wikipedia

Wikipedia now totally free to mobile users in the Middle East

A full 25 million mobile users in the Middle East can now use Wikipedia without worrying about data charges.

The Wikimedia Foundation and Saudi Telecom (STC) have teamed up to offer the free access through a program known as Wikipedia Zero. The goal behind this initiative is to help people in developing countries more easily get information through Wikipedia. Many users in these countries surf the Internet via mobile devices, so the Wikimedia Foundation tries to work with local carriers to eliminate data charges and other obstacles.

The foundation has given high priority to Arabic-language countries but has reached out … Read more

Wikimedia U.K. faces ethics probe, funding squeeze

Two weeks ago, a Wikimedia U.K. trustee named Roger Bamkin was exposed in a paid PR scandal that embarrassed the organization behind the Internet's community encyclopedia. Bamkin was accused of doing special favors on Wikipedia for a paid client, the tiny territory of Gibraltar.

A week later, Bamkin quit, but was not exactly apologetic.

But that's not the end of the story. Wikimedia U.K. has had control of its funding taken away and is under investigation by the parent Wikimedia Foundation.

A joint statement issued by the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia U.K. said an ethics … Read more

Wikipedia honcho caught in scandal quits, defends paid edits

This past week, Wikipedia was rocked by revelations that high-level editors and the chair trustee of Wikimedia UK were providing personal clients with special favors and increased exposure on the Internet's encyclopedia.

At the center of the debacle were Wikimedia UK Chair Roger Bamkin and fellow Wikipedian in Residence Maximillion Klein, who had been openly advertising SEO pay-for-play services for clients on his Web site Untrikiwiki. Klein did not admit to anything, yet quickly removed damning Web site material, and Wikimedia UK Trustee Roger Bamkin -- at the scandal's center -- resigned.

Members of the Wikipedia editing community … Read more

Corruption in Wikiland? Paid PR scandal erupts at Wikipedia

Concerned Wikipedians raised the alarm Monday that two trusted men -- one a trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation UK, the other a respected Wikipedian In Residence -- are allegedly editing Wikipedia pages and facilitating front-page placement for their pay-for-play, publicity-seeking clients.

Jimmy Wales is not pleased.

It began this week when an interesting discussion started on the DYK ("Did You Know") discussion page.

Roger Bamkin, trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation UK, whose LinkedIn page describes him as a high-return-earning PR consultant, appeared to be using Wikipedia's main page "Did You Know" feature and the resources … Read more

Wikipedia to Philip Roth: Hey, you're not credible

If someone ever wrote a Wikipedia page about you, how much would you care what it said?

Would you pore over it every day and sit back with a slightly watery eye at your life's achievement, immortalized in the Web's factual museum?

Of course you would. So imagine if someone had said that you'd been inspired by David Beckham, when, in fact your inspiration had been David Hockney, wouldn't you attempt to set things right?

Ah, but with Wikipedia, it isn't necessarily so simple.

Please share the pain of Philip Roth. He's the author … Read more

Wikipedia suffers outage after technical glitch

Wikipedia struggled this morning as users took to Twitter and other social media sites to vent their frustration.

The world's largest online encyclopedia began to have problems at around 6:30 a.m. PT, with an error message on the site's front page stating that its "servers are currently experiencing a technical problem."

When users navigated to Wikipedia, pages partially loaded, stripping out much of the site's content styles and layout. The site loaded slowly for some, but many others reported that Wikipedia's homepage was inaccessible.

The site's error message advised the the … Read more

Wikipedia to debut revolutionary travel site?

Online travel information can be very difficult to gauge.

Sometimes, you have no idea if the person who posted about a hotel's supreme service works for the hotel itself or whether the person revealing the presence of cockroaches just happens to be a competitor.

Yet now the bastions of objectivity at the Wikimedia Foundation seem to be getting into the travel business.

For, as Skift.com tells it, the boys from Wikipedia are to set up their own, as yet unnamed, travel site.

It seems that this travel site will be a guide for all who wish to depart … Read more

Wikipedia readies new tool to improve reader feedback

Wikipedia plans to introduce a new feedback tool allowing it to gather opinions from readers on how to improve its articles.

The editorial group behind the popular user-generated encyclopedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, announced this week that the new version of the Wikipedia Article Feedback Tool is on the way.

The current V4 version, which has been in operation since 2010, features a rating form at the end of each article. Readers can rate articles on a scale of 1 to 5 across four different metrics: the objectivity, trustworthiness, quality and completeness of the article.

Version 5 aims to further expand … Read more

Wikipedia blackout in Russia to protest censorship

Wikipedia shut down for 24 hours, just six months ago, joining a massive Web protest in the U.S. over the proposed anti-piracy laws SOPA and PIPA. Now, it's stepping up again in a major Internet revolt against online censorship in Russia.

According to The Next Web, the Russian government is looking to amend a law called the "Act for Information." The proposed changes to the law could lead to sweeping censorship of the Internet, including the complete closure of Wikipedia in Russia.

Wikipedia posted a statement in Russian on its Web site, which The Next Web … Read more