Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-06-26/News from the WMF

News from the WMF

Wikimedia Enterprise signs first deals

This article was first published on June 21, 2022 in Wikimedia Foundation News with the title Wikimedia Enterprise announces Google and Internet Archive as its first customers; allows new customers to self sign-up for free trials, CC-BY-SA 3.0

Wikimedia Enterprise, a first-of-its-kind commercial product designed for companies that reuse and source Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects at a high volume, today announced its first customers: multinational technology company Google and nonprofit digital library Internet Archive. Wikimedia Enterprise was recently launched by the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, as an opt-in product. Starting today, it also offers a free trial account to new users who can self sign-up to better assess their needs with the product.

As Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects continue to grow, knowledge from Wikimedia sites is increasingly being used to power other websites and products. Wikimedia Enterprise was designed to make it easier for these entities to package and share Wikimedia content at scale in ways that best suit their needs: from an educational company looking to integrate a wide variety of verified facts into their online curricula, to an artificial intelligence startup that needs access to a vast set of accurate data in order to train their systems. Wikimedia Enterprise provides a feed of real-time content updates on Wikimedia projects, guaranteed uptime, and other system requirements that extend beyond what is freely available in publicly-available APIs and data dumps.

"Wikimedia Enterprise is designed to meet a variety of content reuse and sourcing needs, and our first two customers are a key example of this. Google and Internet Archive leverage Wikimedia content in very distinct ways, whether it’s to help power a portion of knowledge panel results or preserve citations on Wikipedia," said Lane Becker, Senior Director of Earned Revenue at the Wikimedia Foundation. "We’re thrilled to be working with them both as our longtime partners, and their insights have been critical to build a compelling product that will be useful for many different kinds of organizations."

Organizations and companies of any size can access Wikimedia Enterprise offerings with dedicated customer-support and Service Level Agreements, at a variable price based on their volume of use. Interested companies can now sign up on the website for a free trial account which offers 10,000 on-demand requests and unlimited access to a 30-day Snapshot.

Google and the Wikimedia Foundation have worked together on a number of projects and initiatives to enhance knowledge distribution to the world. Content from Wikimedia projects helps power some of Google’s features, including being one of several data sources that show up in its knowledge panels. Wikimedia Enterprise will help make the content sourcing process more efficient. Tim Palmer, Managing Director, Search Partnerships at Google said, "Wikipedia is a unique and valuable resource, created freely for the world by its dedicated volunteer community. We have long supported the Wikimedia Foundation in pursuit of our shared goals of expanding knowledge and information access for people everywhere. We look forward to deepening our partnership with Wikimedia Enterprise, further investing in the long-term sustainability of the foundation and the knowledge ecosystem it continues to build."

Internet Archive is a long-standing partner to the Wikimedia Foundation and the broader free knowledge movement. Their product, the Wayback Machine, has been used to fix more than 9 million broken links on Wikipedia. Wikimedia Enterprise is provided free of cost to the nonprofit to further support their mission to digitize knowledge sources. Mark Graham, Director of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine shared, "The Wikimedia Foundation and the Internet Archive are long-term partners in the mission to provide universal and free access to knowledge. By drawing from a real time feed of newly-added links and references in Wikipedia sites – in all its languages, we can now archive more of the Web more quickly and reliably."

Wikimedia Enterprise is an opt-in, commercial product. Within a year of its commercial launch, it is covering its current operating costs and with a growing list of users exploring the product. All Wikimedia projects, including the suite of publicly-available datasets, tools, and APIs the Wikimedia Foundation offers will continue to be available for free use to all users.

The creation of Wikimedia Enterprise arose, in part, from the recent Movement Strategy – the global, collaborative strategy process to direct Wikipedia’s future by the year 2030 devised side-by-side with movement volunteers. By making Wikimedia content easier to discover, find, and share, the product speaks to the two key pillars of the 2030 strategy recommendations: advancing knowledge equity and knowledge as a service.

Interested companies are encouraged to visit the Wikimedia Enterprise website for more information on the product offering and features, as well as to sign up for their free account.

For more information on Wikimedia Enterprise:

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26 June 2022 (all comments)

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I am excited for the inevitable future in which we have no visitors because Google siphoned them off to their Knowledge Graph that nobody understands is from Wikipedia while Amazon/Apple/etc reads our stuff with no vocal attribution. It will be even better when we have no editors who legitimately care about our content, as those that take pride in what they have created realize nobody has ever heard of what they do. The point in time where Abstract Wikipedia powers knowledge graphs for much of South Asia's native languages but has 30% brand awareness or less will be shocking. If I wanted to work as a Google contractor I would join the Fellowship of Friends and get paid for my effort. [1] Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 00:25, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

+1.

Note that this issue of the Signpost has more on Wikimedia Enterprise, Abstract Wikipedia and Google in News and notes. Andreas JN 466 07:38, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What will the WMF do when Google or Facebook take issue with content on the encyclopedia, and threaten to withdraw their enterprise contracts unless said content is removed? This seems like a recipe for disaster, and it's not even a necessary one considering how much excess money the WMF makes already.om this source Rabbitflyer (talk) 19:54, 30 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

- For just this reason Enterprise has promised that it will not raise more than 30% of WMF's annual total from this source. m:Wikimedia_Enterprise/FAQ#How_much_money_will_this_raise Since there is only one customer now, google, it might be a shock, if google ever said "do xyz or we'll cut off 30% of your revenue" but I'm sure the WMF board will have the guts to say "take a hike". More realistically Enterprise will develop a diversified customer base - say 5 companies paying from 15-30% of Enterprise's revenue, or maybe 10 companies with the largest accounting for only 20% of their revenue. That would make google's possible threat to be only pulling 30% of 30% = 9% of WMF's revenue or 6% in the 2nd case. That would make it really easy for the WMF to say "Don't forget your hat your hat on the way out!" Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:01, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  @Smallbones: They can also cut off their support for Abstract Wikipedia, which is primarily staffed by "former" Google operatives. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 01:49, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  @Chess: Denny (who I assume is who you're referring to) spent at least 8 years as an active Wikimedian pushing the data centralizing/structuring stuff (including founding Wikidata) before he went to work for Google for some years. I don't think it's reasonable to say that he's currently secretly working on their behalf. --Yair rand (talk) 03:41, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  @Yair rand: First of all, Wikidata powers the Knowledge Graph as Google outsourced Freebase to us. If there's one project that's customized to Google's interests more than any other it's Wikidata. Second of all, Google is deeply involved with more than just one staffperson. See meta:Abstract Wikipedia/Updates/2022-04-12; Google just seconded "up to 10" fellows over to develop the backend. Keeping in mind that the Abstract Wikipedia team on its own is only 10 people including Denny, Google withdrawing their support would cause issues to say the least. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 05:39, 1 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  @Chess:You make some hard-hitting points. I am of two minds about it; on the one hand I'd say that the WMF has found a way to create a two-tiered system: a "basic" access for free (regular wiki access), and a "premium" access for a cost (Enterprise), which feels anathema to the spirit of Wikipedia. Moreover, as you suggest, in time fee-paying "premium" customers may have undue influence in the direction of the wiki projects. On this front I support ideas to limit or actually to make Enterprise free of use, so that WMF relies only on donations (of money and labor). If Enterprise requires lots of resources, Google et al. can donate engineers' time.
  
  On the other hand, Wikipedia is so free (CC SA 3.0) that anyone is free to even use it for commercial purposes. That copyleft is also part of Wikipedia's ethos.
  
  Further, I assume that if Wikimedia Enterprise did not exist within the WMF, some other entrepreneurial business could create something similar to Enterprise and mine the data from Wikipedia and channel it to outside platforms. At least by the WMF creating such a service inhouse, they can better control the terms of use... Thank you for making me think more about it. I think the WMF should proceed with caution. Al83tito (talk) 05:16, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Already looking forward to a follow-up piece on this! FacetsOfNonStickPans (talk) 16:39, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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