Eric Walker wrote:
I was, after some months of operation, suddenly hit
with a 403 block; on
inquiry, I discovered the facts above. I then asked whether using instead
the Special:Export XML access would be an acceptable way of fetching
articles individually on demand. The sysadmin wrote that he felt it would,
but that I would be best to post here to see if others agree or disagree.
I object. If we allow that, then the rest of the Wikipedia mirrors
would also see fit to do the same thing. Given the number of mirrors
out there, this would likely be a severe burden.
I realize that Wikipedia is "open source",
which is usually held to
be equal
to "free", but is there no place for mixing
"free to public visitors"
and a
modest fee for serving, shall we say, on the wholesale
rather than the
retail side?
This idea has been tossed around a bit, but currently it's not done. It
would need somebody to draw up agreements, to do the sysadmin work, and
so on.
This site is very important to me, and I need to act
extremely quickly if
it is not all to just go down the drain, so please help me out here.
Why not remote load from a Wikipedia mirror belonging to one of your SEO
colleagues? You'd be dealing with someone whose mission is in line with
your own, and we'd have more of our time free to do something useful.
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