Hoi,
To be perfectly honest, the biggest gift of Google is to recognise
Wikipedia as significant. I like to think that it is because of the
algorithms they use and even when it is not it is what makes Wikipedia
significant. When they value us not only through their algorithms and give
us money because we add value to their search results, there is something
to find, I welcome their money as long as it fits with our stated
principles.
Google did invest in Wikidata and It became a vital tool for Wikipedia
through its interwiki links. Their thoughts on why they did this is not
that relevant to me. What they did is end their superior tool and they
spend money to end their product gracefully.
My thoughts on this are simple. The relation with Google is symbiotic. We
both do better because of the other. Those that do not see this are not
dismissed because they are quacks but because they do not see what is in
front of them; they are imho irrelevant.
The suggestion that there might be something is great. The suggestion is to
waste even more time. Time we could spend on researching how we can make a
better mouse trap out of Wikipedia. My conclusion is that the people that
waste their time politicking are in reality satisfying their own curiosity
and not improving what we do or how we do it.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 16 January 2016 at 17:31, MZMcBride <z...@mzmcbride.com> wrote:
> James Alexander wrote:
> >I think everyone knows there are a lot of legitimate concerns to be
> >concerned about and certainly Arnnon's actions at Google are legitimate
> >for question however this whole "google is controlling the board/wmf"
> >line of thought is turning into a huge and enormous conspiracy theory and
> >what seems to be a giant school of red herring
> ><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring>. We haven't quite yet gotten
> >to "Frieda has 6 letters in her name and you know what else has 6 letters
> >in it's name? GOOGLE!" but we're getting damn close. If anything the only
> >concern about google I've heard within the actual WMF is that the
> >"Knowledge Engine" was a plan to 'compete' against google for traffic (for
> >the record my personal opinion is that would be a waste of money on
> >something we could never succeed if true but ALSO that it isn't actually
> >true at all at this point).
>
> A few years ago, the Wikimedia Foundation switched over to the Google Apps
> platform, which means that most e-mail sent on the wikimedia.org domain is
> now hosted by Google. Along with e-mail services, Google Apps also
> includes Google Sheets, Google Docs, etc., which the Wikimedia Foundation
> now regularly makes use of. The Wikimedia Foundation is quite literally
> pumping a large portion of its data directly into Google's servers. This
> applies to Wikimedia Foundation staff, contractors, and Board members.
>
> About a year ago, PiRSquared17 began documenting the relationship between
> Wikimedia and Google: <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Google>. This page
> needs additional expansion, but it already mentions the millions of
> dollars that Google has directly donated to the Wikimedia Foundation and
> related organizations. (It's not quite clear how Google funded Wikidata,
> possibly via Wikimedia Deutschland.)
>
> Before you try to dismiss the people with concerns about the relationship
> between Wikimedia and Google as conspiracy theorists and quacks, perhaps
> we should first have a full accounting of the tangled web that's been
> woven. My suspicion is that if you or others put in the time to thoroughly
> document the connection between the two entities, you'd miraculously find
> more than a single concern about a failed project, as your reply suggested.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
