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Google gives Wikimedia millions

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Re: Google gives Wikimedia millions

#31

Post by strainer »

haberman wrote: post #9
xref wrote: post #7

I used to contribute heavily to Wikipedia in 2007-08 and intermittently since, however recently it has become an absolute nightmare to contribute. Creating a missing article almost immediately is met with an admin nominating it for deletion for something like “notability”, the catch-all term for “I personally don’t care about this topic, and if it was important someone would have made it already.” If you survive dele…

What did you try to contribute? Last year I added an article about a musical ensemble. I followed the processes and it seemed to be fairly straightforward to get approved. (The ensemble had a bunch of articles written about them in the NYT).

I have marvelled at the quality of WPs music theory articles where I think different outlooks are well tolerated and accepted.

8 years ago I tried to fix WP philosophies entry on the concept of "Appeal to Nature" and was even joined by an experienced academic but our efforts[1] where removed by admin/users wishing to describe the topic as a kind of simple fallacious trope[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Appeal_to_nature&...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

Re: Google gives Wikimedia millions

#32

Post by Mirioron »

commoner wrote: post #12
xref wrote: post #7

I used to contribute heavily to Wikipedia in 2007-08 and intermittently since, however recently it has become an absolute nightmare to contribute. Creating a missing article almost immediately is met with an admin nominating it for deletion for something like “notability”, the catch-all term for “I personally don’t care about this topic, and if it was important someone would have made it already.” If you survive dele…

As Wikipedia became more popular, it also started attracting people and companies who try to use it for writing promotional articles on themselves with little to no basis in reality. The notability requirement helps ensure that articles are accurate and can be verified with trustworthy sources. A topic only needs 2 trustworthy sources for an article, and if it doesn't meet that bar, then the topic is probably better…

I feel like Wikipedia has also become more and more political as it gained popularity. Some of the decisions the admins have made over the years make me question the trustworthiness of what I read on Wikipedia, because some articles paint a one-sided view of events. Luckily it seems to mostly be limited to certain topics.

Re: Google gives Wikimedia millions

#33

Post by zozbot123 »

Mirioron wrote: post #32
commoner wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As Wikipedia became more popular, it also started attracting people and companies who try to use it for writing promotional articles on themselves with little to no basis in reality. The notability requirement helps ensure that articles are accurate and can be verified with trustworthy sources. A topic only needs 2 trustworthy sources for an article, and if it doesn't meet that bar, then the topic is probably better…

I feel like Wikipedia has also become more and more political as it gained popularity. Some of the decisions the admins have made over the years make me question the trustworthiness of what I read on Wikipedia, because some articles paint a one-sided view of events. Luckily it seems to mostly be limited to certain topics.

Spoiler: it's always been like that. Sometimes it's useful to look at the talk page for the article and/or the history of revisions, looking for obvious controversy.

Re: Google gives Wikimedia millions

#34

Post by SEJeff »

xref wrote: post #7

I used to contribute heavily to Wikipedia in 2007-08 and intermittently since, however recently it has become an absolute nightmare to contribute. Creating a missing article almost immediately is met with an admin nominating it for deletion for something like “notability”, the catch-all term for “I personally don’t care about this topic, and if it was important someone would have made it already.” If you survive dele…

And it is super arbitrary. There is a joke I made over 10 years ago making fun of a friend and it is still up (totally not giving it away as then it will be deleted).

The admin / oversight is hit or miss to the extreme.

Re: Google gives Wikimedia millions

#35

Post by ardy42 »

SEJeff wrote: post #34
xref wrote: post #7

I used to contribute heavily to Wikipedia in 2007-08 and intermittently since, however recently it has become an absolute nightmare to contribute. Creating a missing article almost immediately is met with an admin nominating it for deletion for something like “notability”, the catch-all term for “I personally don’t care about this topic, and if it was important someone would have made it already.” If you survive dele…

And it is super arbitrary. There is a joke I made over 10 years ago making fun of a friend and it is still up (totally not giving it away as then it will be deleted). The admin / oversight is hit or miss to the extreme.

> The admin / oversight is hit or miss to the extreme.

Of course, there's no way they could formally audit every article. They're heavily reliant of some rando noticing something fishy in an obscure article and bringing it to their attention.

Re: Google gives Wikimedia millions

#37

Post by ardy42 »

baroffoos wrote: post #23
starpilot wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia has finite resources that cost money. So they have to restrict it to hosting articles that will have some level of audience.

This is wrong. Low view articles cost essentially nothing to host. The whole of wikipedia can be stored for about $1 per month if all you care about is storage. Also rejected articles don't get deleted from the system they just get moved to the draft section which is hidden from search results.

> This is wrong. Low view articles cost essentially nothing to host. The whole of wikipedia can be stored for about $1 per month if all you care about is storage. Also rejected articles don't get deleted from the system they just get moved to the draft section which is hidden from search results.

That's wrong. Low view articles still cost volunteer time to maintain, otherwise many would become home to malicious edits. That's a kind of hosting cost.

Also, deleted articles on Wikipedia are removed such that only admins can see them. I don't think it's common to remove them to the drafts area unless they're under construction and have some hope of meeting standards.

Re: Google gives Wikimedia millions

#38

Post by [deleted] »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #10
lern_too_spel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And shuttered Freebase. Similarly, Apple used Openstreetmap to get their mapping effort off the ground and then didn't contribute back. I understand the profit motive for both of them, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

Apple doesn't contribute back? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18913408 > Apple employee spoke at a recent OSM conference. Yes, they use OSM data as well. In some countries more than others. Apple also has a fulltime staff working on OSM. https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues , https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/

[deleted]

Re: Google gives Wikimedia millions

#40

Post by why_only_15 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #10
lern_too_spel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And shuttered Freebase. Similarly, Apple used Openstreetmap to get their mapping effort off the ground and then didn't contribute back. I understand the profit motive for both of them, but it still rubs me the wrong way.

Apple doesn't contribute back? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18913408 > Apple employee spoke at a recent OSM conference. Yes, they use OSM data as well. In some countries more than others. Apple also has a fulltime staff working on OSM. https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/issues , https://github.com/osmlab/appledata/

I asked a friend at Apple and there are apparently like 15 people working on it, which is a $2-3M contribution.
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