A future with a for-profit subsidiary?

News and notes

A future with a for-profit subsidiary?

For-profit subsidiary started by WMF

The non-profit Wikimedia Foundation has incorporated a for-profit subsidiary, Wikimedia LLC in order to make money from Big Tech companies like Alphabet Inc.'s Google and YouTube subsidiaries, as well as Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook. These companies are intensive users of Wikipedia content for products such as the Google Knowledge Graph, Amazon Alexa, and Apple's Siri. Wikimedia LLC plans to offer a service called Enterprise API to provide these and similar companies with speedy tailored access to Wikipedia data. Wikipedians and the WMF have long called for Big Tech to donate more money to the WMF to support the production of the freely licensed content they use. Some Big Tech companies do make occasional donations, but the total appears to be less than $5 million per year.

Big Tech and other paying customers would benefit by having more business-like service-level agreements (SLAs), getting clean timely data that meets their specific needs. Other users would benefit from having full, but less timely, access to the same data that Big Tech uses. The WMF would benefit by getting more, and more consistent, revenues that they can use to fund the aggressive growth plans described in the strategic plan. The overall Wikipedia movement would benefit by having broader and more timely distribution of our freely licensed content, with our content licensing requirements respected.

It's common in the U.S. for non-profit organizations to own for-profit subsidiaries. For example, non-profit museums may own book stores and restaurants designed to support their cultural mission and raise cash. Almost any type of for-profit business can be owned as long as the business supports the overall mission of the non-profit, even if that is only by raising cash. For example the non-profit Hershey Trust Company, a charity that helps educate disadvantaged children, effectively controls the Hershey Company, a multinational food and chocolate company, and owns Hersheypark and several other tourism related companies. Taxes must be paid on the for-profits' earnings.

The WMF has discussed the project with Big Tech to determine that they have potential customers and the general areas of their interest, but no agreements have been reached. The WMF is also consulting Wikipedians on the project. Currently the most convenient place to ask questions and give feedback is on the meta talk page for Wikimedia Enterprise. More structured consultations will be scheduled. WMF spokesperson Liam Wyatt says the timing of the consultations was set in order to ensure that enough solid information is available to allow meaningful discussion, while still having the input be useful for determining the overall shape and many details of the proposed project.

Wikipedians' reactions to the announcement, as usual, are quite varied. Many Wikipedians are happy that Big Tech will be paying their fair share of WMF's expenses. Administrator Johnuniq states "An enterprise API as a fee-for-service is desirable and long-term funding would be good". Others seem surprised that the WMF can take on such a project. From legal, practical, and historical perspectives, it can and already has taken on a similar project. Strategic, ethical, and financial points of view may lead to more productive discussions. The principles that the WMF has laid out for the project are described on meta.

The earlier project was described to The Signpost by the WMF's first employee, Brion Vibber. Leaving out the technical details, Vibber wrote "The start year was 2004. It didn't scale super well because you either had to parse the wikitext yourself or hook it up to a MediaWiki instance and all that entails... Eventually the potential clients found their own workflows... And then eventually they came back and decided they wanted us to make a better workflow, and the Enterprise API was born!"

Long-time Wikipedian DGG notes that Wikipedia and Google have had a long and mutually beneficial relationship.

We would be less reachable by the public without the traffic that comes from them, but they would be much less valuable without having at least some fairly decent content, a great deal of which comes from us. Possibly this degree of relatedness is worth preserving: If we look at ultimate value to the general public, having our content on Google improves the amount of somewhat reliable information available there, especially on topics they wouldn't otherwise have any content-- in that sense, they act as a co-distributor. As an illustration, Google content derived from WP might be available in countries that prohibit access directly to WP.

A 2005 Signpost story illustrates the sometimes close relationship well. Wikipedia was having trouble keeping up with the load on its servers and Google offered to host some of Wikipedia for free on its servers. As Jimmy Wales recalled to The Signpost he was a guest lecturer at Stanford and ran into Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. They offered the use of Google’s servers but there were unforeseen technical difficulties, so they donated money instead to the WMF.

Still DGG is very skeptical about the WMF's need to raise more money and fears "commercial entanglement". User Guy Macon has similar views, believing that raising more money only distracts from the needed focus on the volunteer community. When asked if the WMF could do anything to earn his support, he answered.

Do it without any money from donors or employee time paid for by donors. Every other for-profit LLC has to secure funding somehow; why should this one be different? Make a pitch to Google, Amazon, and Apple. If they are willing to pay for the service in the future they should be willing to invest in completely funding the creation of the service now.

Lockdown continues – uptick in Wikipedia editing

As the world comes to 12 months of lockdowns, we recall sofa surfing, socially distanced dating and for many the great declutter. Wikipedia editing has joined the ranks of indoor speleology, gardening, baking and mask making as one of those activities that people have resorted to because they still can. Early signs are that 2021 has started with an editing frequency that the community hasn't seen since 2010 (apart from one spike when we moved the interwiki links to Wikidata). – W

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28 March 2021 (all comments)

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Wikimedia LLC/Enterprise API

I fully support some mechanism by which Wikipedia can rely on revenues from alternative commercial sources and not just donations. This is a move in the right direction. werldwayd (talk) 20:49, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here we go. WMF wants to be a Big Tech (must haved been growing a long time). Small-hands-fear? -DePiep (talk) 21:07, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[1] editors to pee in a bottle. -DePiep (talk) 21:38, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I posted a few skeptical initial comments about the WMF's move. Based on their answers, I'm convinced that the current WMF is approaching this as cautiously as they should, and in good faith. I am still very concerned that *future* versions of the WMF will use this as a precedent for cultural change and greater commercial engagement. An organization is only as ethical as the people that work there. Right now, the WMF has good folks who really believe in Wikipedia's mission. It's critical that that continues to be true in the years to come. Ganesha811 (talk) 21:30, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ganesha811 Would you mind linking to the discussion location (in on-wiki)? Would be useful to see. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:27, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like meta: Talk:Wikimedia Enterprise#Letting the wolves in at the door ☆ Bri (talk) 23:41, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If funding for the servers and core staff is ringfenced and limited to the sum of small donations, then in theory this scheme does not threaten editorial independence. It simply equates to licensing the Wikipedia name in order to fund other projects. That sounds acceptable, in theory. WMF must never forget that the value of their flagship product comes from at-will volunteer labor. Tread very carefully. Rollo (talk) 00:13, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rollo: I started a discussion with them asking if their initial proposal limiting revenue raised this way to a minority (thus 49%) of the funding could be reduced to 1/3rd, and somewhat to my surprise - they agreed! Nosebagbear (talk) 00:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Good. Now stop duping readers for donations that don't go to editors. feminist (talk) 03:25, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Glad to see someone beat me to raising this point. — Bilorv (talk) 07:34, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It is abhorrent that G***** are duping half of their audience, according to a study quoted in the well-chosen "From the archives", into misattributing free, decentralised volunteer labour to their leeching selves. Those who think there is any "mutually beneficial" aspect to this relationship are wrong. If G***** removed their Knowledge Graph, all data taken from Wikipedia, and all search result links to Wikipedia, then we are a big enough information source that they would see users flocking to already-better search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, MetaGer and Qwant. It's also a PR disaster to have the news story "G***** kills Wikipedia". So both the WMF and our community need to get things straight: we are the ones with the leverage here. Brand loyalty for a search engine is fickle, but no Wikipedia 2 project has ever been successful. If we believed it was a big enough concern that a company was leeching off us then we could organise a blackout of our website that we pledge only to stop if they donate X amount of money or accede to some demands. A very careful and persuasive formulation of our argument as an anti-Big Tech or pro-"money to run our servers" message could get most of the general public on our side. (And we wouldn't even need WMF permission: we have the technical power to blackout and let them see what happens if they Office Action wheel war.) Admittedly, this situation is extreme and far-fetched and I know non-profits prefer stability in donations to, well, extortion, but I'm just aiming to prove that we have the power and we should not underestimate how we can use it if we organise. — Bilorv (talk) 07:34, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Agree. However, our standard CC BY-SA licensing of information allows commercial distribution. So it appears that tech giants currently have a free pass with no obligation to thank the WMF monetarily, as long as they correctly attribute the info (which Knowledge Graph at least does). Brandmeister^talk 14:28, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - They are doing no less than the legal bare minimum, I agree, but there's no way they haven't done enough user experience testing to understand whether the average viewer knows where the information is coming from. If they wanted all viewers to be aware that the content comes from unpaid volunteers (and you can join them!) then there are ten different ways they could redesign the Knowledge Graph without interfering with its ease of use. — Bilorv (talk) 17:05, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - I agree with Bilorv, there's a big difference between doing what your lawyers think would prevent a successful lawsuit, and doing what actually acknowledges the people who performed the labor that makes your profits possible. This looks a whole lot more like the former. Will the new relationship with WMF make commercial WP database users more likely to move in the better direction? ☆ Bri (talk) 13:27, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've no issue with strengthening the income base, esp. if that means there's less need for us to donate (as well as contributing to content). That said, "he who pays the piper, calls the tune" — will this mean that the big, bad tech corporations... sorry, the friendly providers of all that wonderful technology that enriches our lives (and keeps our servers humming)... will have a say over content etc.? No doubt, very little say, at least initially, but slippery slopes and all that. --DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:52, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Dear DoubleGrazing, I hope you will find that the various technical and policy procedures put in place to protect against precisely that concern - as described in the Principles and the FAQ#Financial - are suitably thorough. Sincerely, LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 13:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - And I've posted a dissent from the Foundation's line. While it's not a given that customers will have an effect, intentional or accidental, on Wikipedia, IMHO it remains a possible outcome. -- llywrch (talk) 23:30, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Uptick in editing

This is newsworthy. But I'm not sure why the Signpost should rely on the rather indirect "Time between edits" metric which has a lot of shortcomings (e.g. unable to exclude bot edits or to focus on mainspace edits), when filtered monthly edit count stats are readily available now and show the same thing more clearly.

(By the way, it should be noted that the while the volume of edits has been increasing, the number of active editors remains stagnant. Still, its former downwards trend that gave rise to so much "decline of Wikipedia" discussion and theorizing has already stopped about half a decade ago.)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 21:26, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Seems to line up with the increase in users making 100+ edits per month since the start of the pandemic. Perhaps a reflection of increased time for superusers (or use of WP editing as a stress coping mechanism). The more casual user brackets (1-4 and 5-24 edits per month) remain stubbornly flat. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 23:23, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But how much is just administration? Categories, short description, tagging, general fixes (See Also --> See also) and so on. It could be nice with some statistics... Christian75 (talk) 23:42, 28 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I like Time Between Edits because it is such a Direct measure. You know it isn't going to be effected by things such as the creation of draftspace. True at least two spikes in it over the years have been attributed to bot activity, but I find it interesting to log that as well. And yes it isn't the only stat - if anyone had time available to expand the story then looking at another stat would have been a logical route. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@WereSpielChequers: Can you please take another look at the first sentence of this single-paragraph section in the singpost? It appears to be incomplete and I'm not sure what you're trying to say so I can't make any suggestions to fix it. Specifically, it seems to be lacking a verb. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 01:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that pre-publication but let it slide. Perhaps As the world comes to 12 months of lockdowns, we recall ... ☆ Bri (talk) 01:16, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That works for me. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I wondered if the 2021 uptick might be linked to the "race for 6M" articles on English wikipedia. That was clearly an internal "campaign" which would account for the regular contributors making higher contributions than usual rather than attracting new contributors. We've had COVID lockdowns in my country on and off since March 2020. If lockdowns were the cause of increased editing, the uptick would have started back in 2020. I don't think an increase in 2021 can be attributed solely to lockdowns. Kerry (talk) 03:27, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Our 6 millionth article came last January at a time when we were doing 10 million edits every 62 days or so, so I don't see a link. The uptick did start a year ago, and I put that in the Signpost, but this latest spike went above anything we saw last year. Ϣere SpielChequers 08:49, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Article creation is a drop in the ocean compared to the many edits that the grinders make. They were chasing the billionth edit which was this. Andrew🐉(talk) 18:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, a new preprint that came out a week ago examines exactly this question in a more thorough fashion (finding that "contributions to the English Wikipedia increased by over 20% compared to the expectation derived from pre-pandemic data"). If anyone is interested in reviewing it for next month's "Recent research", feel free to sign up for it here (search for "Ruprechter"). Regards, HaeB (talk) 09:14, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's amusing to see this happening at the same time as there's an attempt to delete our putative article about corporate media. Nothing to see here folks ... Andrew🐉(talk) 18:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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