Re: [Wikimedia-l] Net neutrality: since when has it had anything to do with price?

[Jens Best]

what Josh Lim wrote in the other threat:

Hi Jens,

In the absence of any meaningful alternative, what should we do then?
Close down Wikipedia Zero and let the developing world languish in the
dark?  We talk of a "more sustainable way to bring free knowledge (which is
far more than Wikipedia)”, yet we’re not seeing anything coming out of this
discussion.

I will be brutally honest to everyone in this mailing list: this entire
discussion about Wikipedia Zero and net neutrality has become very
patronizing against us in the developing world who benefit from the
program.  The fact that we’re having this discussion without developing
world voices (other than myself) is already troubling in itself since, so
far, every discussion about Wikipedia Zero that I’ve seen only includes
those "white, privileged and well-educated people” who you defend.

And yet you guys talk as if you know what’s best for the developing world.
That’s the tone that I’ve been sensing in this entire discussion thus far,
and I’m sorry, but it’s not helpful.  Please don’t speak as if you guys
know what it’s like on the ground in Asia or Africa.

I’ve had to swallow my own pride just to accept the fact that net
neutrality has to take the back burner to bringing more information out
there to people.  I have always believed in net neutrality as a means of
ensuring a free and open Internet to everybody.  But if you’re in a country
like the Philippines where the majority of people don’t even have the
luxury of going online (and if you do, it’s bloody expensive), then having
access to some information—even if that information is imperfect—is still
better than none at all, since at least we can still correct any
misinformation that may arise.  And as Wikipedians, we are in a position to
do just that through ensuring that our content is well-monitored, neutral
and comprehensive so that at least there’s a multitude of viewpoints
present even if the information is coming from a single source.

We should make people in the developing world aware of net neutrality, yes,
but we must also be careful to consider the existing socio-economic
conditions of the countries where this program has been deployed.  I am all
for the sharing of knowledge and the free exchange of information for the
greatest benefit, but we cannot have that discussion if people are not able
to have access to the Internet in the first place.  We cannot afford at
this point to put the cart before the horse, and as I’ve mentioned earlier,
in the absence of a meaningful alternative, this is the best we can do so
far.

Also, just so you know: Wikipedia Zero, at least in this country, is being
implemented by a local telecom with no discernible link to the big players
like Orange or T-Mobile or Telenor.  They view it so far as good CSR and
not as a means of controlling the flow of information or wanting to make a
profit.  So yeah, at least for us it’s been good so far.  If it happens
though that things turn sour, then expect us to fight for our principles.

Thanks,

Josh

---

my answer to Josh:

Hi Josh et al.,

as you seemed a bit upset, I want to take the chance to answer you to
better understand my position.

Taking your "brutal honesty" into account I will try to be the same. I
wasn't sure especially about that point in the discussion, because my
knowledge about the access situations around the world is only based on
several discussions I had with web people from developing countries around
the world in the recent years and by reading reports about it. Over the
last years on several occasions I spoke with many people from developing
countries who are actively promoting the internet and its enourmous
possibilities as the best tool mankind created for it so far.

So I always kept in mind that there are as many different approaches to the
open use of the web as there are people around the world. I'm also worried
when I see that in some countries new "web" users know nothing about the
internet because for them data stuff is facebook stuff. Also I'm worried
that the economic situation in several regions are producing situations
which aren't helpful to keep the web what it's supposed to be, e.g. when in
India people buy cheap access to Facebook, but "the whole internet" costs
much more. Because as all this is data, this separation is artifical and
access providers as well as dominant market content players are using their
power to promote price models based on content and data types instead of
the use of the whole internet.

For me (and other students) "going online" wasn't cheap back in the 90s and
I am not sure how the use of the web would have developed if back then
there would have been an offer onyl getting some websites for a cheaper
price. In fact there were these offers - called "walled gardens" where you
got a selection of information and data types by pre-selected partners of
the access provider. Similiar story was the rise of AOL and their walled
garden system. People who went on

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Net neutrality: since when has it had anything to do with price?

[Jens Best]

Dear Nathan et al.

I answered Josh in the other threat but will copy my answer to him again
here below so that anybody interested to continue can do this in the
"right" threat.

Nathan, I am disgusted by your comparisons. "colonialist aspect"? "little
reminiscent of European Christian missionaries bringing the Bible to the
supposedly uncivilized." These allegations - presented as comparisons - are
purely insulting.

Oh, and actually it was Lila who introduced WP0 to this threat - otherwise
I wouldn't have taken the chance to hint Kourosh to this field which was
announced to be in his future field of responsibility.

I will not continue discussing with people making insulting comparisons to
violent christian missionaries or similarily offending rhetoric stuff which
in no way helps the discussion.

I - as everybody else in this discussion - are not to be judged by my race.
Believing just because I am white I could only think and behave in
colonistic pattern is an insult and not a contribution to the discussion.

cheers

Jens


2015-04-01 21:16 GMT+02:00 Nathan :

> On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 3:05 PM, Gilles Dubuc  wrote:
>
> > To me Josh's point in the other thread settles this argument. I can't
> > presume to know better than the people this service is made for what is
> > good for them. People in other cultures have values as well. They might
> be
> > different than ours, but more importantly, they have to be pitted against
> > constraints that are completely different than ours. It's perfectly
> normal
> > that the result of the moral equation people have to solve can be
> different
> > than ours. It's also logical for it to evolve over time, as the
> constraints
> > change. Let people in the countries where Wikipedia Zero operates decide
> > whether it fits their vision of the movement or not. I'm sure that if
> users
> > in a given country find it contrary to their beliefs or what they think
> to
> > be the movement's values, they'll campaign against it on their own
> accord.
>
>
> I agree. We've discussed on this list before that for some, including Jens,
> the principles of net neutrality haven taken on a religious dimension. Any
> deviation from the absolute principle is attacked as immoral, so that some
> who expect that Wikimedia is a moral actor (from their perspective) feel
> shocked and betrayed when it is apparent that Wikimedia doesn't share this
> religious view of net neutrality.
>
> Josh Lim's e-mail makes it clear that there is a definite colonialist
> aspect to this absolutist perspective, more than a little reminiscent of
> European Christian missionaries bringing the Bible to the supposedly
> uncivilized. Net neutrality activists should not presume to know better
> what is right and necessary for all parts of the world; if Wikipedia Zero
> is hailed as useful and needed in areas where it is available (and it is),
> then we should accept it and even promote it as a moral positive.
>
> And to Jen's complaint about calling WP0 off topic... Perhaps you
> misunderstood, Jens - I wasn't referring exclusively to your reply to
> Gerard, but to the clear fact that a discussion about net neutrality was
> off topic for a thread welcoming a new executive to the WMF. Incidentally,
> I believe it *was* you who introduced WP0 to the thread.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Net neutrality: since when has it had anything to do with price?

[Nathan]

On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 3:05 PM, Gilles Dubuc  wrote:

> To me Josh's point in the other thread settles this argument. I can't
> presume to know better than the people this service is made for what is
> good for them. People in other cultures have values as well. They might be
> different than ours, but more importantly, they have to be pitted against
> constraints that are completely different than ours. It's perfectly normal
> that the result of the moral equation people have to solve can be different
> than ours. It's also logical for it to evolve over time, as the constraints
> change. Let people in the countries where Wikipedia Zero operates decide
> whether it fits their vision of the movement or not. I'm sure that if users
> in a given country find it contrary to their beliefs or what they think to
> be the movement's values, they'll campaign against it on their own accord.


I agree. We've discussed on this list before that for some, including Jens,
the principles of net neutrality haven taken on a religious dimension. Any
deviation from the absolute principle is attacked as immoral, so that some
who expect that Wikimedia is a moral actor (from their perspective) feel
shocked and betrayed when it is apparent that Wikimedia doesn't share this
religious view of net neutrality.

Josh Lim's e-mail makes it clear that there is a definite colonialist
aspect to this absolutist perspective, more than a little reminiscent of
European Christian missionaries bringing the Bible to the supposedly
uncivilized. Net neutrality activists should not presume to know better
what is right and necessary for all parts of the world; if Wikipedia Zero
is hailed as useful and needed in areas where it is available (and it is),
then we should accept it and even promote it as a moral positive.

And to Jen's complaint about calling WP0 off topic... Perhaps you
misunderstood, Jens - I wasn't referring exclusively to your reply to
Gerard, but to the clear fact that a discussion about net neutrality was
off topic for a thread welcoming a new executive to the WMF. Incidentally,
I believe it *was* you who introduced WP0 to the thread.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Net neutrality: since when has it had anything to do with price?

[Gilles Dubuc]

To me Josh's point in the other thread settles this argument. I can't
presume to know better than the people this service is made for what is
good for them. People in other cultures have values as well. They might be
different than ours, but more importantly, they have to be pitted against
constraints that are completely different than ours. It's perfectly normal
that the result of the moral equation people have to solve can be different
than ours. It's also logical for it to evolve over time, as the constraints
change. Let people in the countries where Wikipedia Zero operates decide
whether it fits their vision of the movement or not. I'm sure that if users
in a given country find it contrary to their beliefs or what they think to
be the movement's values, they'll campaign against it on their own accord.

On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 8:34 PM, Jens Best  wrote:

> Hi Nathan and everybody,
>
> Last time I checked my mail (containing my repsonse to Gerard) wasn't
> published and as I sent it yesterday morning I'm suprised that it took that
> long to "arrive".
>
> Also, I would like you to stop your wrong assumptions about "off-topic" -
> As Gerard made a statement to Wikipedia Zero my answer to him isn't "surely
> off topic". I didn't decide to discuss the pros/cons of WP0 in the
> Welcome-Mail to Kourosh.
> In my welcoming response I just pointed out to Kourosh that one of his new
> responsibilities (highlighted by Lila) is a big problem for the global
> community which cares about an open and free web, inculding several NGOs of
> the Global South who spoke out clearly against Wikipedia Zero e.g. at the
> Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2014 in Istanbul (where net neutrality was
> a main subject of discussion). As this subject was subsequentially
> discussed in the threat my answer to Gerard's input was not off-topic at
> all.
>
> Right now I don't feel any open-mindedness towards even the possibilitiy
> that The Great WMF could have made a mistake by going to bed with the
> telecoms to get zero-rated. As long as there isn't even the slightest
> willingness to acknowledge the possibility that WP0 was a mistake it
> becomes more and more senseless to talk with official and inofficial
> representatives of the WMF-system.
>
> Maybe WMF and with it Wikipedia has to learn the consequences of its
> mistakes the hard way. But the ignorance towards facts which was presented
> over the last months when it comes to the glorious Wikipedia Zero and the
> fact that it is a violation of core principle of the free and open web is
> enourmous and without any excuse for an organisation carrying that amount
> of responsibility when it comes to stand for an open web which made
> Wikipedia possible in the first.
>
> Hopefully with Kourosh the organisation will get somebody who has the
> outside-world experience and the professional courage to stop mistakes like
> Wikipedia Zero. We'll see. Apart from that I rest my case, all the
> recurring participants in the ongoing discussion exchanged their arguments
> already. I don't see new faces in the discussion and therefore I'm actually
> not interested to repeat my arguments over and over.
>
> Just, because I promised him, two main answer to James:
>
> - Of course net neutrality has a monetary aspect. Read the
> definition[1]: "…treat
> all data on the Internet  equally,
> not discriminating or *charging differentially* by content, site, platform,
> application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication". If you
> have to pay different prices for different data it is a basic violation of
> net neutrality. net neutrality isn't about techy aspects, it is about power
> and structural equality in the web.
>
> - Wikipedia Zero can't offer the promised grow because by definition it is
> a *Walled Wikipedia*. WP0 will always be just a marketing tool for telecoms
> to lure new customers in and train them that different data has different
> price tag. Their teachings are: "When you wanna leave Wikipedia, wanna
> follow the links to really enrich your knowledge by using all the other
> free content in the web - you have to pay." So therefore Wikipedia Zero is
> not about the free knowledge of the world, it is a Wikipedia which has
> chosen the wrong side of the play about a free and open web for the
> self-involved purpose of being the one and only source for knowledge.
> Welcome to world of first-world-owned telecoms teaching their new Global
> South-customers an "internet" far away from what the internet was supposed
> to be.
>
>
> cheers
>
> Jens
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality
>
> PS: @Marc No Marc, no "bits of my message were accidentally elided". When I
> write in a mailinglist I, of course, express my opinion and my points of
> view, but your nit-picking and pseudo-kind cynical remarks additionally
> prove how biased the whole discussion is at the moment in the WMF-universe.
> Critics are not welcome. Message recieved, 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Net neutrality: since when has it had anything to do with price?

[Jens Best]

Hi Nathan and everybody,

Last time I checked my mail (containing my repsonse to Gerard) wasn't
published and as I sent it yesterday morning I'm suprised that it took that
long to "arrive".

Also, I would like you to stop your wrong assumptions about "off-topic" -
As Gerard made a statement to Wikipedia Zero my answer to him isn't "surely
off topic". I didn't decide to discuss the pros/cons of WP0 in the
Welcome-Mail to Kourosh.
In my welcoming response I just pointed out to Kourosh that one of his new
responsibilities (highlighted by Lila) is a big problem for the global
community which cares about an open and free web, inculding several NGOs of
the Global South who spoke out clearly against Wikipedia Zero e.g. at the
Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2014 in Istanbul (where net neutrality was
a main subject of discussion). As this subject was subsequentially
discussed in the threat my answer to Gerard's input was not off-topic at
all.

Right now I don't feel any open-mindedness towards even the possibilitiy
that The Great WMF could have made a mistake by going to bed with the
telecoms to get zero-rated. As long as there isn't even the slightest
willingness to acknowledge the possibility that WP0 was a mistake it
becomes more and more senseless to talk with official and inofficial
representatives of the WMF-system.

Maybe WMF and with it Wikipedia has to learn the consequences of its
mistakes the hard way. But the ignorance towards facts which was presented
over the last months when it comes to the glorious Wikipedia Zero and the
fact that it is a violation of core principle of the free and open web is
enourmous and without any excuse for an organisation carrying that amount
of responsibility when it comes to stand for an open web which made
Wikipedia possible in the first.

Hopefully with Kourosh the organisation will get somebody who has the
outside-world experience and the professional courage to stop mistakes like
Wikipedia Zero. We'll see. Apart from that I rest my case, all the
recurring participants in the ongoing discussion exchanged their arguments
already. I don't see new faces in the discussion and therefore I'm actually
not interested to repeat my arguments over and over.

Just, because I promised him, two main answer to James:

- Of course net neutrality has a monetary aspect. Read the
definition[1]: "…treat
all data on the Internet  equally,
not discriminating or *charging differentially* by content, site, platform,
application, type of attached equipment, or mode of communication". If you
have to pay different prices for different data it is a basic violation of
net neutrality. net neutrality isn't about techy aspects, it is about power
and structural equality in the web.

- Wikipedia Zero can't offer the promised grow because by definition it is
a *Walled Wikipedia*. WP0 will always be just a marketing tool for telecoms
to lure new customers in and train them that different data has different
price tag. Their teachings are: "When you wanna leave Wikipedia, wanna
follow the links to really enrich your knowledge by using all the other
free content in the web - you have to pay." So therefore Wikipedia Zero is
not about the free knowledge of the world, it is a Wikipedia which has
chosen the wrong side of the play about a free and open web for the
self-involved purpose of being the one and only source for knowledge.
Welcome to world of first-world-owned telecoms teaching their new Global
South-customers an "internet" far away from what the internet was supposed
to be.


cheers

Jens

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality

PS: @Marc No Marc, no "bits of my message were accidentally elided". When I
write in a mailinglist I, of course, express my opinion and my points of
view, but your nit-picking and pseudo-kind cynical remarks additionally
prove how biased the whole discussion is at the moment in the WMF-universe.
Critics are not welcome. Message recieved, continue with your holy mission.
Hail Wikipedia, the mother of all knowledge available to the poor!

2015-04-01 19:20 GMT+02:00 Nathan :

> Jens - your reply to Gerard on the other thread (where it is surely off
> topic) was published a couple of hours ago.
>
> On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Jens Best  wrote:
>
> > Dear James,
> >
> > your praising of WP0 surely deserves or even needs an appropiated answer,
> > but as I can't see my answering mail  to Gerard's input from yesterday
> > published in this mailinglist so I will wait until this "moderated".
> >
> > When I see that my email with the answer to Gerard is published in the
> > mailinglist I will take the time to explain you why net neutrality is
> more
> > than you suggest and why we need to be a little bit less starry-eyed when
> > it comes to the reasons why telecoms are behaving sooo nice to Wikipedia.
> > Also I will add some remarks about why a little bit more humbleness from
> > the "we are the knowledge of the world"-fraction woul

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Net neutrality: since when has it had anything to do with price?

[Marc A. Pelletier]

On 15-04-01 01:06 PM, Jens Best wrote:
> I will take the time to explain you why [I believe] net neutrality
> is more than you suggest and why [I think] we need to be a
> little bit less starry-eyed [than I believe we are] when
> it comes to the reasons why telecoms are behaving sooo nice
> to Wikipedia.
> Also I will add some remarks about why [I think] a little bit
> more humbleness from [those I perceive to be] the "we are the
> knowledge of the world"-fraction would be appropiated in
> the whole discussion.

It would appear that bits of your message were accidentally elided when
it was sent.  I took the opportunity to restore the bits that were
clearly missing - no doubt you did not intend to express your opinion as
though it was fact nor apply it uniformly to everyone on the mailing list.

-- Marc


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Net neutrality: since when has it had anything to do with price?

[Nathan]

Jens - your reply to Gerard on the other thread (where it is surely off
topic) was published a couple of hours ago.

On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 1:06 PM, Jens Best  wrote:

> Dear James,
>
> your praising of WP0 surely deserves or even needs an appropiated answer,
> but as I can't see my answering mail  to Gerard's input from yesterday
> published in this mailinglist so I will wait until this "moderated".
>
> When I see that my email with the answer to Gerard is published in the
> mailinglist I will take the time to explain you why net neutrality is more
> than you suggest and why we need to be a little bit less starry-eyed when
> it comes to the reasons why telecoms are behaving sooo nice to Wikipedia.
> Also I will add some remarks about why a little bit more humbleness from
> the "we are the knowledge of the world"-fraction would be appropiated in
> the whole discussion.
>
> best regards
>
> Jens
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Net neutrality: since when has it had anything to do with price?

[Jens Best]

Dear James,

your praising of WP0 surely deserves or even needs an appropiated answer,
but as I can't see my answering mail  to Gerard's input from yesterday
published in this mailinglist so I will wait until this "moderated".

When I see that my email with the answer to Gerard is published in the
mailinglist I will take the time to explain you why net neutrality is more
than you suggest and why we need to be a little bit less starry-eyed when
it comes to the reasons why telecoms are behaving sooo nice to Wikipedia.
Also I will add some remarks about why a little bit more humbleness from
the "we are the knowledge of the world"-fraction would be appropiated in
the whole discussion.

best regards

Jens

2015-04-01 18:37 GMT+02:00 James Salsman :

> Jens,
>
> Why do you say net neutrality has anything to do with price? It's about
> best-effort delivery of packets without censorship or, for example,
> treating packets that say "do you want to join our radical fundamentalist
> agnostic cell," the same way as we treat packets that say, "do you want to
> subscribe to our newsletter."
>
> In 1973, the packet switching X.25 systems which resemble today's internet
> more closely than the IMP point-to-point testing at the time had no
> provisions for packet inspection or "quality of service" adjustments. But
> if you didn't subscribe to a database that you might want to access (which
> may or may not cost money) then you had no access because if there were no
> login credentials then you could tell everyone how to use the database when
> it could only handle on the order of dozens of users at a time. What you
> want in saying that you think zero rating violates net neutrality is the
> MIT open Multics movement, which exists on the internet today in the form
> of free and ad-supported hosting services like Wikia. Net neutrality is
> about no preferred qualities of packet delivery service, because those
> are best handled by adaptive rate coding at the application layer, which is
> what the WMF causes the implementation of when they contract with cell
> carriers to allow access to Wikipedia content for no charge. The fact that
> Wikipedia is civilization's best summary of accumulated knowledge so far is
> the reason why carriers are willing to provide the transmission power to
> their users at no charge in areas where they still ordinarily compete on a
> per-bit fee. That is an economic application design choice that has nothing
> to do with packet delivery choices.
>
> Similarly, in the 1860s the Hayes printing telegraph ticker tape had no
> restrictions on who could send a transmission or what it's content might
> be, and in cases of congestion, the operator noticing a collision first
> would back off, and the other would re-transmit in an egalitarian
> fashion, but the data you sent would obtain a response in proportion to the
> amount the recipient was being paid.
>
> Wikipedia Zero is a great program and I hope something like Wikiversity
> Zero assessments will be how hundreds of millions of people learn new facts
> pertinent to their lives and helpful to them in ten years. With adaptive
> instruction coupled to Wikipedia Accuracy Review, I believe that such a
> system will support the transition from creating new articles to
> maintaining existing content. I hope both the WMF and the WEF support this
> effort, because if the WEF was paying for it, it would likely not influence
> the safe harbor provisions protecting the WMF from legal liability due to
> inaccuracies. I am sad when dictatorships use Wikipedia Zero for propaganda
> purposes, but I am not sure how much of a problem that is relative to the
> advantages.
>
> Best regards,
> James Salsman
>
>
>
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[Wikimedia-l] Net neutrality: since when has it had anything to do with price?

[James Salsman]

Jens,

Why do you say net neutrality has anything to do with price? It's about
best-effort delivery of packets without censorship or, for example,
treating packets that say "do you want to join our radical fundamentalist
agnostic cell," the same way as we treat packets that say, "do you want to
subscribe to our newsletter."

In 1973, the packet switching X.25 systems which resemble today's internet
more closely than the IMP point-to-point testing at the time had no
provisions for packet inspection or "quality of service" adjustments. But
if you didn't subscribe to a database that you might want to access (which
may or may not cost money) then you had no access because if there were no
login credentials then you could tell everyone how to use the database when
it could only handle on the order of dozens of users at a time. What you
want in saying that you think zero rating violates net neutrality is the
MIT open Multics movement, which exists on the internet today in the form
of free and ad-supported hosting services like Wikia. Net neutrality is
about no preferred qualities of packet delivery service, because those
are best handled by adaptive rate coding at the application layer, which is
what the WMF causes the implementation of when they contract with cell
carriers to allow access to Wikipedia content for no charge. The fact that
Wikipedia is civilization's best summary of accumulated knowledge so far is
the reason why carriers are willing to provide the transmission power to
their users at no charge in areas where they still ordinarily compete on a
per-bit fee. That is an economic application design choice that has nothing
to do with packet delivery choices.

Similarly, in the 1860s the Hayes printing telegraph ticker tape had no
restrictions on who could send a transmission or what it's content might
be, and in cases of congestion, the operator noticing a collision first
would back off, and the other would re-transmit in an egalitarian
fashion, but the data you sent would obtain a response in proportion to the
amount the recipient was being paid.

Wikipedia Zero is a great program and I hope something like Wikiversity
Zero assessments will be how hundreds of millions of people learn new facts
pertinent to their lives and helpful to them in ten years. With adaptive
instruction coupled to Wikipedia Accuracy Review, I believe that such a
system will support the transition from creating new articles to
maintaining existing content. I hope both the WMF and the WEF support this
effort, because if the WEF was paying for it, it would likely not influence
the safe harbor provisions protecting the WMF from legal liability due to
inaccuracies. I am sad when dictatorships use Wikipedia Zero for propaganda
purposes, but I am not sure how much of a problem that is relative to the
advantages.

Best regards,
James Salsman
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