"Native" mobile apps are encouraging and giving into walled gardens - something that Wikimedia should not be promoting on such a prominent page. Pushing people into closed platforms is the wrong direction to go in.
Topic on Talk:Wikipedia.org add mobile app badges
Well, of course resources dedicated to native applications can't be spent on improving a more generic solution, like the web interface. I'm not sure you may say it encourages walled gardens however, as long as this apps have no "exclusive feature", it may provide some integration conveniences, but as far as I know, no service that you can't access if you don't have a device with this or that system.
Why can't those resources be spent on improving the generic solution?
There are resources spent on "generic" solutions, like Flow that we are using here. Putting all resources on a single solution or trying to provide more ease of access through a more diversified ecosystem is an interesting topic, but I'm afraid it don't belong this thread. Please feel free to join/launch discussions on this topic where it's the main point, and let's try to stay focused on providing feedback on the idea and mockup proposed here.
Wikimedia is investing substantial resources in these Wikipedia apps as part of a plan reviewed, approved, and renewed through WMF strategy, annual plans, quarterly goals... As long as we develop, support, and offer these Wikipedia apps to users, I don't see why we shouldn't feature them in www.wikipedia.org, where they are fully on-topic.
"Pushing people into closed platforms is the wrong direction to go in" might be a good discussion topic, but I think the strategy should be changed first, and then our plans and a page like www.wikipedia.org would follow, not the other way around.
Let's stop developing and supporting these Wikipedia applications instead. Sounds great.
I agree with Legoktm. In addition to the points he makes, we absolutely cannot and will not advertise for Android™ or iOS on Wikipedia's home page.
During the WMF Strategy consultation, 462 users expressed their opinion about how to reach to new users. The connection between mobile (web and apps) and better reach to new users was a common theme. On the other hand, the idea of stopping the development of the Wikipedia mobile apps doesn't seem to have community backing in those contributions or in any other strategic / planning discussion I am aware of.
Once the justification for continuing the development of mobile apps is clear, it only makes sense to promote them where we think new users will find them. www.wikipedia.org is one of those places. Informing our users that such mobile apps exist is a logical step. The odd situation is to agree that mobile web and apps are important for our strategy, to develop apps that actually get good reviews and many downloads, but then not even mention them in a place like www.wikipedia.org.
I understand your disagreement. I am not fond of Android and iOS myself, and in the past I have invested a portion of my life in the development of a slightly-more-free mobile platform. However, it seems clear that the Wikimedia consensus points in the direction of using these mobile platforms as a way to reach out to more users and as a channel to distribute free knowledge. I believe there is a way to implement this strategy without blatantly advertising for Android and iOS.
So if our users ask us to ignore and bypass one of our values, that makes it okay to do? I don't think that's how Wikimedia works - we uphold our values even when it's tough and makes it more difficult now - for the hope that in the long run we will be in a better place.
I disagree that building iOS and Android apps are "giving in to walled gardens". Millions of people use these apps to read Wikipedia's open content which is the same content that is available in other channels. The code is open source and people who are not employed by the Foundation are encouraged to contribute. Other people have pointed out that our communities are generally in favor of app development and we've been consistently transparent about our intentions.
Hi @TNegrin (WMF), I don't see how what you've said don't make the iOS and Google-Play-Android environments *not* walled gardens. From that page: A closed platform, walled garden or closed ecosystem is a software system where the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applications or content.
How does the app being open source, being worked on by volunteers, and our communities allegedly being in favor of it, make it not a walled garden?
"control over applications"...at least on android, applications are somewhat uncontrolled.
"content, and media"...I'm not aware of android limiting what content I can access.
So I'm having a hard time seeing android as a "walled garden", in our context.
Maybe mobile users after tapping the badge on the home page could be presented with the option of downloading from:
1.) Google Play / App Store
2.) Wikimedia Servers (https://releases.wikimedia.org/mobile/android/wikipedia/)
That way walled garden issues could be mitigated because the clear FLOSS option is there, and users more comfortable with Play/App stores would have their walled garden choice as well.
And there are alternative app stores as well.
Hi VGrigas (WMF). If we must advertise the mobile apps, a "mobile view" link similar to what we have on the desktop site seems reasonable.
I've been thinking about this a bit more over the past week. Here's an analogy:
If a user visits the portal page using Internet Explorer 8 (a pretty sucky browser), should we offer them links to download Google Chrome (a proprietary browser which has a FOSS way of using it (Chromium), but most people don't) and Opera (an entirely proprietary browser). I think nearly everyone would be opposed to this.
In this context, IE8 is the user's browser on their phone, Chrome is the Android app, and Opera is the iOS app. What makes that situation different?
Hi @Legoktm, I see it as different in a couple of ways.
Firstly, we are not promoting to users that they should be switching to view Wikipedia on mobile apps instead, but are merely letting users know that there exists an iOS and Android app by the WMF. It is at the bottom of the portal page presented alongside other projects and intended to create awareness in the same way as how we show MediaWiki or Wiktionary here.
Secondly, we are not offering a something akin to Chrome or Opera to IE users, since these mobile apps are by the WMF, not a 3rd party tool. A closer equivalent would be if we were to promote viewing on Wikiwand or Google's search knowledge graph, which is not being done.
And addressing the concern raised in this thread, the intention right now is to show a respective iOS or Android badge only to those who access the portal page via an iPhone or Android device; so these are already people who have made the decision to use "walled gardens" in some respect. This merely provides another alternative for people to access and engage with Wikipedia, arguably in a less 'closed' way (since our apps are open source) than if they view it in their native browser apps like Safari or Chrome.