regulation).

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0x0
So a bit like [http://0.facebook.com](http://0.facebook.com) then :)

~~~
stigi
Or [http://zero.facebook.com](http://zero.facebook.com) :)

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jlgreco
> _" Some partner billing systems restrict the possibility of zero-rating all
> Wikipedia languages"_

What? Their billing systems can't handle a wildcard subdomain? Even so, it
isn't exactly difficult to enumerate all of the wikipedias. There are less
than 300 total, and only 121 with 1000+ articles.

~~~
hansjorg
I suspect this might be for political, not technical reasons.

~~~
jlgreco
That is my suspicion as well. It doesn't strike me as correct that technical
limitations prevent them from offering all languages in Saudi Arabia or
Russia, but the Democratic Replubic of Congo has it figured out. Going from
wikipedia, it seems like Saudi Arabia has far more developed telecom...

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_Saudi_Ara...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_Saudi_Arabia)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_the_Democ...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo)

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nakedrobot2
This is dangerous. The first reaction to such an endeavor is that it is GOOD.
Not just good, but GOOD :-)

But also, this is almost the textbook definition of "the thin end of the
wedge". I didn't really start thinking about this until I started reading the
comments here on HN (awesome!)

So wikipedia should be free. What else should be free? Who should pay? Someone
needs to pay. Who should? Let's start grouping content on one side or another.

This is a very, very bad idea.

The answer, of course, is that it should all be free. Internet access should
be a basic human right. It should be, it will be, it is only a matter of time.

But until it is, an endeavor like this is subverting net neutrality, disguised
as something good, and that is just a terrible idea.

~~~
chalst
I don't like the idea of privileging Wikipedia in this way. That said, the
question _Who should pay? Someone needs to pay. Who should?_ seems to miss the
point of the proposal: the mobile operators freely choose to subsidise this
service, perhaps in the hope that it encourages a group who largely don't
browse the web using their mobiles to do so.

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srollyson
I remember hearing about the WikiReader [1] a few years back and thinking it
would be great for this sort of use. It's basically a cheap handheld device
with an LCD display and a local Wikipedia text-only cache that runs off of AAA
batteries. Might be useful for delivering Wikipedia content to places where
there's no cell phone infrastructure.

[1]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiReader)

~~~
sanoli
Right now it's under 35 bucks shipped on Amazon:
[http://www.amazon.com/WikiReader-PANREADER-Pocket-
Wikipedia/...](http://www.amazon.com/WikiReader-PANREADER-Pocket-
Wikipedia/dp/B002N5521W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383913578&sr=8-1&keywords=pandigital+wikireader)

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nullc
So much for net neutrality. :(

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rohit6223
Great initiative.. I am glad to India as blue in the map :)

~~~
swatkat
Yes! Aircel provides Wikipedia Zero, here in India. Domains m.wikipedia.org or
zero.wikipedia.org are not billed.

[http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/07/25/aircel-partnership-
brin...](http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/07/25/aircel-partnership-brings-
wikipedia-zero-to-india/)

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e12e
Love this idea, but will it be plagued with problems stemming from the gratis-
ness of the initiative? Building a wikipediafs that stores (optionally
encrypted) binary data in uuencoded wikipedia articles?

Because read-only access won't be nearly as useful as allowing people to
commit. I suppose setting a reasonable limit to uploads might help a lot (say
10mb a day -- that's a lot of text, after all).

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stigi
Reminds me of [http://zero.facebook.com](http://zero.facebook.com)

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cupcake-unicorn
Doesn't Amazon's Whispernet already do this?

~~~
dublinben
Only if you own an Amazon Kindle device. This initiative is aimed at giving
every mobile user free access to the knowledge on Wikipedia.

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emilymainzer
This is even better and i like the concept.

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jmerton
I'm spare you the details, but some pages have 'Page Meisters" that you must
get by to add to the content.

