To be honest, my inclination is to take the opposite opinion of this than the author seems to, and see it as a good thing if people are reusing our text. I write content with the full knowledge that it's licensed under a copyleft arrangement and that it is available for use in a commercial setting. I guess legally speaking, Google and the like are maybe not fulfilling the licence by using our content without direct attribution (although there is a clear link saying "Wikipedia" there), but honestly I see it as a sort of badge of honour when I ask Google Nest a question and it spews my own words back at me, or I find some random stuff about Rwandan bus services, and accompanying map, that I wrote about 15 years ago sitting in a Cambridge published revision guide... I can see why in principle it would be good for Google et al to support the Foundation, but I don't see it as an absolute must and personally I give my time to the project principally to help make the world's knowledge freely and easily available, not because I think Wikipedia itself is the absolute be-all-and-end-all. Cheers — Amakuru ( talk) 21:46, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
I share the author's concern, but I'm not really sure what we can do in this case. ~★ nmaia d 00:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Really clear-sighted and important article, Zarasophos. Thanks! (Personally, I found the realisation a few years ago that Google, and to an increasing extent the WMF itself, were beginning to make huge amounts of money from unpaid, volunteer labour a pretty considerable turn-off. One thing I stopped doing at that time was spending hundreds of pounds on reference material ... I started to think that that, at least, was something the Foundation and the various re-users like Google should provide, and to some small extent at least, i.e. the WMF's Wikipedia Library, this has happened. The situation with attribution is even more of an issue with Wikidata, which has a zero-attribution licence. The abortive Knowledge Engine looked like it was heading in the same direction – using Wikimedia volunteer labour as a money-spinner for some of the world's richest companies. Everyone should realise a simple fact — namely that one aspect of contributing here is that you work for free so that Google, Bing, Amazon etc. can make even more money. That's why they support the effort – and what they give is a pittance compared to what they make.) -- Andreas JN 466 18:53, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Excellent article. This is one reason why I refuse to bother with Template:Short description on articles. Their main benefit seems to be to provide content for scrapers like Amazon Alexa and Google, and if those guys want me to add them they can pay me. Blythwood ( talk) 20:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
To be honest, my inclination is to take the opposite opinion of this than the author seems to, and see it as a good thing if people are reusing our text. I write content with the full knowledge that it's licensed under a copyleft arrangement and that it is available for use in a commercial setting. I guess legally speaking, Google and the like are maybe not fulfilling the licence by using our content without direct attribution (although there is a clear link saying "Wikipedia" there), but honestly I see it as a sort of badge of honour when I ask Google Nest a question and it spews my own words back at me, or I find some random stuff about Rwandan bus services, and accompanying map, that I wrote about 15 years ago sitting in a Cambridge published revision guide... I can see why in principle it would be good for Google et al to support the Foundation, but I don't see it as an absolute must and personally I give my time to the project principally to help make the world's knowledge freely and easily available, not because I think Wikipedia itself is the absolute be-all-and-end-all. Cheers — Amakuru ( talk) 21:46, 28 March 2021 (UTC)
I share the author's concern, but I'm not really sure what we can do in this case. ~★ nmaia d 00:50, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Really clear-sighted and important article, Zarasophos. Thanks! (Personally, I found the realisation a few years ago that Google, and to an increasing extent the WMF itself, were beginning to make huge amounts of money from unpaid, volunteer labour a pretty considerable turn-off. One thing I stopped doing at that time was spending hundreds of pounds on reference material ... I started to think that that, at least, was something the Foundation and the various re-users like Google should provide, and to some small extent at least, i.e. the WMF's Wikipedia Library, this has happened. The situation with attribution is even more of an issue with Wikidata, which has a zero-attribution licence. The abortive Knowledge Engine looked like it was heading in the same direction – using Wikimedia volunteer labour as a money-spinner for some of the world's richest companies. Everyone should realise a simple fact — namely that one aspect of contributing here is that you work for free so that Google, Bing, Amazon etc. can make even more money. That's why they support the effort – and what they give is a pittance compared to what they make.) -- Andreas JN 466 18:53, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
Excellent article. This is one reason why I refuse to bother with Template:Short description on articles. Their main benefit seems to be to provide content for scrapers like Amazon Alexa and Google, and if those guys want me to add them they can pay me. Blythwood ( talk) 20:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)