Txtweb feedback

There is a relatively new SMS-based platform called txtweb. The platform has a Wikipedia app that delivers SMS versions of Wikipedia articles.

How it works: Type: @wikipedia<space><article name> e.g., @wikipedia mumbai finds you the Mumbai article. Send the SMS to 92433-42000 (IN), or 898-932 (US), or 650-385-8882 (US, CA)

Links have a letter associated with it e.g., (B)Maharashtra. If you reply "B" (no quotes) it will send you that article.

It would be great to have feedback on the user experience, so please try it and add your feedback to this page.

Project

The Wikipedia for txtWeb project is available as open-source at txtWeb/Wikipedia. All contributions to the project are welcome.

Comments

The phone number can be changed to include the digits which indicate t9 dictionery number for wikipedia-945473341 : Sreenath Nannat

Feedback

Like the tool. It has great potential. Definitely has uses for someone who wants a quick reference on the move. Can be further enhanced. Some suggestions:

1. Would like support for sending article's definition (typically first para). For e.g: "@wikipedia shale oil extraction -define" should return article's first para over multiple text messages if needed.
2. Would like support for sending article's preamble. For e.g: "@wikipedia shale oil extraction -preamble" should return article content for the first 4 paras before the TOC over multiple messages.
3. Would like support for getting the Table of contents of article. For eg. "@wikipedia bangalore -toc" should return the Table of contents for the article.
4. Would like support for article categories. For eg. "@wikipedia bangalore -cat" should return Categories of the page. This would help link traversal of related pages.
5. Would like support for today's featured article. For e.g: "@wikipedia -fa" should return article content for today's featueed article.
6. Would like support for DYK content. For e.g: "@wikipedia -dyk" should return article content for latest DYK content.
7. Would like support for news content. For e.g: "@wikipedia -news" should return article content for in the news headlines.
8. Would like support for on this today content. For e.g: "@wikipedia -today" should return article content for on this day content.
9. Article did not render the embedded text in Indian languages that is part of the English page though phone supports it. As an example "@wikipedia vada" resulted in the output resulted in the output "Vada ((A)Kannada: ,(B)Telugu: , (C)Tamil: , (D)Tulu: , (E)Malayalam: ); also known as wada or vade or vadai (pronounced "vah-daa", "vah-dey", or "vah-die"), is a savoury (F)fritter-type (G)snack from (H)South India. (j)More. Reply STOP to cancel. Reply JOIN to continue."
10. Extending this tool to support Indian languages would be nice.

regards Arunram 18:40, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Reply

The service, while great doesn't pick up several articles, fails to work on several service providers altogether. Thought I'd clear a few doubts about this. 1> As stated above, the number cannot be changed arbitrarily, it probably belongs to a gateway similar to www.smsgupshup.com 2> Someone on the India mailing list asked ' Well, who owns that number? Wikipedia or some service provider?

What is the assurance from the service provider that the senders number will not be used for spam or any other malicious purpose? Has anyone considered privacy, security related issues? ' The answer to this lies in my previous point. Regards, --Rsrikanth05 08:53, 30 May 2011 (UTC)