Google Starts Including Wikipedia on Its News Site

[Fred Bauder-2]

Such awesome responsibility we have now...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22wiki.html

This includes an explanation of why these links were seen only occasionally.

Fred


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[David Gerard-2]

2009/6/22 Fred Bauder <fredbaud@...>:

> Such awesome responsibility we have now...
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22wiki.html
> This includes an explanation of why these links were seen only occasionally.


"So, in essence, many Wikipedia articles are another way that the work
of news publications is quickly condensed and reused without
compensation."

What the fuck. Is there a journalist in the last four years who hasn't
used Wikipedia as their handy universal backgrounder? I'm not seeing
donations to WMF from newspapers as "compensation." I'd expect Noam
Cohen to know better than such rubbish.


- d.

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[Nathan Awrich]

Can someone set up a Wikipedia space page that lists the articles featured
on Google News? The articles will already be under closer scrutiny, for the
same reason they're on Google, but it might be good to have a page that
people can scan for blatant problems and use as a focus for improvement.

Nathan

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud@...> wrote:

> Such awesome responsibility we have now...
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22wiki.html
>
> This includes an explanation of why these links were seen only
> occasionally.
>
> Fred
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l@...
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
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[Thomas Dalton]

2009/6/22 David Gerard <dgerard@...>:

> 2009/6/22 Fred Bauder <fredbaud@...>:
>
>> Such awesome responsibility we have now...
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22wiki.html
>> This includes an explanation of why these links were seen only occasionally.
>
>
> "So, in essence, many Wikipedia articles are another way that the work
> of news publications is quickly condensed and reused without
> compensation."
>
> What the fuck. Is there a journalist in the last four years who hasn't
> used Wikipedia as their handy universal backgrounder? I'm not seeing
> donations to WMF from newspapers as "compensation." I'd expect Noam
> Cohen to know better than such rubbish.

Journalists use each other's work all the time without, as far as I
know, paying each other anything. It's a completely ridiculous
complaint.

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[David Gerard-2]

2009/6/22 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...>:

> Journalists use each other's work all the time without, as far as I
> know, paying each other anything. It's a completely ridiculous
> complaint.


I made it a comment on the story too. You may wish to add your paragraph.

http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22wiki.html#postComment


- d.

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[Fred Bauder-2]

> Can someone set up a Wikipedia space page that lists the articles
> featured
> on Google News? The articles will already be under closer scrutiny, for
> the
> same reason they're on Google, but it might be good to have a page that
> people can scan for blatant problems and use as a focus for improvement.
>
> Nathan
>

Yes, being listed on Google News can certainly bring focus to the
articles affected, both for good and ill. Those listed right now are:

Speaker of the British House of Commons election, 2009

David S. Rohde

20 June 2009 Taza bombing

http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn

How about a category" Category:Google News

Maintenance would consist of adding the category to articles currently
featured and removing it from those no longer featured.

Fred

> On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud@...>
> wrote:
>
>> Such awesome responsibility we have now...
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22wiki.html
>>
>> This includes an explanation of why these links were seen only
>> occasionally.
>>
>> Fred
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l@...
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Your donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation
> today: http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>

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[geni]

2009/6/22 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...>:
> Journalists use each other's work all the time without, as far as I
> know, paying each other anything. It's a completely ridiculous
> complaint.

Various organisations such as AP make good money selling their
stories. There are still some freelance journalists left and
traditionally stories were purchased from local newspapers.


The complaint is that we benefit from their front line reporting which
is rather expensive for them without carrying out front line reporting
of their own.

From a news company's POV there is little point in sending someone to
Iran to report on events if people are only going to read your reports
as rehashed by blogs and wikipedia.


--
geni

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[Fred Bauder-2]

>> Can someone set up a Wikipedia space page that lists the articles
>> featured
>> on Google News? The articles will already be under closer scrutiny, for
>> the
>> same reason they're on Google, but it might be good to have a page that
>> people can scan for blatant problems and use as a focus for
>> improvement.
>>
>> Nathan
>>
>
> Yes, being listed on Google News can certainly bring focus to the
> articles affected, both for good and ill. Those listed right now are:
>
> Speaker of the British House of Commons election, 2009
>
> David S. Rohde
>
> 20 June 2009 Taza bombing
>
> http://news.google.com/nwshp?hl=en&tab=wn
>
> How about a category" Category:Google News
>
> Maintenance would consist of adding the category to articles currently
> featured and removing it from those no longer featured.
>
> Fred
>

I set this up as Category:Currently linked to from Google News

but notice that extremely rapid modification of the main page of Google
News results in frequent removal and addition of links. Our list could
never be current or complete, but might still be useful if attended to.

Fred

>
>> On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 9:38 AM, Fred Bauder <fredbaud@...>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Such awesome responsibility we have now...
>>>
>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/technology/internet/22wiki.html
>>>
>>> This includes an explanation of why these links were seen only
>>> occasionally.
>>>
>>> Fred
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>>> WikiEN-l@...
>>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Your donations keep Wikipedia running! Support the Wikimedia Foundation
>> today: http://www.wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
>>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
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> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

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[David Gerard-2]

2009/6/22 Fred Bauder <fredbaud@...>:

> I set this up as Category:Currently linked to from Google News
> but notice that extremely rapid modification of the main page of Google
> News results in frequent removal and addition of links. Our list could
> never be current or complete, but might still be useful if attended to.


Maybe should be "has been linked from", maybe with a template on the talk page?

Or at least a list of sightings.


- d.

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[Charles Matthews]

Fred Bauder wrote:
> Such awesome responsibility we have now...
>
>  
The suggestion that there should be an onsite category for articles on
Google News is good (prefer a hidden category). As I was saying in
another thread, the journos' priority of getting the breaking news aand
getting it right is being dumped in our laps. (I stick to my point with
respect to what Ec was saying there: "backlog", or shovelling enough
existing scholarship into the 'pedia to make it look like proper
coverage of the "wellknowable" - a Conwayism - is very different from
"frontlog".)

DG, lighten up on Noam Cohen a bit - he seems more disposed to be fair
to us than when I met him in Taipei in 2007, and seemed surprised that
any Wikipedians were actually, like, serious.  His point was factual
even if you may think it is misdirection.

Charles




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[Nathan Awrich]

Is there a way to have the links from the Google front page scraped
automatically to have the pages dumped into the category by bot, rather than
relying on folks to keep it up to date by hand? I can foresee having a
historical category ("Articles linked by Google News"), a current category
("Current Google News article") and ultimately a template ("This page has
been linked to by Google News, etc. etc."). All would be best updated and
maintained by bot, if its possible.

Nathan
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[Fred Bauder-2]

> Is there a way to have the links from the Google front page scraped
> automatically to have the pages dumped into the category by bot, rather
> than
> relying on folks to keep it up to date by hand? I can foresee having a
> historical category ("Articles linked by Google News"), a current
> category
> ("Current Google News article") and ultimately a template ("This page has
> been linked to by Google News, etc. etc."). All would be best updated and
> maintained by bot, if its possible.
>
> Nathan

Of course, as hand work it is hopeless.

Fred



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[Anthony-73]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 11:34 AM, geni <geniice@...> wrote:

> From a news company's POV there is little point in sending someone to
> Iran to report on events if people are only going to read your reports
> as rehashed by blogs and wikipedia.


Maybe they should start their own blogs and wikipedias.
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[Fred Bauder-2]

> 2009/6/22 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...>:
>> Journalists use each other's work all the time without, as far as I
>> know, paying each other anything. It's a completely ridiculous
>> complaint.
>
> Various organisations such as AP make good money selling their
> stories. There are still some freelance journalists left and
> traditionally stories were purchased from local newspapers.
>
>
> The complaint is that we benefit from their front line reporting which
> is rather expensive for them without carrying out front line reporting
> of their own.
>
>>From a news company's POV there is little point in sending someone to
> Iran to report on events if people are only going to read your reports
> as rehashed by blogs and wikipedia.
>
>
> --
> geni
>

Remember, we have people in Iran.

Fred



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[David Gerard-2]

2009/6/22 Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@...>:

> DG, lighten up on Noam Cohen a bit - he seems more disposed to be fair
> to us than when I met him in Taipei in 2007, and seemed surprised that
> any Wikipedians were actually, like, serious.  His point was factual
> even if you may think it is misdirection.


I took it as a direct message of his employer's stance. It's 100%
indicative of the industry stance. Have you seen this *batshit insane*
bullshit? (forwarded to me by Mike Peel):

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=43823&c=1

"The Newspaper Licensing Agency has announced it is to begin
regulating its customers' use of hyperlinks to newspaper articles on
the web."

These people were trying to email me bills for WMUK to pay for the use
of newspaper links at all on Wikipedia. I told them to try the
Foundation.


- d.

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[Charles Matthews]

David Gerard wrote:

> 2009/6/22 Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@...>:
>
>  
>> DG, lighten up on Noam Cohen a bit - he seems more disposed to be fair
>> to us than when I met him in Taipei in 2007, and seemed surprised that
>> any Wikipedians were actually, like, serious.  His point was factual
>> even if you may think it is misdirection.
>>    
>
>
> I took it as a direct message of his employer's stance.

So we should be understanding ...
>  It's 100%
> indicative of the industry stance. Have you seen this *batshit insane*
> bullshit? (forwarded to me by Mike Peel):
>
> http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=43823&c=1
>  
Interesting. They're attempting to raise money by circulating people
saying "you should send us money". We should try that. Oh ...

Charles


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[Nathan Awrich]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 12:17 PM, David Gerard <dgerard@...> wrote:

> 2009/6/22 Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@...>:
>
> > DG, lighten up on Noam Cohen a bit - he seems more disposed to be fair
> > to us than when I met him in Taipei in 2007, and seemed surprised that
> > any Wikipedians were actually, like, serious.  His point was factual
> > even if you may think it is misdirection.
>
>
> I took it as a direct message of his employer's stance. It's 100%
> indicative of the industry stance. Have you seen this *batshit insane*
> bullshit? (forwarded to me by Mike Peel):
>
>
> - d.
>

I wouldn't take it to indicate the stance of the New York Times as a
company; even if it were Bill Keller writing the article, it wouldn't
necessarily represent the corporate position. Cohen is just a reporter, not
spokesman for NYT Inc.

And it isn't so terribly unreasonable, the idea that news aggregators (who
collate content, rather than create it) should be asked to pay some portion
of their revenue to the folks who actually do the work. Our role is a bit
different, since we combine a broad range of references into representative,
but cohesive and unique, coverage of a topic. Google and other sites just
pull links - the most they might do is write an introductory blurb of about
a sentence. I don't personally see that as much different than a normal
search engine function, but I can see where the news people are coming from
on this one.

Nathan
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[Thomas Dalton]

2009/6/22 Fred Bauder <fredbaud@...>:
> I set this up as Category:Currently linked to from Google News
>
> but notice that extremely rapid modification of the main page of Google
> News results in frequent removal and addition of links. Our list could
> never be current or complete, but might still be useful if attended to.

Is it worth asking Google if they could supply us with a list?

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[Ian Woollard]

On 22/06/2009, geni <geniice@...> wrote:
> From a news company's POV there is little point in sending someone to
> Iran to report on events if people are only going to read your reports
> as rehashed by blogs and wikipedia.

Actually, the Wikipedia does at least usually refer to the original
source; most conventional media don't even bother. So, while they
don't get link juice, they will get some click-throughs.

> --
> geni

--
-Ian Woollard

"All the world's a stage... but you'll grow out of it eventually."

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[Thomas Dalton]

2009/6/22 Ian Woollard <ian.woollard@...>:
> On 22/06/2009, geni <geniice@...> wrote:
>> From a news company's POV there is little point in sending someone to
>> Iran to report on events if people are only going to read your reports
>> as rehashed by blogs and wikipedia.
>
> Actually, the Wikipedia does at least usually refer to the original
> source; most conventional media don't even bother. So, while they
> don't get link juice, they will get some click-throughs.

Do we have any stats on how often people click the links in
references? I suspect not. It would be good if we could get some,
though.

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