The Truth About the Printed German Wikipedia

May 8th, 2008 | Published in Wikis/Wikipedia

…or the “Great Wikipedia Debate of 2008″

It seems only fair that I follow up a bit on the great big debacle that was my recent Wikipedia post on Read Write Web. If you missed it, let me catch you up: Apparently, I should be disappointed in spreading this FUD, I have no understanding of how open content works, I need to get real, I spread stupid, negative publicity, I need to think before I write, it was a parade of nonsense, etc., etc. Sigh. Of course, amidst the haters, there were some those who agreed with me, but their voices weren’t quite as loud.

I’ll admit, the article was meant to stir the pot a little. So sue me. At the time, I thought I would just throw a controversial topic out there for discussion and see what people think. Unfortunately, people who disagree with an article tend to comment more than those who are neutral or those who agree, something I’ve stated before.

Unfortunately, with the way I wrote the article, this pot-stirring came across as 100%, pure personal opinion, especially when I said this:

But let’s be honest here, if the writers thought that the content they were contributing was to help a commercial publisher make a buck, and not part of a movement to “let information be free,” would they still have given so much of their time on a volunteer basis? It’s one thing to see Wikipedia distributed to the developing world, like when SOS Children’s Village, the world’s largest orphan charity, distributed Wikipedia CDs to Africa, but it’s quite another to know that you’re making money for someone else…for free.

That was meant to spark the debate (it worked), but as to my true personal opinion? Well, perhaps it’s a bit more malleable than the hard line I took at the time.

So, to follow up on the issue, a bit more thoroughly, I’ve since spoken with Mathias Schindler, a member of the board of Wikimedia Germany and the person who had some part in the development of the project to create, publish and distribute the one-volume edition with Wikipedia content, which took roughly three years.

He was disappointed in the turn the debate took, especially in the comments, and wanted to know if we could discuss it further. I readily agreed.

The Bertelsmann Project Is Not a New Idea

First of all, he wanted me to know that the Bertelsmann project is not entirely a new idea. In Germany, he says, they have a history of successful projects involving adapting Wikipedia content to other media, including CD-ROMs and DVDs. For example, a DVD project helped to start a new Wikipedia project on person data, a new kind of authority file. The file later helped a lot in a cooperation between Wikipedia and the German national library.

Schindler uses this example to illustrate, how, in the long run, projects can help do more than just make a few bucks. Although getting paid is nice, he says, Wikipedia has been completely honest from the start: You are free to use the content for any purpose, you don’t need to pay for accessing or using the content. If you contribute, you will have to allow other people the same kind of freedoms you are enjoying.

In fact, this Bertelsmann project isn’t even the first time German Wikipedia content has been put to print. Nor is it the first time that publishers have attempted to make a profit for themselves: products at Directmedia, for example, were primarily designed to make profit for the publishing house. However, reading through that page of print editions, specifically the Directmedia one he referenced, I see a section entitled “Reactions.” And reading through that, I see that it states:

News of the latest Directmedia endeavor was recently reported on the popular website of German newsportal Heise [1], and posts to Heise’s discussion forum revealed a range of reactions to the possibility of a print edition.

Since I’m trying to be more thorough this time, I click through to the link provided by the [1]. On the Wikipedia page, the “range of reactions” they cite include things like environmental issues and whether Wikipedia is ready for print, but reading through the linked page, translated from German to English, I see that a discussion thread very much on this same vein of compensation….at least as far as I can tell considering the translated version. GNU is mentioned. So is Red Hat. (see “not a good sign” on this page). So it appears that there are a few other people who share these concerns after all.

Future Implications

If the project is successful, additional volumes could be printed. It’s even possible that other publishers would follow suit. If that’s the case, then Schindler will recommend to the publisher to think of innovative ways to support Wikipedia and the people who made it possible - the authors. In his opinion, it would make more sense than sharing revenue if Bertelsmann tried to bring its own unique skills into Wikipedia, helping to develop an open source tool-set for publishing Wikipedia content or allowing its staff to spend time in contributing content to Wikipedia under free licenses.

Well, that sounds good, but what I wanted to know, though, is this: how do you really know that the current Wikipedia contributors will remain happy to contribute if a for-profit industry starts up surrounding their efforts? Are they really all that selfless?

Schindler points out that the concept of open source is not a new thing and that some of the contributors turn their reputation of having written a brilliant piece of software into a well paid job.

He adds,

You don’t need to be selfless in order to contribute to Wikipedia (of course, it never hurts).