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Wikipedia Turns 15

15.wikipedia.org

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Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#61

Post by reasonality »

klenwell wrote: post #59

I was talking to a friend the other day and came up with a term to sorta quantify what I consider perhaps the most important revolution of my lifetime: TTK or Time To Knowledge. The example I always use, the occasion when it first occurred to me, was a couple years ago when, for some reason, I decided I wanted to make a foam for a cocktail. Within 5 minutes, I had found a video on Youtube illustrating how, not to men…

All magic comes at a price.

You could have learnt other tricks of the trade, could have made new friends talking to that human bartender.

Talking to someone who is a master at something is far more valuable than asking the internet specific questions - how do you know what questions to ask...

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#62

Post by HarryHirsch »

cooper12 wrote: post #54
marincounty wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think it was the best thing humanity created. Lately, I see individuals, and companies carefully crafting pages to further their agenda. It could be PR, name recognition, or inaccurate information reguarding their cause. It could be as subtle as changing the definition of a neologism to singular, rather than plural. I ran across this recently. Someone wanted to promote their technospeck.whatever domain, but…

If you see something problematic, why don't you click the edit button and address it? Or if you don't have the necessary know-how, why don't you click the talk tab and bring up the issue there? Wikipedia belongs to all of us, if you have the mindset that it's someone else's problem to fix, then you're missing Wikipedia's point. There's nothing wrong with being just a consumer, but this is just like someone complainin…

You make dealing with PR-driven agenda sound so easy, but the actual practice is so different. There was the guy from BP, who announced that he was indeed from BP and proceeded to whitewash the article on his employer. Then there was the fellow with the India Institute of Management, who took down the slightly less shady competition and made his employer look splendid, and carried on for years, and just now there was the guy from Monsanto that it took ages to get banned. As just some dude, I take more pleasure in walking the dog than fighting an unwinnable battle against better-equipped forces.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#63

Post by _ea1k »

rplnt wrote: post #7
bsimpson wrote: post #4

Whoa - Wikipedia has been around more than half my life already? Good on them! It's one of the best things humanity has ever created. Hopefully they'll find a funding strategy that doesn't make them constantly feel like panhandlers. They provide uncountably huge value, yet I suspect with their current marketing, even very heavy readers rarely donate. EDIT: Sounds like they are working on it: https://15.wikipedia.org/…

I think they will be more than fine once we figure out micropayments.

I have run into people saying this for the last 15 years. I'm not convinced that micropayments will ever be solved.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#64

Post by coliveira »

klenwell wrote: post #59

I was talking to a friend the other day and came up with a term to sorta quantify what I consider perhaps the most important revolution of my lifetime: TTK or Time To Knowledge. The example I always use, the occasion when it first occurred to me, was a couple years ago when, for some reason, I decided I wanted to make a foam for a cocktail. Within 5 minutes, I had found a video on Youtube illustrating how, not to men…

This is really interesting, until you realize that 99% of the knowledge you acquire in this way is useless. In the 80s, if you didn't know how to do the foam you would just do without it, and nothing in the world would change because of that. Now, this would be certainly different if you were searching for a way to solve a hard engineering problem, but hard engineering problems cannot be learned with a 5 min youtube video anyway.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#66

Post by judemelancon »

reasonality wrote: post #61
klenwell wrote: post #59

I was talking to a friend the other day and came up with a term to sorta quantify what I consider perhaps the most important revolution of my lifetime: TTK or Time To Knowledge. The example I always use, the occasion when it first occurred to me, was a couple years ago when, for some reason, I decided I wanted to make a foam for a cocktail. Within 5 minutes, I had found a video on Youtube illustrating how, not to men…

All magic comes at a price. You could have learnt other tricks of the trade, could have made new friends talking to that human bartender. Talking to someone who is a master at something is far more valuable than asking the internet specific questions - how do you know what questions to ask...

The internet's supply of masters is much larger and more accessible. Is there a reason to think the video or other sources he found are from someone inferior in expertise to a local? Does that reason apply even for people who live outside major urban centers?

Also, that line of thinking is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Remember the most likely outcome before was recognizing the cost of acquiring the knowledge exceeded the benefit of having it; there would have been no learning at all.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#67

Post by 10909489 »

cooper12 wrote: post #54
marincounty wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think it was the best thing humanity created. Lately, I see individuals, and companies carefully crafting pages to further their agenda. It could be PR, name recognition, or inaccurate information reguarding their cause. It could be as subtle as changing the definition of a neologism to singular, rather than plural. I ran across this recently. Someone wanted to promote their technospeck.whatever domain, but…

If you see something problematic, why don't you click the edit button and address it? Or if you don't have the necessary know-how, why don't you click the talk tab and bring up the issue there? Wikipedia belongs to all of us, if you have the mindset that it's someone else's problem to fix, then you're missing Wikipedia's point. There's nothing wrong with being just a consumer, but this is just like someone complainin…

> If you see something problematic, why don't you click the edit button and address it? Or if you don't have the necessary know-how, why don't you click the talk tab and bring up the issue there?

In my case, I can't.

I began editing Wikipedia in 2004, and I got banned last year after leaving a message on the talk page of another user telling them not to use aggressive language when interacting with new users. The way oversight on Wikipedia works is that it's incredibly easy for someone to block you if you do something that they read as a slight towards them.

It's something you know all along if you spend any amount of time on Wikipedia. Over the years I was constantly running into people talking about things like overreach and abusive admins, but as an editor, you don't really look into those cases. When you're more interesting in creating content than getting involved, you trust that the admins are doing their jobs properly, and if they ever aren't, then the conflict resolution process will take care of them.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#68

Post by Retric »

judemelancon wrote: post #66
reasonality wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All magic comes at a price. You could have learnt other tricks of the trade, could have made new friends talking to that human bartender. Talking to someone who is a master at something is far more valuable than asking the internet specific questions - how do you know what questions to ask...

The internet's supply of masters is much larger and more accessible. Is there a reason to think the video or other sources he found are from someone inferior in expertise to a local? Does that reason apply even for people who live outside major urban centers? Also, that line of thinking is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Remember the most likely outcome before was recognizing the cost of acquiring the k…

Most online videos are made by people good at making videos. There not the same people that are good at making drinks or whatever.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#69

Post by vlehto »

onion2k wrote: post #20
rplnt wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they will be more than fine once we figure out micropayments.

I don't think so. The problem micropayments face is that they're too close to free to represent value - if something is $0.05 then your brain sees that it isn't free but its value is so close to zero that it feels like it ought to be free. There'a a cognitive dissonance between "This is something I need so I should pay for it" and "This is so cheap it can't be worth anything, so I shouldn't pay for it." You need to p…

The psychology is the really hard part.

I think it should mimic tried and true real life coins. The spychological cost is managed by having limited number of different coins available. And the value of coin is small, but meaninful enough to be considered. In contrast to something infinitesimally close to zero.

Let's say I make payment of 5$ to your account with my email address in the message field. You send me 20 hashes to that address, each worth 20snt. Now I see artists webpage with "tip me" field. I paste a hash, you make the money happen. Simple enough?

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#70

Post by Zikes »

Retric wrote: post #68
judemelancon wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet's supply of masters is much larger and more accessible. Is there a reason to think the video or other sources he found are from someone inferior in expertise to a local? Does that reason apply even for people who live outside major urban centers? Also, that line of thinking is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Remember the most likely outcome before was recognizing the cost of acquiring the k…

Most online videos are made by people good at making videos. There not the same people that are good at making drinks or whatever.

I'm subscribed to YouTube channels devoted to crafts such as woodworking, cooking, metalworking, development, sewing, drink mixing, and others, and very few of them use professional equipment or editing software. Some of the most entertaining ones do, of course, but mostly because they started small and were able to grow their audience enough to turn it into a career, over the course of which they picked up the skills to improve the quality of the videos.

Those other skills form the foundation of successful online video channels, with the video skills following suit.

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