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Wikipedia Turns 15

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Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#81

Post by Retric »

prawn wrote: post #79
Retric wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Versus learning from the first person you come across in real life? Or not at all because it's all too hard compared with searching the net?

IMO, there is a fair amount of. "Those who can do. Those who can't teach."

Sure, you can find some videos of people making a wooden clock online. It's much harder to find master craftsman making a watch. A few PHD students putting together an electric car vs. someone at GM actually designing a car. Home cook vs. Five Star Chef.

Granted, generally an amateur is fine. But, don't be surprised if there making several mistakes without noticing.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#82

Post by y4mi »

Retric wrote: post #81
prawn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Versus learning from the first person you come across in real life? Or not at all because it's all too hard compared with searching the net?

IMO, there is a fair amount of. "Those who can do. Those who can't teach." Sure, you can find some videos of people making a wooden clock online. It's much harder to find master craftsman making a watch. A few PHD students putting together an electric car vs. someone at GM actually designing a car. Home cook vs. Five Star Chef. Granted, generally an amateur is fine. But, don't be surprised if there making several mis…

and these master would teach random people from the street about their craft?

in sincerely doubt that...

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#83

Post by TeMPOraL »

Retric wrote: post #76
Zikes wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 skill…

Yea, there are plenty of people worth following out there. But, a few minutes of random searching is probably not going to show you one of the gems. Unless, I am just bad at finding videos.

Consider then finding an on-line community of enthusiasts first. Like, in case of woodworking, /r/woodworking and some of the other subreddits listed in the sidebar there. Spend few minutes there, and you'll know where to find the best 5% of woodworking sources available to mankind.

Let me emphasize it - thanks to the Internet, you have access to the best knowledge and experience entire humanity has produced. All it takes is some experience with using the Internet and spending little time on filtering links.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#84

Post by TeMPOraL »

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.

Most people good at making videos have better things to make videos on than random niche hobbies and crafts. If you step out of the popculture, you'll see a lot of videos made by those who do the work.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#85

Post by TeMPOraL »

Retric wrote: post #81
prawn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Versus learning from the first person you come across in real life? Or not at all because it's all too hard compared with searching the net?

IMO, there is a fair amount of. "Those who can do. Those who can't teach." Sure, you can find some videos of people making a wooden clock online. It's much harder to find master craftsman making a watch. A few PHD students putting together an electric car vs. someone at GM actually designing a car. Home cook vs. Five Star Chef. Granted, generally an amateur is fine. But, don't be surprised if there making several mis…

> IMO, there is a fair amount of. "Those who can do. Those who can't teach."

That applies to occupations, not to hobbies. I.e. those who can't find a proper job using their skill go on to teach that skill.

It does not however apply to the most valuable content - one made not for money, but out of love for the subject. A lot of masters in all occupations simply like to share. Our industry is probably the best example - it's almost entirely built upon masters who gave away their knowledge. But it happens in other industries too.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#86

Post by TeMPOraL »

coliveira wrote: post #64
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…

Then replace a video with books. If I want to learn something hard, I can Google for the resources on the topic, quickly get the names of books considered the best resources humanity has on that subject, and then proceed to either Amazon or my favourite pirate source. All I can do in 10 minutes to half an hour, and then I can start learning. Contrast with the 80s, where you'd have to go to your local library, which may or may not have any book on the subject, and if it has, it's not necessarily the best.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#87

Post by TeMPOraL »

chorizo wrote: post #80
klenwell wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so well put. It should be engraved over the entrance to a library or public monument somewhere.

Or at least the linguistics department at the local community college.

Also every dictionary should have a disclaimer written on its cover with big, bold letters:

DICTIONARIES ARE DESCRIPTIVE, NOT PRESCRIPTIVE. THEY DOCUMENT HOW WORDS ARE COMMONLY USED, THEY DO NOT DEFINE THEIR MEANINGS.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#88

Post by TeMPOraL »

theklub wrote: post #39
deepnet wrote: post #24

I pay monthly to wikipedia, I use it tens of times a day, it is a fantastic unparalleled resource - a real public good. Wikipedia is a proof of a utopian vision that infused the early web - ensuring public rights wins public contribution. Humanities collective knowledge is better distributed because of Wikipedia, a true wonder of the modern world. IMHO, we must treasure wikipedia as it is not clear it could happen ag…

I feel like wikipedia killed the web in a way. Anytime you search for something 95% of the time wikipedia is the first result and thus 99% of the time it is I go to it for information. What websites or innovations have we missed out on because of this?

Wikipedia is as things should be. Consider why you go to it 99 out of 100 times. It's not just because it usually shows up first in Google. It's because you know that all the other results suck.

Re: Wikipedia Turns 15

#90

Post by edgyswingset »

cooper12 wrote: post #49
rorykoehler wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used wikiwand? Much improved UX. Can't go back since I started using it.

My friend swears by Wikiwand, but I hate how it changes all links to its own domain. (It really should have been a browser extension instead of its own website that's merely a stylesheet) It also overoptimizes for the reader: minimizing the edit tab, hiding the talk page, hiding the history tab, over-enlarging images, and making disambiguation hatnotes nearly invisible. I do like how it has article preview popups on…

I'm not sure that blog post is really applicable. It's shunning the idea of using designer tools to generate mockups of Wikipedia which focus on eye candy at the expense of content. That's not really what's going on with Wikiwand.
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