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Wikipedia Planning a DVD Version
daria42 writes "The Wikipedia Foundation hopes to sell an English version of Wikipedia on CD-ROM and DVD before the end of the year. A boxed set of the German language version of Wikipedia has been available since last year. An updated version of the German Wikipedia was launched on Amazon.de this week, and the e-commerce site has received 8,000 pre-orders, according to Wikipedia Foundation president Jimmy Wales. Wales said it was easier to put the German version of Wikipedia onto CD as there are significantly less pages than there are for the English language version. He said that English Wikipedia would 'barely fit on 2 DVDs.'"
Frequent mentions of David Hassellhoff compress really well.
Last time I checked, the current version of the English wikipedia dump, is around 585MB. It should comfortably fit on one CD. Where did this figure of two DVDs come from?
Not that I hope multitudes don't buy this, because any support of such and effort is good, but why would anyone buy it when you can just look it up and possibly get better updated results online?
How will the trolls deface a read-only version of it?
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
Because you gotta love it when people get paid while continuing to give you their stuff for free. Everybody wins.
I think it's a good idea to have wikipedia available in other formats than just online, but isn't the whole point of it that anyone can come and edit the articles to make them more correct? You couldn't do that with a DVD version. And unless someone is going to go through every article before putting it on a disc, you'd run the risk of buying an encyclopedia with some things blatantly wrong. I could envision pranksters trying to sneak in false information just before the DVD release...
Real_men_don't_need_spacebars.
That was what I thought of as well. Why would you buy the information when you can get it for free. I figured that maybe for computers that are not connected to the net. Also, you could buy it to support wiki.
I thought the whole idea behind wikipedia was that it is constantly changing. Will updated dvds be sold? And if so, will previous buyers get a discount?
The footprint of the english version fits on a floppy!
You know how controversial subjects in the Wikipedia get fights over entries. Back and forth it goes, with one person putting their "truth" and then the opposite side removing or replacing it with their version of the "truth." Now, just picture it: The deadline for the gold master version to be put on disc is announced, and like people pouncing on an EBay auction at the last second, the warring factions will rapidly replace each other's versions of an article, hoping that their version is the one to be immortalized on disc.
I wonder... does this 2-DVD set include all articles from Wikipedia? (As opposed to some just selected somehow...) Also, I wonder if the DVD version will include all the version changes to the articles. If not, then perhaps the best version was picked out somehow?
Hmmm... This is what I think needs to happen: Wait a few more years for Wikipedia to gain even more information, and then put some kind of button on pages that allows users to "vote" for that page to be included in a dead-tree encyclopedia version of Wikipedia. The idea is to put only those articles that have the highest votes into a traditional-style encyclopedia that can rival the likes of commercially made ones. Of course, there would need to be ways to cite sources, to make the encyclopedia worthy of academic research and the like, and preferably there should also be a way for people who want to do other stuff than write articles to submit photographs or whatever kind of artwork, of their own creation and released under the free license of Wikipedia, for inclusion in the articles. For the print version, people might be able to vote for the "best" photographs and artwork for inclusion. At that point, it should be a matter of running some perl script or something to typeset the whole darn thing. This might find its way into libraries and into peoples' homes. Imagine that!
I like the fact that Wikipedia is always current, so I don't know why I'd ever want this on DVD. For example, they had a great article on the pope the other day which was current right up through his death. Since I can just look this up online, why would I want stale information stored on my computer? I have a set of World Books on the shelf, and we keep them around for when you want to do research when "otherwise occupied" (i.e. sitting on the can). Of course now that I have a Zaurus with wireless networking then I don't need the hardcopy any more since I can surf from any room in the house.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
How often do existing pages change? Maybe in a case where people catch errors.
I have a spare 20GB lying around that I would install this on, if there was some way to sync it with the current state and have it download new pages and update current ones.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
...no images in the dump. Just text. And not reader software.
Also, the current dump is about 800 MG, gzipped. enjoy.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this 120 chars is too small to contain.
This would be great for schools. They could buy the DVD set and set up a local "mirror" of Wikipedia to increase access speed and decrease Wikipedia bandwidth usage.
...when I say, "two single-layer DVDs, or dual-layer?"
Say what you will about Wikipedia's well know flaws (revert wars, submitters with thinly veiled political agendas and other various sub-vices) but part of the appeal of Wikipedia is simply the form of its current incarnation.
Right now, if I wanted background information on something, I just load up the (usually speedy) bookmark, enter the search and within seconds I have my answer. Why should it then become a more laborious to use resource? 2 DVDs? No only would constantly inserting and removing discs and launching extra applications provide more hassle (not too much more, but enough to make its value as an ultra speedy information center reduced) how would the information be sorted? Imagine half the links on any page requiring you to switch discs? For me, one of the great ways to use Wikipedia is to wander from article to article following the various text links. A multi-disc setup like this would only discourage that method.
Finally, I don't really think Wikipedia is ready to be put onto physical media for distribution. I certainly wouldn't trust it for more than satiating my curiosity, for instance I'd never cite it in an essay as a source. Articles with heavy disputes in their comments abound and many have no easy answers with how to solve an article's problems. So putting it on DVDs is a two fold problem, you don't get the advantage of having your data updated constantly by other users, but you'll also be working with a lot of flawed data that will be flawed forever on the disc. Perhaps I'm exagerating the problems a little, but really, who needs this? It's not like it's a cheapr printed encyclopedia alternativ to Brittanica, and since it'll be in electronic form anyway, why NOT use the web for it, you don't have to store any of it yourself.
The only audiance I can think of that would need this are Wikipedia addicts who spend a lot of time without internet access.
Sorry for being overly negative, I really love using Wikipedia, but I think this move kind of messes up the point...
Yup...
In order to publish and SELL this information on CD/DVD, does the Wikipedia Foundation have to get the permission of all the article writers, or is there, perhaps, a clause on the website that says something like 'we own all the stuff put on here'. What would happen if Slashdot sold versions of article comments on DVD?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
A lot of vandals copy/paste text from copyrighted websites onto Wikipedia, usually they get found and deleted but some are missed. If they sell copies of Wikipedia then they are going to get tons of copyright infringement lawsuits.
On each Wikipedia article, there should be a button where users can vote an article as being "worthy" for academic research and the like. Articles that receive high votes would actually get published in a monthly (or even by-weekly) magazine... So, for example, each month, subscribers would receive the magazine in the mail, and it would contain, in addition to paid advertising like any other magazine, something like ten or fifteen articles randomly chosen from Wikipedia. These would cover a broad range of topics. One month, you might receive a magazine with articles about Argentina, transaxles, grep, electromagnetism, George Washington, the Berlin wall, Apollo 9, goldfish, ballpoint pens, and cow manure. Some subscribers will already be familiar with some of the topics; others might not be interested in some of the topics; but chances are that if you pick up this magazine and read it, even for a few minutes a month, you'll learn some interesting new facts here and there, usually about topics that you'd never consider reading about in any serious manner, but which you're reading because the Wikipedia Magazine happens to be there.
Links at the bottom of articles would direct the reader to the article online. This would serve an additional purpose: People who find something missing or something that could be improved in an article would perhaps be more likely to find out about it and then go online and fix it, thereby improving the quality of the entire Wikipedia.
Money from subscriptions; money from advertisers in all fields (not just technical, and perhaps based on the content of that month's magazine) would finance the magazine and help finance Wikipedia. I see this as an opportunity to make quite a profit on something that is free, while mainly benefiting the community by doing so.
Honestly, I'm wondering how the CD will be like. Will they include an option for you to have the ability to update the content at your setting? Or will it be so that you have to buy a new version everytime? I'm thinking that they will include an option to update but you can also buy newer versions so that you don't have to spend time updating (I hope)
- Teja
German people dont necessarily speak english and vice versa. And two DVD's is a lot of space. And 4 cd's isnt even a DVD. And just because other people use multiple disks doesnt mean its a good idea. I remember playing riven and having to switch disks way way to often. And for a Encyclopedia there would be a 50% chance that you would have to switch disks everytime you looked something up. That would be rather annoying when trying to do any research.
You know, Wikipedia is ripe for a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy treatment.
Put it in a little handheld, stick an Ipod hard drive in it, give it a usb port so it can grab updates, and presto.
As for Wiki itself, "At least where it is inaccurate, it is definitively inaccurate." -Douglas Adams
Better idea: let the Wikipedia admins pick a version of the page they like, and don't mention the gold master date to anyone. If the deadline isn't known, the factions -- and let's be honest, this might be a problem on ten or fifteen major pages at most -- can't go edit-warring right up to the deadline.
p
In Korea, long hair is for old people!
It's hard to get a more friendly distribution method than that!
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
And instead of a "DONT PANIC" sticker, they'll put on a "DONT EDIT" one.
"It is the stillest words which bring the storm. Thoughts that come with doves' footsteps guide the world."
I've always considered Wikipedia the closest thing Earth has to a Hitchhiker's Guide. If I need to know about anything quickly, that's the first place I look. I'd be a bit interested in something like what the parent mentioned.
Anyone know if they have any way of stopping this?
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
... maybe the zealots who use Wikipedia as their ideological battleground (e.g. this, this, or this) can host their own wikipediae, with their own versions of The Truth, and thus the revision wars on the original Wikipedia will stop.
Or not.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
The problem with voting for the best articles is the same problem that other elections can face--ballot stuffing. What is to stop people with some sort of agenda from voting many times to promote certain articles or coordinating groups of people to vote?
This would probably be a factor only with ideologically divisive topics. The problem is that the votes engendered by the controversial articles might end up dwarfing the numbers for interesting but obscure subjects. I for one wouldn't want a hypothetical Wikipedia magazine reduced to a compendium of hot-button articles.
I know that this is a pessimistic view of how article voting might work. Don't get me wrong, I like Wikipedia and I enjoy it a lot. I just don't quite trust it.
Anakin Simpson: If you're not with me, then you're my enemy--ooh, donuts!
- Dolby Digital Surround Sound
- 1337 5u8717135
- EBG13 Fhogvgyrf
- TourettesMOTHERFUCKINGBITCHCOCK subSHITMONGERtitles
- A short music video in which Jimbo breaks into his famous freestyle diss of Brittannica
- Re-enactments of some of the best NPOV disputes... with puppets!
- And BJAODN, of course
And expect a 25-disc Collector's Edition in about 6 months, with the addition of:They should publish this in the form of a mobile device with the cover saying "DONT PANIC". It would be as cool as hell, and quite useful on certain ocasions when a laptop is too large, or you dont want to risk it being stolen. Anyone thought of making their iPod (mabey its too small) into The Guide?
I first heard about this back in July of 2004. The people at Mandrake had already approached some of our people, and told us they wanted to put Wikipedia on DVD. The stumbling block was, of course, copyright issues. We launched a copyright tagging project in August - basically, they did an sql dump of the list of all uploaded files that had no copyright tag and tagged them. In January, Angela sent them an email, telling them it was done, and that's when the DVD project actually started.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Mediawiki 1.5 (which should be out soon - a couple of months, probably) will include a versioning system. Someone can mark a version as 'good', which in theory means no vandalism and no POV (point of view) issues. (who this is has not yet been determined - I suspect it will probably an admin)
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
What's the point? Wikipedia is an inherently online medium. The articles change daily, new ones are created, etc. This cannot be reasonably placed on a static medium.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
There are already mobile versions that you can get for Palms and Pocket PCs. The database files are over 500MB, so you need an expansion card with that much room. Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:TomeRaider_ database
Personally, I'm hanging out for someone to find a way to only retrieve the top 50% of articles by relevance/importance/popularity and put that on a 256MB or even 128MB database, so that mere mortals can also have Wikipedia on our Palms.
Meanwhile, h2g2, the official Guide project, was contemplating a mobile version, but broadcasting regulations meant that the BBC couldn't follow through on it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
self upgrading... and of course, based on GNU/Linux
13-4=54/6
I can think of a million and one reasons why having a fixed version that is instantly available would be a very handy thing indeed. I have all the Internet connectivity I could want (short of a neural interface), but I'd still probably shell out a few bucks for a copy.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Really? WHY? It's not factual, often more farcicle. Wiki is based on consensus and not facts, and reality (nor the facts) change because a large number or people believe something is so.
Going to Wiki is a waste of time, I honestly can't understand why people do it.
Althought I think actually USING the DVD set for normal use when you have broadband kinda defeats the purpose, I can think of a few reasons why it could be a good thing.
A) Archival. Average users will be able to get a working, usable snapshot of Wikipedia, with media.
B) Preservation. If Wikipedia were to shut down, you'd have a copy of it.
C) Faster access. If you have a slow connection, you can still access Wikipedia at fast speeds. This benefit dwindles over time as articles are updated.
D) Offline access. If you're on the road with no net connection, you can still access Wikipedia. This benefit also dwindles over time as articles are updated.
E) Although backed by Google now which helps with the financials, if it brings in some cash to help support itself it's likely to stay around for much longer.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
As you can see, I've been busy ;)
You can see my work so far at the following links:
..and of course, my beautiful anti-alias fonts for Plucker, made with PalmFontConv by Alexander Pruss.
I've also converted the Creating XPCOM Components book by Doug Turner and Ian Oeschger to Plucker format as well as the FreeBSD Handbook.
I have literally hundreds of similar-quality works I'll be releasing over the next few months to the community on an ongoing basis.
If there's something you'd like to see, just let me know
I hope the take the history of Mathworld as a warning as what can happen in the publishing world.
How are they going to get a Snapshot of Wikipedia in which there is no vandalism in any of the articles?
It's called "editing".
You've been reading slashdot too much.
You can't take the sky from me...
The only Japanese texts that are written all in phoenetics (hiragana or katakana) are children's books. Those will have spaces in between words. Text that is written for literate adult readers is written with kanji (alphabet from China). Most nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are written using one, two, or three kanji. Sometimes nouns are strung together to make longer nouns (sort of like compound nouns, e.g., "All-Japan Kendo Federation" is "zen nihon kendou renmei" and is written using 7 kanji strung together). Hiragana is used for particles (which mark parts of speech and join words together) and also for adjective and verb conjugations. There are also some words which are written in hiragana, however they are mostly common and easily understandable, so there is no problem. Foreign words are usually transliterated using katakana (another purely phoenetic script). Because they're written in katakana, they are automatically differentiated from the surrounding kanji and hiragana. Differentiating words isn't all that hard. The problem is really learning all the vocabulary and kanji.
My other first post is car post.
1. The code is the same size, but it doesn't matter since the space the software would take up on a CD/DVD/... is dwarfed by the size of the data.
2. The English Wikipedia has (roughly) about 2,5 times as many articles as the German Wikipedia. Mean article size (in bytes) is roughly equivalent.
3. The English Wikipedia uses many more images etc. than the German Wikipedia.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
If the content would only fit on 2 DVDs (mostly due to media other than text I suppose) I wonder how will they solve the problem of minimizing the number of times users have to change DVDs? Do algorithms exist that will solve this, in reasonable time on reasonable hardware, for something the size of en.wikipedia?
I know I for one would find it incredibly annoying if it turns out I would need to play DJ a lot to go from "Gautama" to "India" to "Bhopal", say, which is precisely the kind of loosely coupled chain I find myself browsing for the fun of it. The links go everywhere, and I would argue the topology is at least as valuable as the content itself..
I expect you could isolate some "clouds" of articles mostly referring to each other, but anyone want to guess as to the percentage of "cross-DVD" links?
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
This is about the Wikimedia Foundation , not Wikipedia Foundation which doesn't exist. /. post are wrong.
Both the article and the