Talk:Yahoo! hosting

What Happened??

What happened? Last thing I heard, Google was thinking about it, not Yahoo! This is all because of MSN Search and Encarta. Yahoo got wind of Google trying to snatch up Wikipedia, and got in there first. God I hate Yahoo Saxsux 20:25, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This isn't some kind of exclusive deal. See Wikimedia partners and hosts. --brion 00:09, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No one is "snatching up" anything. People who believe in our mission and are in a position to help us are coming forward to help us. I am continuing discussion with google about ways that they, too, might creatively help to support our community, and will always keep a very keen eye on our need for independence and freedom to do our work properly. --Jimbo Wales 00:23, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Okay, sorry. My initial message was a bit OTT. I assumed that you had completely abandoned Google and gone to Yahoo. Just a question, what will happen with all the donations? Now that Yahoo are providing hosting for Wikimedia, our donations are no longer need to purchase server equipment. Saxsux 08:38, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You're still off the target. Wikimedia is big; and it's growing quickly. I'm sure there's no lack of uses for the donations. Yahoo is providing *help* hosting Wikimedia. There are other partners and many other potential ones. Look at the partners and hosts-page linked above.130.240.222.40 09:05, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

See my comment below, "Where do the surplus funds go now?" (in the interests of not splitting things up) 137.186.221.75 09:16, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

On Advertising

Yahoo! does not expect Wikimedia to host advertisements in return for this support.

Except for the the one you're reading right now. (w:Irony)

It is called an announcement. When there is an announcement, people complain it is advertisement. When there is no announcement, people complain of secrecy.... Anthere 04:17, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Secrecy is bad. Posting a message at the top of every page is not about avoiding secrecy. --anon

Well, exactly. They're building their brand name. Ads, the kind you speak of, are annoying and hated. Having the public know that they are helping wikipedia is advertising of a very different form. 137.186.221.75 22:35, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yahoo!'s Touch of Death

Last time Yahoo! buddied up with another organization (in this case, my Internet Service Provider, SBC Global), my ISP changed their customer web pages' host server from a regular, reliable web server run by the ISP... to Geoshitties, with the same 5MB-per-hour bandwidth cap on all web pages. I hope Yahoo! isn't planning on fucking up yet another good thing with their deceptively friendly partnerships. --69.234.185.170 18:12, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Surely there aren't any fools. --138.89.171.36 21:30, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This announcement is about Yahoo! sponsoring us with actual running hardware, not any kind of business deal like Yahoo+Geocities or Yahoo+SBC. silsor 00:34, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Yahoo! v. Google

Whoop. Well done Jimbo and co. I hope this doesn't mean you're turning down the Google offer though? Wasn't there supposed to have been a meeting about that in March? --cfp 18:24, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations guys. It seems like there will be some landmines to avoid, like people here are pointing out, but hopefully you can realize a lot of benefits from this move. Good luck! --63.65.27.18 22:10, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Discussions are continuing with google about creative ways that they might help support our charitable work, and I would anticipate a public announcement in the next few weeks. --Jimbo Wales 00:22, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sensitive Data / Privacy Laws

There are some flamewars on rumors saying Google / Yahoo is getting access to sensitive data (like passwords and the ability to match read-access logs to usernames).

I can comment definitively that this is absolutely and 100% not true. --Jimbo Wales 00:12, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In any case, with Wikipedia content hosted on Yahoo/Google servers, do they not have access to who is accessing what data? Are there any provisions or restrictions on what they may do with this data? --anon 02:13, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, that data might be collected right now by ISP's, carrier providers, FBI, CIA and aliens. There's a question if they're really doing that. If we ask them not to, it would be a bad gesture to do so. Of course, we could use HTTPS for secure transactions, but that'd need hardware SSL accellerators and some infrastructure redesign. I do consider people out there are good guys, and we are good guys, so we should better concentrate on productivity instead of paranoia issues. --Domas Mituzas

It's not a bad gesture to *require* (not ask) they don't do that. It speaks genuinely on behalf of a friendly society. For instance, is Wikipedia going to allow them redistribute and/or sell the information they collect about who reads what? Wikipedia becomes a different animal when it's hosts (whose judgement, confidence, and good nature we trust -- the revered Wikimedia Foundation) ceases to be the hosts. It puts the entire project in jeapordy. We're all good guys; some of us just don't realize it yet. --anon 16:39, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Content restrictions

I hope this does not mean that Yahoo's content rules will apply to Wikipedia. Yahoo is very generous in any case, but I hope the Foundation will remain in full editorial control subject to the law of the hosting country. --62.252.0.4 19:09, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There are no content restrictions of any kind from Yahoo. --Jimbo Wales 00:13, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ah great

Just what the Internet's largest source of free information needed: an alliance with a two-bit company that has a horrible privacy record.

Yeah, new servers are nifty, but I'd rather Wikipedia be down half the time and not be subject to a money-grubbing corporation than stay up 24/7 and be. When will people learn that pragmatism is a self-defeating philosophy?

I for one am now, officially, avoiding Wikipedia as much as possible. Which is truly a shame; it was a great source of knowledge. --Anon

• I have concerns over privacy, too. --Eleassar777 20:45, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yahoo will be given no legal access to any private data. We will be to them as any customer is to any ISP. If they wanted to do anything fishy, I would be the first to scream, but they don't want to do anything fishy, they want to help us. --Jimbo Wales 00:15, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you can't trust the CEO and founder of Wikipedia tells you, then why did you trust Wikipedia to begin with??? Dori | Talk 00:23, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid it seems the CEO and founder of Wikipedia is terribly naive. --User: 208.179.29.2

That's typically considered a reason not to use wikipedia in the first place. "He's sooooo naive... how could an online encyclopedia anyone can edit ever work? It'll never work.... blah blah blah." Wikipedia's naivete hasn't seemed to hurt it much so far. 35.11.242.26

Question

Will the new servers be covered under U.S. law, or the law of the host country for the new servers? If the latter, what types of speech restrictions are there (if any)? Will this have an impact on what content we can host? A not-signed-in User:Meelar.

I have no special answers to that question, other than to say that a multi-national solution to hosting gives us more flexibility rather than less regarding freedom of speech issues. If there ever comes a time when there is a conflict between our freedom to properly do our work, and giving up on a hosting facility, I can assure you I will choose freedom. --Jimbo Wales 00:17, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I appreciate the response, and congratulations. I go forward with vigor! Meelar 20:01, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC) P.S. Excuse my non-tech-savvy.

Wiki foundation better smarten up

The lamers here at wiki better smarten up, *FAST*. They cannot simply just give away open contributions to private industry and expect the public to go along, without question, and keep up the free contributions. Yahoo only wants to "host" wikimedia because they will eventually reap some benefit from it, and chances are good that the benefit reaped will be a lot more than a few simple servers with a new network card.

They must terminate this agreement as soon as legally possible and *SERIOUSLY* reprimand the idiot who made it happen.

First they host it for you, then they shower you with benefits and features which you can't possbily provide independently, then before you know it, you are addicted and entirely dependent on their infrastructure. Then they begin to demand their "interests" from you, more and more until they eventually end up controlling what is was that was yours and "you" don't really exist anymore other than as an idiotic laughing stock stomped to death by your betters. (Just like a bank does with you and your money).

Stop this privitization immediately.

Dont be paranoid, the benefit for Yahoo is in public relations terms. Also, the content is under licence to remain free, and nobody can change that. Also, dont automatically assume corporations are evil, you are taking for granted a lot of benefits of capitalism. 209.148.140.139 05:01, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

80% of the wealth generated by the productive middle class is systematically destroyed with our communist central banking system. Don't talk to me about captialism when we still live in the Feudal age (except the few of those who live in "privileged" countries about to be plundered into the ground with billion dollar deficits and unfathomable debts with interest liabilities which don't even exist). Idiot.

Ah, yes. Well I did neglect to publicly reveal the clause in the agreement with Yahoo that allows Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve Banks put cookies on your computer to secretly saddle you with higher interest rates in your sleep. But, a ha!, there is an easy solution to this: wear your tinfoil hat. --Jimbo Wales 11:56, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I can only explain it to you, I cannot understand it for you.

The license allows all our wikis' content to be redistributed, including for profit. I recommend you read up again on the license, and the aims and purposes of the Wikipedia project.

Note that there are a number of current and in-progress hosting partners, including some other non-profits. --brion 00:07, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

While this particular rant is groundless, the general sentiment is well worth addressing. I intend that as we make partnership deals or raise funds from any source, that we will do so in a fashion that takes extreme (excessive) care for our ability to remain independent of any one organization or small group of organizations. --Jimbo Wales 00:20, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Last time I checked Wikipedia's start was founded by a private company, where were you then? Dori | Talk 00:26, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

An outrageous betrayal.

If the Wikimeda foundation finds itself requiring support from private corporations, it is because there is a structural problem with how its project are being run. You need a REAL solution. You can't expect private corporations to provide the additional infrastructure which fund wikipedia's growth. If you do this, then as wikipedia grows it's sustainability becomes intrinsically tied to the infrastructure of the private entities, and thus they have power to exert their influence and opinion over the direction of the project (in their favour). The more dependent wikimedia becomes, the more control you hand over.

Wikimedia needs to find a LEGITIMATE solution to their hardware problems and undo this outrageous betrayal.

Perhaps you ought to consider the possibility of forming a decentralized network of mirror hosts which coordinate content distribution with some back-end software. Only universities and other public/non-profit organizations should be allowed to participate. Or perhaps just find a way to raise money more efficiently without handing over physical possession of content for free to corporate entities. Do you think that just because you "own" it on a piece of paper that you really own it?

You have disappointed a great deal of people with this outrageous betrayal, and will thus suffer severely for it.

There is no "handing over physical possession of content". Perhaps you're overreacting based on paranoid fantasies? --brion 00:05, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The press release states that the content will be hosted on Yahoo's servers, in their data-centre. That counts as "physical possession" to me. Of course, it's no more than that, and perhaps on balance this deal is a good thing. But I must admit that I too have bad feelings about it. --Pete

Given those terms, you have just as much "physical possession" when you download a page in your web browser. Does that worry you? --brion 00:26, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If you would like to download the complete content of Wikipedia you can do so at download.wikimedia.org. I'm afraid there is not yet a feature to stop evil corporations from doing the same thing. silsor 00:27, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

If you would like to ground your rant in reality we will be glad to answer any questions you have. silsor 00:23, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

"Today"

The undated press release refers to "today". Could someone please stick a date on it, one way or another? -- en:User:Jmabel

Been done. --brion 00:12, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

NL "very content" with Yahoo's support

at nl:wikipedia today people did not wait to express that they are very content about the agreement with yahoo! let this be an encouragement to the board. oscar 00:11, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Good to hear our Dutch contributors recognise the great benefits of this agreement. -- user:zanimum

I am glad to hear that Oscar. Thank you for your encouragement Anthere 04:20, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is coming from a guy who puts a VISA credit card logo on his personal page. What luck for rulers that the mob be stupid.

By sheer randomness, it was my 6500 edit on Wikipedia. -- user:zanimum

Why should I contribute free content?

I spend my own time and effort contributing free content to the Wiki. The Wiki then gets into bed with Yahoo: can somebody explain why I should contribute content for free to an organisation that will exploit it to make money?

It will improve yahoo search results and transitively, their bottom line. Since I am a YHOO shareholder, I recommend that you continue with your free contributions so that I may profit from them. Keep up the good work.

Financially "exploiting" Free Content is part of Free. If you want Free, you have to take all of it. --anon 02:18, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Let's not mention that others are using your content and actually making money off of it. Sure, this helps Yahoo, but how exactly is their donation making them money? They need to implement something slick to get one dime. Regardless, your content may now reach a much wider audience. A good thing I would think. Please read the bottom of every Wikimedia based page:

If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, then don't submit it here.

216.196.233.18 08:44, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yahoo! is using information that you released under a free license. If you wanted to be able to restrict who could use it, you shouldn't have released it under a free license. DanKeshet

There's a big difference between accessing free content through a browser and owning/possessing the hardware which the content is stored on. Yahoo will deliver snippets of open source content via their own website alongside paid advertisements. That the Wikimedia foundation hasn't published the exact details of the deal pretty much tells you exactly what the deal is.

The Wikimedia Foundation does not own the content of Wikipedia. It's licensed by the contributors (that's you and me) under the GNU Free Document License. Anything that Yahoo may or may not choose to show, such as in its search results, cannot be specially granted by the Wikimedia Foundation. Let me repeat: There is nothing the Wikimedia Foundation can do to give away Wikipedia content in ways that it's not already available.

Separately, Yahoo will be providing some additional server hosting. Yahoo will never be our sole source of hosting; they will be only one of several hosting centers we have presence in. They will not control the content. They will act as an internet hosting provider; unethical or illegal behavior by any hosting provider (such as sniffing private data) would not be tolerated. See Wikimedia partners and hosts. --brion 03:13, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

DanKeshet wrote: Yahoo! is using information that you released under a free license. If you wanted to be able to restrict who could use it, you shouldn't have released it under a free license, but this misses the point. The GNU Free Documentation License governs the legal status of contributions; the question was about motivation. Contributing free content to a collaborative project is one thing. Giving it away to greedheads for nothing is another.

Absolutely anyone can make "money" from our content. It is purposefully that such a decision was made from the very beginning of the project. It is the best way to insure our free content will spread throughout the world. Many users can access it for free from the Internet, but for others, whose without internet or even computer, the only way to get the information is through CD Roms or through paper publishing. We can stimulate this by making commercial versions possible. Commercial use is actually helping us in our goal. It is important to keep that in mind. Read w:en:free content for more information on this.Anthere

Second point : being free does not mean we should be "secret" or behave in the way of "appropriating" the content. The Foundation seeks creative ways to ensure the framework which allow all editors and users to deal with the resource is satisfactorily working. Multiplying the number of hosts and partners is the best way to ensure at the same time proper functionning AND keeping our independance. Anthere 04:27, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

details?

Are there any details on what exactly they're providing? How many servers, etc.? Is it up to the Wikimedia tech team to decide what to do with them, or Yahoo!?

This is still under discussion. The developer team were told yesterday what Yahoo had suggested, and asked to comment on that. I expect they will be able to influence the basic details of what hardware we get from this offer. Angela 04:31, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So what exactly is Yahoo getting out of this?

On the optimist side

Congratulations to wikimedia on this growth. I will be looking forward to better response times. :)

On the pessimist side

Being a profit oriented company in a capitalist world, what is all that Yahoo! will get out of this? I am just cuious. From my imagination, here are somethings that yahoo could do.

• They could sniff users' activity (browsing patterns etc.) and use it for some kind of data-mining. I am assuming that trying to connect to something like en.wikipedia.org will automatically redirect to an ip address owned by Yahoo! so at a given point I would not be sure, but I could possibly contacting a yahoo server that could monitor my activity.
• They could set cookies on my machine based on my activity that they could use in advertising the next time I connect yahoo.com .
• Yahoo! could also incorporate ads in all the content they send to any web browser, even though the actual wiki database doesnt have those ads. (Since its the yahoo server thats providing whatever page a browser has requested)

Pardon my redundancy (if any), I would like people to respond to the concerns listed above,I would like to know wikipedia's stance on it.

• will wikipedia maintainers ber given access to those machines? if not then how can we be sure that they are not modifying the software in any way (to sniff and such) ?

Hope the above is not too cofused. Regards --Spundun 08:47, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yahoo is giving plain hardware, that will be managed by same Wikimedia dev crew. It would be integrated into same cluster and would work in absolutely same fashion as current systems. --Domas Mituzas

I think Brion and Domas have done an excellent job of answering these questions. Our relationship to Yahoo in respect to hosting is exactly the same as our relationship to our current hosting provider (who we are keeping of course), that is as any customer of any hosting provider. Our admins will run the machines, it's really very very simple as far as that goes. Unethical beahvior by them would not be tolerated. I see absolutely no reason to suspect that Yahoo would have any interest in sniffing our traffic -- they handle untold billions of pageviews per month of their own traffic, why would they want to sniff ours? --Jimbo Wales 11:50, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Never underestimate the eagernes to make conspiracy theories out of anything. I trust the Foundation, I believe you guys wont make any decisions like this in haste or without thinking it thoroughly. I think this is good PR for Yahoo! and they really don't want to f it up in any way. Emhoo 17:11, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What happend to google.

There were rumors of cooperation with google recentally. WHy couldnt wikipedia have struck a deal with the modest giant: google, instead of the evil beast Yahoo?

Read above. --brion (where Jimbo Wales said "I am continuing discussion with google about ways that they, too, might creatively help to support our community...")

I'm pleased

Wikipedia has been way too slow sometimes, and I've even gotten error messages when I've tried to view histories or edit pages because of server problems. I trust Wikimedia not to get sucked into anything, and I'm pleased that the servers will be running better once this happens, and I think that getting more visibility for the pages through Yahoo search will be nice. w:user:Harry491

Please stop the nonsense

Yes, nonsense. Yahoo is acting as a free ISP. What do they get out of it? A lack of understanding may cause one to come up with wild notions like "it will allow them to illegally track us". This is not the case. That would be illegal (out of the question, anyway), and there is a much better explanation: Yahoo will spend X amount of cash in order to be seen, by the more sane users, as a "good" company. I'm more than happy oblige them - they're doing something that results in a win/win, and not a win/lose (lose for the users). And please take note of the following:

Yahoo will be given no legal access to any private data.
We will be to them as any customer is to any ISP.  If 
they wanted to do anything fishy, I would be the first 
to scream, but they don't want to do anything fishy, they 
want to help us.  --Jimbo Wales 00:15, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As an aside, google is as much an "evil/mean/eats babies corporation" as yahoo. It's just that they've played the "seen as a good company" game really well - just look at how some of the google-supporters are acting. 137.186.221.75 23:03, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree, actually. My paranoid ranting above was partly inspired by the fact that Google had been mentioned as well. 68.100.130.21 03:04, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The simple question remains unanswered: Do the terms of the Wikimedia/Yahoo! negotiation allow Yahoo! to redistribute and/or sell data that collects on the servers it provides for Wikipedia? - anon

Yahoo! isn't allowed to do anything with the content that it wasn't allowed to do before the deal. If you're talking about things like logs and browsing habits... then what are you talking about? Read again: "Yahoo will be given no legal access to any private data. We will be to them as any customer is to any ISP." Yes, your browsing habits count as private data. 137.186.221.75 09:16, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Where do the surplus funds go now?

I assume that this move will mean that Wikimedia now gets to keep the funds that would have gone towards servers and bandwidth. What will funds go towards now that those are not major concerns? 137.186.221.75 23:03, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yahoo is only providing new servers in Asia, so like, all the existing servers in other places will continue to operate, and still have to be paid for. 68.100.130.21 03:05, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, should have read better, my bad. ...I think the intensity of the above concerns may have put me under the impression that they were hosting the whole thing. I sure hope that the guy who's staying the hell away from wikipidea is in asia, because it'd be pretty silly if he wasn't. I assume that Yahoo's donation will mean that at least some of the bandwidth is taken care of, which would mean that there's less traffic hitting what we currently have. So a rephrase: exactly what benefits should we see from this move? 137.186.221.75 08:06, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

With more and more of data, more and more of users, Wikimedia needs more and more resources to deal with that. If you double or tripple number of available resources, those will be immediatelly filled by new users, and new data. Such help offers Wikimedia to expand even more. --Domas Mituzas

Privacy Policy

Will this hosting deal use (be governed under) Yahoo!'s Privacy Policy [1] or a special privacy policy? I'm asking this, since I think if a site is hosted by Yahoo! (using Yahoo!'s services, in Yahoo!'s servers), they supposed to be governed under Yahoo!'s Privacy Policy, which explicitly states that "Yahoo! collects personal information..." [2] (examples). 61.94.148.147 14:45, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, we'll be keeping our own privacy policy. See Wikimedia:Privacy policy. Angela 22:10, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Yahoo!

While there are some out there who dont understand the issue very well, im sure that most wikipedians are appreciative of Yahoo's support. -Mir

Yahoo could be MS soon.. what will happen?

MS could use the servers to host Encarta.. :( Nemolan 00:31, 2 February 2008 (UTC)