Wikipedia & Linterweb

Dear reader,

at this time, the Italian language Wikipedia may be no longer able to continue providing the service that over the years was useful to you, and that you expected to have right now. As things stand, the page you want still exists and is only hidden, but the risk is that soon we will be forced to actually delete it.

The Bill – Rules on Wiretapping etc., p. 24, letter a) states that:

«For the Internet sites, including newspapers and periodicals delivered by telematic way, the statements or corrections are published, with the same graphic characteristics, the same access methodology to the site and the same visibility of the news which they refer.»

Over the past ten years, Wikipedia has become part of the daily habits of millions of web users looking for a neutral, free-content, and – above all – independent source of Knowledge. A new, huge multi-lingual encyclopedia, freely available to all, at any time, and free of charge.

Today, unfortunately, the very pillars on which Wikipedia has been built – neutrality, freedom, and verifiability of its contents – are likely to be heavily compromised by paragraph 29 of a law proposal, also known as “DDL intercettazioni” (Wiretapping Act).

This proposal, which the Italian Parliament is currently debating, provides, among other things, a requirement to all websites to publish, within 48 hours of the request and without any comment, a correction of any content that the applicant deems detrimental to his/her image.

Unfortunately, the law does not require an evaluation of the claim by an impartial third judge – the opinion of the person allegedly injured is all that is required, in order to impose such correction to any website.

Hence, anyone who feels offended by any content published on a blog, an online newspaper and, most likely, even on Wikipedia can directly request the removal of such contents and its permanent replacement with a “corrected” version, aimed to contradict and disprove the allegedly harmful contents, regardless of the truthfulness of the information deemed as offensive, and its sources.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 27.

(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

During all these years, the users of Wikipedia (and we want, once more, to point out that Wikipedia does not have an editorial staff) have always been available to review – and modify, if needed – any content deemed to be detrimental to anyone, without harm to the Project’s neutrality and independence. In the very rare instances it was not possible to reach a mutually satisfactory solution, the entire page has been removed.

The obligation to publish on our site the correction as is, provided by the named paragraph 29, without even the right to discuss and verify the claim, is an unacceptable restriction of the freedom and independence of Wikipedia, to the point of distorting the principles on which the Free Encyclopedia is based and this would bring to a paralysis of the “horizontal” method of access and editing, putting – in fact – an end to its existence as we have known until today.

It should be made more than clear that none of us wants to question safeguarding and protection of the reputation, honor and image of any party – but we also note that every Italian citizen is already protected in this respect by Article 595 of the Criminal Code, which punishes the crime of defamation.

With this announcement, we want to warn our readers against the risks arising from leaving to the arbitrary will of any party to enforce the alleged protection of its image and its reputation. Under such provisions, web users would be most probably led to cease dealing with certain topics or people, just to “avoid troubles”.

We want to be able to keep a free and open-to-all encyclopaedia, because our articles are also your articles – Wikipedia is already neutral, why neutralize it?

The users of Wikipedia

Today, more and more web marketers are placing an emphasis on user’s experience. The topic has reached the point where the phrase ‘’user experience’’ has become tossed around so much. Now, it’s something that’s commonly glossed over, by both people who know what it means and those who don’t.

This is unfortunate because understanding the meaning of user experience and its usefulness in business is important for website owners. What is User Experience? is one of the largest factors that determine the success of a website. A website with a poor user experience is not only underperforming but can also be damaging to a business and brand over the long run.

Definition of User Experience in Websites And Design

User experience (or ‘’ux’’ in short), by definition, is an individual’s experience with a company. It encompasses all aspects of the consumer’s experience, including everything they see, hear, and their emotional reactions. There are many different factors that affect the user experience.  But the main ones are usability, usefulness, credibility, desirability, accessibility, and value.

In terms of web design, user experience best practices focus on making a website easy to use and appealing to consumers. This is done by using content, image, and media to create powerful emotional responses. User Experience or UX design is very important because a lot of visitors won’t stay on-site if the design is bad.

The Importance of User Experience in Websites

User experience (UX) is important for web design because it significantly affects conversion rates. How a website looks and functions are factors that directly affect how interesting a product seems to a consumer and what their chances are of purchasing it. Here are some facts that highlight the importance of creating a positive user experience. A user interacts differently with every website.

• Studies estimate that over 55% of visitors spend less than 15 seconds on a website. Best practices recommend focusing on catching a user’s attention in 59 seconds or less.
• Approximately 40% of people exit websites that load slowly.
• Studies indicate that 94% of users who distrust a website do so because of its design.
• Easy navigation and original, engaging content are two of the greatest factors that affect how long a user spends on a site and the user’s experience.

The distinction between UX & UI

Still, you should take into account that User Experience is not the same thing as User Interface. Indeed, those two terms are interchangeable, but the User Interface or UI is all about how a service or a product works and looks on the surface. A professional User experience design company concentrates on the functionality of a service or product concerning how it will aid a user deal with a specific issue.

It is equally important for a good User Interface or UI designer to be a great software developer as well. If you don’t have a great UI design,  you won’t be in a position to create a great user experience. A great UI design can make the difference between a great user experience and human computer interaction from a poor one. A great UI design can make or break your online business. Just like great software design will save you a lot of cash in the long haul, the great user experience will save you a lot of cash as well. If you want your product to be successful, you need to make sure that it has a great user experience.

As an example, think about the visual design of a display on a mobile device app or the CTA button on a site. These two represent authentic UI components. The UX design uses such elements and establishes how they work together to establish the best experience for the user. Simply put: UI is a vital part of the user experience.

What Makes A Website’s UX Outstanding?

Well, there are several factors that can contribute to a good user experience on either web or mobile applications. The elements of user experience are as follows:

1. Top-notch, relevant content
   Besides the overall functionality of your website or app, these need relevant content that will end up being useful for the user. The content must be tailored depending on the specificity of the services or products distributed.Moreover, it should offer insights on how those can solve distinct problems for your target audience. This is why having a blog on your website is more than necessary. It contributes to a great User Experience.
2. Functional interface
   It is not enough to pack your site with information. That information needs ease of access, which can be provided with a well-thought interface. The best interface is the one that feels natural, and intuitive. For this, your website should be consistent concerning fonts, font size, colors, and the overall layout of the site.
3. Simple to use
   A navigation bar, a drop-down menu, a link to the homepage on every page, or a search bar – all of these can contribute to a great user experience on your website!
4. Credibility
   For the site to receive attention, it must be designed with a lot of focus on trustworthiness. You can add an SSL certificate to it, which adds a lot of credibilities when it comes to the user submitting personal data on your website or app.
5. Automated responses
   Recently, a new addition to the user experience that improves the entire functionality of your website is represented by the addition of automated personalized communication. Automation can better user engagement, and provide a sense of attention to details. A chatbot on your site can offer answers to a specific set of questions.This is helpful because the user won’t have to wait for an answer, it will simply be accessed almost instantly. Besides, you can always opt for sending automatic responses to those subscribing to your newsletter. Welcoming users to your community add a lot in terms of trustworthiness and credibility.
6. Human-based interaction
   Automated responses are not enough. Make sure you have some online communication ideas (such as forms). You should have a customer service team that replies in a timely manner to any query. If you fail to do so, users won’t visit again your site, or they will simply abandon their current visit to it.

For already a few years, Okawix for PC, the off-line Wikipedia reader that was developed by the web company Linterweb, has been available as Open Source software.
It is now the turn of its little brother, Okawix for Android, to be released as Open Source. All those interested may watch and possibly improve the source code of our program, that is available at the following address: http://okawix.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/okawix/trunk/android/.

Thanks in advance for any support (in programming, debugging…) you could provide, and for your feed backs on our blog (for instance under this article).

Take care 🙂 Matthieu.

Linterweb is a web company that, for now several years, has been developing various Wikipedia oriented programs, including:

• Wikiwix, a semantic web search engine that gives only results out of the databases of the Wikimedia online casino Foundation projects; My Wikiwix, your own search engine for your own website; wikiwix.mobi, a mobile version of Wikiwix;
• Okawix, the offline Wikipedia browser free of copyrights and free of charge that allows you to read offline the articles of the various Wikimedia Foundation projects, as well as archives of your own website;
• a DVD of around 2000 articles from the English speaking Wikipedia; a USB flash drive that contains the version 0.7 of the English speaking Wikipedia;
• a program that archives the external web pages of the Wikipedia articles (that is, the web pages outside Wikipedia but linked from a Wikipedia article), so that their content remains available and that those external links don’t get broken; this program is used automatically, in particular, for all external links of the French speaking Wikipedia.
• …

In my last article I introduced you to Wikimarks. I explained you that Wikimarks is a customizable search engine, that it is run by Linterweb, and that it makes it possible to perform searches on social network and bookmarking accounts (Delicious, Netvibes, Twitter, Google Reader, Identi.ca, Digg, etc.). I told you too how Wikimarks works, how you can settle your own Wikimarks search engine, and how to use it once settled.

Today I’d like to describe you only but a few of the numerous possible applications of Wikimarks.
First, you must know that sharing your custom Wikimarks search engine with your acquaintances or your friends is a very easy stuff. All you need to do is to share the URL of your Wikimarks search engine with them (each Wikimarks search engine has a dedicated URL, and Wikimarks search engines are public).

It’s cool, as it will allow you for instance to set up your Wikimarks search engine together with other people, who will then be able to help you to improve your search engine.

For instance, let’s imagine that you’re an history teacher. Then you can draw up on your Wikimarks search engine a list of good web links with regard to your course, so that your pupils can perform searches on websites that are really relevant with your course, websites especially selected by you. Other colleagues history teachers can join and participate to the elaboration of the list as well. Or, why not, the whole community of all history teachers of your country, in a common effort at a national level (I’m not dreaming, such projects are already run in some countries!). Or, not only the history teachers of your school, but also all other teachers too (maths, physics, literature…).

Thus you can set up specialized search engines: one for the physics course, one for the maths, one for the tennis club, one for the film society, etc.

A big advantage is that your customized search engine won’t have its results overwhelmed by spam links. All links are relevant, since they have all been selected by you. Unlike normal search engines, that usually return loads of spam links (for instance run with a classical search engine a search on the term “Computer”; likely, most of the results returned for this search will be links to websites of computer retailers; which is not necessarily what you want 🙁 for other search terms, you will often get links to pages that are mere copies of Wikipedia articles, as you have probably already noticed; so irritating!! 🙁 ).

Now, if you feel like you have set up an especially good search engine for a given subject, you may want to share the URL of your search engine with friends or relatives, so that they can use it and enjoy it too. In addition, they will be able to give you a hand to improve your search engine.

Finally, if you run one or several websites on your own, Wikimarks allows you to show only results of your websites, as if you had a hand made search engine for your websites.

The current version of Wikimarks is still a beta version, and a lot has to be done yet, but we hope you’ll want to give it a try and let us know your feed back on our blog.

Take care 🙂 Matthieu.

Linterweb is a web company that, for now several years, has been developing various Wikipedia oriented programs, including:

• Wikiwix, a semantic web search engine that gives only results out of the databases of the Wikimedia Foundation projects; My Wikiwix, your own search engine for your own website; wikiwix.mobi, a mobile version of Wikiwix;
• Okawix, the offline Wikipedia browser free of copyrights and free of charge that allows you to read offline the articles of the various Wikimedia Foundation projects, as well as archives of your own website;
• a DVD of around 2000 articles from the English speaking Wikipedia; a USB flash drive that contains the version 0.7 of the English speaking Wikipedia;
• a program that archives the external web pages of the Wikipedia articles (that is, the web pages outside Wikipedia but linked from a Wikipedia article), so that their content remains available and that those external links don’t get broken; this program is used automatically, in particular, for all external links of the French speaking Wikipedia.
• …