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Wikipedia, one of the most popular search sites in the world, will soon release its paid option for tech giants such as Apple, Amazon, and Google.

The so-called free encyclopedia will now generate revenue for the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that organizes and runs the Wiki site.

(Photo : Screenshot from YouTube/Motion Grafs)Wikipedia

While this option appears to be a premium subscription for its users, Wikipedia assures that people can still access the site for free. As the United States' 8th most visited website, publishing the contents will now change for the tech giants.

According to Wired, the Wikimedia Enterprise will be assigned for Wikipedia's branding. In that manner, the paid service will only impact the huge tech companies, which usually benefit from publishing on the site.

Moreover, the content provided by Wikipedia will now be commercialized to suit the needs of the tech giants, which cater to the needs of millions of people daily.

For example, if you ask Google about a single question, the search engine will show you a brief passage from Wikipedia on the search page. This way, all you have to do is to stay within Google Search webpage for your query.

In another instance, try to speak with Amazon Alexa or Apple's Siri. These digital assistants will tell you the answer straight from the archives of Wikipedia.

This is not only limited to search engines as YouTube also relies on Wikipedia specifically when it needs to combat widespread misinformation.

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For Lisa Seitz-Gruwell, the Chief Revenue Officer of Wikimedia Foundation, using the content on the page is available to all users, but what's not good is when some companies take the opportunity to earn profit by not giving anything in return.

At the moment, several donations and grants keep the Wikimedia Foundation alive. The budget already reached $100 million and it will continue to grow as people want more information for free, Sea Mashable reported.

Despite Google's million-dollar donation, Wikipedia will still pursue the said company.

Meanwhile, it was reported that Amazon, on the other hand, did not donate even a single penny to the organization, according to aTech Crunchinterview with Gruwell in 2018. .Wikimedia Foundation said that the content coming from Wikipedia is being published in their systems, which is apparently done by the employees from the mentioned companies.

Since nonprofit organizations do not generate revenue, the paid option will pave the way for Wikimedia Enterprise to earn money from entities that also use its content.

Would this move benefit those workers who voluntarily work with Wikipedia? It could be possible, and it could work like an agency that gives incentives to its workers.

After all, researching topics and editing articles is not easy, so this is a good way to compensate them for their efforts.

Related Article: Wikipedia Site Paralyzed In Several Countries Due To Massive DDOS Attack

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Written by Joen Coronel

2018 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

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Amazon, Google, and Apple to Pay Wikipedia For Their Published Contents in the Future - Tech Times

Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? returns once again with a legendary guest Eric Fking Andre! To promote his newest movie, Bad Trip, the chaotic comic spoke with us to prove and disprove whats written about him on Wikipedia.

Ever listen to Blarf? Before Eric Andre assumed his Ronald McDonald-esque alter ego, he formed the experimental music project while at the Berklee College of Music. And just like it says on Wikipedia, its true that one of Blarfs early band members quit over a song called I Love Abortions because his very religious wife didnt approve.

He was a nice guy, Andre says. They were like, the couple that was married at 18 and they were from a podunk, Possum Ridge, Arkansas kind of thing. I put that song I Love Abortion on the demo of the music I wanted to play on purpose, cause I was like, Im gonna make offensive lyrics, so only join the band if youre okay with doing Frank Zappa-esque, Trey Parker, Matt Stone edgy lyrical content. Then he signed up for the band and he gave me shit about the song!

Andre proclaims, however, that Wikipedia is incorrect about getting Exhumed on The Eric Andre Show only because Pig Destroyer were unavailable. I think we just reached out to a handful of metal bands with metal cache and Exhumed responded first. I remember reaching out to Agoraphobic Nosebleed I love them, theyre one of my favorites. Theyre so cool, theyre so unique. They have a special place in my heart.

And as for Flava Flavs claim that Hannibal Buress didnt actually kick him in the face during an Eric Andre Show taping, Andre himself says, Hannibal kicked him in the motherfucking face. Knocked his ass out and hed do it again.

Watch the Eric Andre edition of Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? above and be sure to watch the hilarious Bad Trip on Netflix, dropping March 26.

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Eric Andre Raves About Grindcore While Playing 'Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?' - Loudwire

Wikipedia is God. Launched on 15 January 2001, the digital encyclopedia exists in 300 languages around the world and literally contains everything you could ever need to know. Would any of us have made it through school essays if it werent for the wisdom contained within? Probably not. Wikipedia is the best place on the internet, says 21-year-old Annie Rauwerda. Its collaborative and constructive in a way that makes it feel like a vestige of a bygone Internet era. I get so excited when I remember that the sum of human knowledge is available for everyone, for free. Isnt that exciting? It should be celebrated every day! Strangers online came together to organise all of the known information in the universe for you! Well, when you put it like that!

A longtime fan (she did a lot of wikiracing in middle school), during the first lockdown last spring, Annie found herself as one often does deep down several Wiki-holes. With nothing else to do, the Brooklyn-based Neuroscience student from Michigan decided to document the weird, wild and curious corners of the site she was uncovering. I was surprised there wasnt already an Instagram hub for weird Wikipedia articles, so I made the account one night. 160k people (including John Mayer) are very glad she did. Its approaching one year now since Annie shared her first post as @depthsofwikipedia one documenting the scientific research into how riding Disneys Big Thunder Mountain helped patients pass their kidney stones and over 400 posts later, shes brought Dicktown, chess on a really big board and cat nuns into the lives of fans.

Annie typically spends about 10 hours a week running the account, both trawling Wiki for weirdness and wading through suggestions sent in by dedicated followers. I get a lot of submissions these days, so I dont hunt for articles in the wild quite as much, but I still stay busy in comments and stories and maintaining the operations of merch sales, she tells us. About that if you, too, are keen to get your favourite depthsofwikipedia post in mug form (with half of all proceeds helping to fund Wikimedia Education) youre in luck.

If TikTok is more your bag, Annie shares highlights on there too. And if youre struggling to manage your own incessant urge to consume bizarre content from the depths of websites, Annie recently teamed up with her best friend Hajin to create @depthsofamazon. As their bio clearly states, posts endorsement of Amazons labor practices this is a safe place to chuckle at unhinged reviews without actually giving your time and money to the dark overlord of digital marketplaces.

Fascinated by her work, we asked Annie to compile and break down what she believes might just be the 10 weirdest things from the depths of Wikipedia. Find enlightenment below.

1. My Way Killings

There have been a number of deaths as a result of karaoke rage in the Philippines, including certain renditions of My Way by Frank Sinatra that were so bad people resorted to murder.

2. List of people who have lived in airports

I imagine it's like a layover that lasts for years. Motivations for living in the airports seem to range from 'ran out of money for a flight' to 'wanted to smoke and drink without his family bothering him.

3. Hedgehogs dilemma

It's a metaphor for the challenges of human intimacy. As much as hedgehogs want to move close together, they must remain distant to avoid poking each other with their sharp spines. It sounds like quarantine.

4. Small penis rule

When writers create characters inspired by someone in real life, this rule suggests they give the character a small penis in order to avoid libel lawsuits. The logic is that nobody would want to publicly say, That character with the small penis is actually me.

5. List of entertainers who have died during a performance

One actor, who played a character who died of a heart attack, died of a real heart attack between his scenes in a 1958 theatre performance. An 1897 Metropolitan Opera performer received a loud ovation after collapsing mid-performance, as the audience believed the event to be a stroke of brilliant acting. This article contains over a hundred more examples of bizarre occurrences like this.

6. List of sexually active popes

This one is a classic, and it's exactly what it sounds like. The article is surprisingly long and I learn a bunch of new pope facts every time I revisit it.

7. Sweater curse

Knitters hold a documented suspicion that knitting a sweater for a significant other will lead to the recipient breaking up with the knitter. Proposed solutions include waiting for marriage or starting with socks.

8. Animals with fraudulent diplomas

Certain pet owners have displayed the lax standards of diploma mills or otherwise fraudulent academic institutions by putting their dogs and cats through degree programs. Just because something looks like a diploma doesn't mean that someone has responsible training there's a pug with a bogus MBA.

9. Scunthorpe problem

As recently as October 2020, a filter blocked the word 'bone' during an online palaeontology conference. Poorly-designed profanity filters have created all sorts of issues, and this article documents dozens of them.

10. Timeline of the far future

In 20,000 years, only about one of every hundred core words will remain in use in future languages. The mind-boggling predictions continue all the way up to the proposed time for quantum efforts to generate a new Big Bang one trillion years from now.

Follow i-D on Instagram and TikTok for more weird internet stuff.

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This Instagram account dug up the weirdest things on Wikipedia - i-D

Wikipedias parent company has announced it is to begin charging major technology companies to access the online encyclopaedias vast trove of knowledge.

The Wikipedia Enterprise initiative will launch later this year and could see the likes of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon paying fees to access content theyve been using without traditional compensation for years.

Until now, the burden has been on benevolent Wikipedia users to keep the non-profit Wikipedia Foundation via donations of which the aforementioned firms are often among but now the balance will be redressed by tech giants and, eventually, smaller companies.

Wikimedia Enterprise is a new product from the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, the foundation says. Wikimedia Enterprise provides paid developer tools and services that make it easier for companies and organisations to consume and re-use Wikimedia data.

Related: Best VPN

The new initiative was announced on Tuesday and came to light via a Wired report, which revealed conversations are ongoing between Wikimedia and a number of tech giants whore already in discussions over an agreement.

This is the first time the foundation has recognised that commercial users are users of our service, says Wikimedia Foundation senior director Lane Becker in an interview. Weve known they are there, but we never really treated them as a user base.

Apple, for example, leverages Wikipedia for Siris knowledge bank, but currently doesnt officially pay for that content. It does match employee donations to Wikipedia though.

Amazon uses the tech for Alexa and donated $1 million in 2018. Google, who heavily leverages results from Wikipedia in Search while using excepts in its knowledge boxes, donated $2 million in 2019. Facebook also chucked in a million in 2018. Its not clear how regular those donations have been since.

Do you think its time Big Tech started footing the bill for Wikipedia? Will it help to secure the non-profit companys future? Let us know @trustedreviews on Twitter.

Chris Smith is a freelance technology journalist for a host of UK tech publications, includingTrusted Reviews. He's based in South Florida, USA.

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Big Tech firms are facing a big bill from Wikipedia heres why - TrustedReviews

Id never thought much about Wikipedia until its pages started appearing high up in Google searchesand not just Google. If you ask Siri or Alexa a question, chances are the source of your answer will be Wikipedia too. Hundreds of AI platforms use Wikipedia data; machine learning trains on it. So if women are missing there, they will be missing elsewhere as well.

Women in science went missing long before Wiki, of coursein press coverage, top billing at meetings, appearance on panels. They werent much on my radar either when I first started writing about science decades ago and showed up for the March meeting of the American Physical Society. The March meeting is nerd mecca: Close to 10,000 physicists gather to present findings in condensed matter, which is everything from quantum computers to lasers to smart materials. AI and nano everything.

A friendly Black woman noticed my obvious confusion and helped guide me through the maze of talks, panels, sessions. She was Shirley Ann Jackson, who I later learned was the first Black woman to get a doctorate in theoretical physics from MIT (where, she said, she was mistaken for a maid). She took me to the reception for women in physics. I was seriously wowed. A lot more physicists were women (and vice versa) than I ever imagined. Where had they been? Where had I been?

Decades later, I had a similar wake-up call at an exclusive meeting in Aspen of top physicists in what was then known as string theorytackling the most fundamental questions of space, time, energy, stuff. I expected that a lot of the material would be exotic and unfamiliar. What really seemed exotic and unfamiliar were the three Black men among the small elite group.

For most people, the description theoretical physicist doesnt immediately conjure an image of a Black person. (Neil de Grasse Tyson is great, but one example doesnt count, and hes not a part of this particular tribe anyway.) After the Aspen meeting, my ground truth shifted. I could picture Black men as theoretical physicists no problem because Id met them, interviewed them, hung out.

Then it struck me: Just about every female physicist I know, and every Black physicist I know, are people I met in person. I hadnt even noticed their absence until their presence hit me in face.

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My portals arent so diverse. Which is why Wikipedia in the age of corona had me worried.

A lot of people say they use Wikipedia only as a starting point, a first reference. After all, everyone knows that its crowdsourced. Its proudly non-expert. A community of editors ultimately arbitrates whats in, whats out, what matters, whats true. Because there are so many of them (250,000 edits a day, according to one source), the idea is truth will out.

Yet Wikipedias top ranking on Google gives it credibility and authority that misrepresents what it isa community consensus. This is a problem, according to Atilus, a leading digital marketing company. During an audit for a client using prime SEO software, Atilus found Wikipedia at or near the top over and over again, frequently with a prominent sidebar. On its blog, Atilus posed a not-always-hypothetical question to illustrate the problem: Would you rather trust a doctor whos undergone rigorous training or people who spend time in health-related chatrooms or an intern who blogs about heart health? Thats a big oversimplification, given that Wiki entries are supposed to be double-sourced and edited. But even when that works, its not even close to ground truth.

Granted, Wikipedia isnt the only source of content thats creeps into everything, ubiquitous and unavoidable. It could be your mom or The New York Times. What gives Wikipedia a central place in data heaven is that popular algorithms that lead us around by the nose go to the site to learn. AI reinforces whatever biases are put in front of them. Big data processes codify the past, writes Cathy ONeil in her book Weapons of Math Destruction.

The rest is here:
The Shaky Ground Truths of Wikipedia - WIRED