Video on Wikipedia

Wikipedia is about to implement video as a way to better tell stories.

which will use more server space, which will cost more money, which will depend on more donations. here's hoping they go bankrupt.

Nothing wrong with videos to show, well, videos of things. So long as they don't stand in for content that should have been text.

e.g. The BBC News website has a few stories every day which are only available in video format. Not much good if you don't want to have the story drip-fed to you one slowly spoken word at a time, or don't want to turn sound on, or want to search or copy & paste bits for reference. Good for showing things on fire, though!

LeoDavidson said:

Nothing wrong with videos to show, well, videos of things. So long as they don't stand in for content that should have been text.

e.g. The BBC News website has a few stories every day which are only available in video format. Not much good if you don't want to have the story drip-fed to you one slowly spoken word at a time, or don't want to turn sound on, or want to search or copy & paste bits for reference. Good for showing things on fire, though!

 

I also thought Wikipedia was starving for money and waiting to go under. I guess a lot of donations came through? I know Wikipedia is a 4-5GB dump of just all of it's text, wonder how big it would be with images...and with videos

brian.shapiro said:

which will use more server space, which will cost more money, which will depend on more donations. here's hoping they go bankrupt.

 

That's a pretty sad statement.

exoteric said:

brian.shapiro said:

*snip*

That's a pretty sad statement.

exoteric -- I've contributed to Wikipedia, so it's not that I hate it. I just think the whole project is flawed, and if they do things that require more server space they're bound to fail unless they find some way to pay for it. They're going to have to come to terms with that sometime.

brian.shapiro said:

exoteric said:

*snip*

exoteric -- I've contributed to Wikipedia, so it's not that I hate it. I just think the whole project is flawed, and if they do things that require more server space they're bound to fail unless they find some way to pay for it. They're going to have to come to terms with that sometime.

If Wikipedia put a single text ad on their website they would make millions per month, if not tens of millions. They aren't starving for money even without ads.

Believe it or not, bandwidth and servers (especially when you don't have to pay a dime for licenses) isn't that expensive. They have managed to run one of the most popular websites on the Internet on a budget that would baffle most people.

brian.shapiro said:

which will use more server space, which will cost more money, which will depend on more donations. here's hoping they go bankrupt.

 

wtf? What did Wikipedia ever do to anyone?

I honestly don't know what their business model is but whatever it is I hope they stick around a long time. <3 Wikipedia.

Harlequin said:

LeoDavidson said:

*snip*

I also thought Wikipedia was starving for money and waiting to go under. I guess a lot of donations came through? I know Wikipedia is a 4-5GB dump of just all of it's text, wonder how big it would be with images...and with videos

I'm looking at their financial reports, and they're not exactly starving for money...  July-December 2008 had the Wikimedia Foundation recieving $6.3 million US ($4.8 million of which was from user donations), with only $2.6 million in expenditures ($0.927 million going toward salary and wages, $0.319 million going towards internet hosting, and $0.447 million going toward capital expenditures like servers and such).

ManipUni said:

brian.shapiro said:

*snip*

wtf? What did Wikipedia ever do to anyone?

I honestly don't know what their business model is but whatever it is I hope they stick around a long time. <3 Wikipedia.

Well like Bill Hill mentioned in his last video it's about checking your sources. I'm sure Wikipedia is full of tons upon tons of false garbage, and people are taking Wikipedia as fact. I personally find it a very dangerous website because of that. I know they're doing more stuff to get professionals into the foray, but I think they should have done that from the start or something, I don't know.

CannotResolveSymbol said:

Harlequin said:

*snip*

I'm looking at their financial reports, and they're not exactly starving for money...  July-December 2008 had the Wikimedia Foundation recieving $6.3 million US ($4.8 million of which was from user donations), with only $2.6 million in expenditures ($0.927 million going toward salary and wages, $0.319 million going towards internet hosting, and $0.447 million going toward capital expenditures like servers and such).

I've read reports on Wikipedia suggesting that only 2% of its funding comes through profit, but I haven't looked at their financial reports. However, they had a very big fundraising drive last year where Jimmy Wales was as good as begging people for donations. Some of editors who've worked on Wikipedia have quit saying they think the site is insustainable.

That all said, I find a number of problems with Wikipedia as a project... I was a contributor but eventually gave up on it because I found it to be a waste of my time. From what I've been reading, a lot of other contributors are giving up on it also.

CannotResolveSymbol said:

Harlequin said:

*snip*

I'm looking at their financial reports, and they're not exactly starving for money...  July-December 2008 had the Wikimedia Foundation recieving $6.3 million US ($4.8 million of which was from user donations), with only $2.6 million in expenditures ($0.927 million going toward salary and wages, $0.319 million going towards internet hosting, and $0.447 million going toward capital expenditures like servers and such).

If their earnings are that good, I'd like them to tone down the frequency of those "Jimmy Wales wants your money" banners, because they're annoying the hell out of me.

CannotResolveSymbol said:

Harlequin said:

*snip*

I'm looking at their financial reports, and they're not exactly starving for money...  July-December 2008 had the Wikimedia Foundation recieving $6.3 million US ($4.8 million of which was from user donations), with only $2.6 million in expenditures ($0.927 million going toward salary and wages, $0.319 million going towards internet hosting, and $0.447 million going toward capital expenditures like servers and such).

They're paying an awful lot for something that fits on 20 hard drives and a network balancing and data caching system with the size of a 42U rack. I don't know how much traffic they have, but a redundant line of 100GBit should suffice. And then... how many developers and IT guys need to work on a wiki and it's security issues? Can't be much either... maybe 20.

Harlequin said:

ManipUni said:

*snip*

Well like Bill Hill mentioned in his last video it's about checking your sources. I'm sure Wikipedia is full of tons upon tons of false garbage, and people are taking Wikipedia as fact. I personally find it a very dangerous website because of that. I know they're doing more stuff to get professionals into the foray, but I think they should have done that from the start or something, I don't know.

There's also the way some disputes are delt with via what seems to be a secret members club. Some of the stories about how the site is run have made it sound pretty awful and there are enough different stories now for me to think there's something in them.

Don't get me wrong, though, I think it's a very useful site and have spent many an hour reading it. It's just a bit worrying that we're giving one site so much control over what so many people believe is true without appropriate checks & balances on the way it's run and accountability of the people who run it.

As the quality of the articles improves that will get worse, too. We'll all get lazier and lazier about checking alternative sources if doing so finds nothing contradictory 99% of the time. Perhaps the solution is to insert non-facts to keep everyone on their toes, hehe.

(Personally, I've got a "never, ever edit Wikipedia"rule for myself. I know if I make one edit, even a tiny one, then I'll get sucked into that world and never get anything else done.)

LeoDavidson said:

Harlequin said:

*snip*

There's also the way some disputes are delt with via what seems to be a secret members club. Some of the stories about how the site is run have made it sound pretty awful and there are enough different stories now for me to think there's something in them.

Don't get me wrong, though, I think it's a very useful site and have spent many an hour reading it. It's just a bit worrying that we're giving one site so much control over what so many people believe is true without appropriate checks & balances on the way it's run and accountability of the people who run it.

As the quality of the articles improves that will get worse, too. We'll all get lazier and lazier about checking alternative sources if doing so finds nothing contradictory 99% of the time. Perhaps the solution is to insert non-facts to keep everyone on their toes, hehe.

(Personally, I've got a "never, ever edit Wikipedia"rule for myself. I know if I make one edit, even a tiny one, then I'll get sucked into that world and never get anything else done.)

 

Yeah, if you can believe sites like Wikitruth, the whole place is like a creepy cabal run by their god-emperor, the outlaw Jimbo Wales. Of course wikitruth is pretty sensationalist (and funny), but still, plenty of those stories abound.

Where's the Brian Peppers article, Jimmy?

Bas said:

LeoDavidson said:

*snip*

Yeah, if you can believe sites like Wikitruth, the whole place is like a creepy cabal run by their god-emperor, the outlaw Jimbo Wales. Of course wikitruth is pretty sensationalist (and funny), but still, plenty of those stories abound.

Where's the Brian Peppers article, Jimmy?

Jimmy isn't a C9'er, but even he will attribute most of his sucess to luck. A Wikipedia page is where you start to research a subject, it's not the final word on anything.

Video is going to be huge, think of all the historic newsreals up to the videos we are seeing from Iran.

I've seen some Wikipedia articles with video clips in them and they require Quicktime with some Ogg addon monstrosity.  If this also requires me to install things I'm not using it.  You know they will likely be lame and use some "open" format that no one can play.

CreamFilling512 said:

I've seen some Wikipedia articles with video clips in them and they require Quicktime with some Ogg addon monstrosity.  If this also requires me to install things I'm not using it.  You know they will likely be lame and use some "open" format that no one can play.

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