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Leading with Wikipedia: A brand proposal for 2030

wikimediafoundation.org

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Re: Leading with Wikipedia: A brand proposal for 2030

#11

Post by CM30 »

untog wrote: post #4
painful wrote: post #3

This seems like a narrowly thought out proposal. Contrary to what Wikimedia may think and see today, Wikipedia is not the future. The future is something closer to robotopedia or machinepedia or autowikipedia, if you get what I'm saying. The name Wikimedia is fine. I have seen the future, and there is no place for human writers in it.

> The future is something closer to robotopedia or machinepedia, if you get what I'm saying Can't disagree with that enough. Wikipedia owes its incredible quality to the human editors doing thankless work behind the scenes. A machine-driven alternative would be awful.

See Cpedia, Cuil's hilariously awful attempt at building just that.

https://marco.org/2010/04/12/the-mechanized-madness-of-cuils...

Re: Leading with Wikipedia: A brand proposal for 2030

#12

Post by stoops »

c0l0 wrote: post #9

The thing that depresses me the most about Wiki[mp]edia is that the US$ 100 that I donated to them a few years ago (presumably,) predominantly went into creating material like this. Given how incredibly well-funded Wikimedia is, their yearly extort^Wdonation-drive with 50%+ viewport-sized banners plastered all over Wikipedia, claiming that the encyclopedia you're viewing is in dire need of your money to barely sustai…

Thank you for this comment. I will withhold any future donations until I do further research.

Re: Leading with Wikipedia: A brand proposal for 2030

#13

Post by CharlesW »

microcolonel wrote: post #10

> while shortening “Wikimedia Commons” to its nickname “Wikicommons” Literally never seen anyone write "Wikicommons", in all the years I've heard people talk about Commons, but heh. I don't really understand how they manage to (in my opinion) waste time on nonsense like this. The services run great, the contribution volume is immense, and the quality of the tools is improving constantly. I want the Wikimedia Foundati…

@Wikicommons is their Twitter handle, so it tends to get talked about as Wikicommons there.

https://twitter.com/search?q=wikicommons&src=typd

Re: Leading with Wikipedia: A brand proposal for 2030

#15

Post by svachalek »

painful wrote: post #3

This seems like a narrowly thought out proposal. Contrary to what Wikimedia may think and see today, Wikipedia is not the future. The future is something closer to robotopedia or machinepedia or autowikipedia, if you get what I'm saying. The name Wikimedia is fine. I have seen the future, and there is no place for human writers in it.

What is the future where there is no need for human writers, but that still has human readers? A world where we all happily accept The Truth from machines is hard to envision, and not going to happen while this generation still lives.

Re: Leading with Wikipedia: A brand proposal for 2030

#16

Post by 51lver »

c0l0 wrote: post #9

The thing that depresses me the most about Wiki[mp]edia is that the US$ 100 that I donated to them a few years ago (presumably,) predominantly went into creating material like this. Given how incredibly well-funded Wikimedia is, their yearly extort^Wdonation-drive with 50%+ viewport-sized banners plastered all over Wikipedia, claiming that the encyclopedia you're viewing is in dire need of your money to barely sustai…

Yeah, no kidding. I donated (a few times actually) to cover hosting costs, not to make wikipedia into some kind of lifestyle brand. This is wasteful.

Re: Leading with Wikipedia: A brand proposal for 2030

#17

Post by toomuchtodo »

c0l0 wrote: post #9

The thing that depresses me the most about Wiki[mp]edia is that the US$ 100 that I donated to them a few years ago (presumably,) predominantly went into creating material like this. Given how incredibly well-funded Wikimedia is, their yearly extort^Wdonation-drive with 50%+ viewport-sized banners plastered all over Wikipedia, claiming that the encyclopedia you're viewing is in dire need of your money to barely sustai…

Wikimedia has sufficient assets to host Wikipedia in perpetuity ($91 million @ 4 percent withdrawal rate = $3.64 million, ~$1 million above their current hosting tech and people costs). As long as Wikipedia text and media dumps are archived in the Internet Archive, it's not going to disappear even if Wikimedia Foundation goes defunct.

No further fundraising is required, ever, if properly managed.

Re: Leading with Wikipedia: A brand proposal for 2030

#18

Post by morpheuskafka »

microcolonel wrote: post #10

> while shortening “Wikimedia Commons” to its nickname “Wikicommons” Literally never seen anyone write "Wikicommons", in all the years I've heard people talk about Commons, but heh. I don't really understand how they manage to (in my opinion) waste time on nonsense like this. The services run great, the contribution volume is immense, and the quality of the tools is improving constantly. I want the Wikimedia Foundati…

If this were to go through, they should just make WC be called "Wikimedia." Wikipedia is a wiki encyclopedia, Wikimedia should be a wiki of media. What is a wiki of a commons?

Re: Leading with Wikipedia: A brand proposal for 2030

#19

Post by omouse »

c0l0 wrote: post #9

The thing that depresses me the most about Wiki[mp]edia is that the US$ 100 that I donated to them a few years ago (presumably,) predominantly went into creating material like this. Given how incredibly well-funded Wikimedia is, their yearly extort^Wdonation-drive with 50%+ viewport-sized banners plastered all over Wikipedia, claiming that the encyclopedia you're viewing is in dire need of your money to barely sustai…

They're only well-funded for now. That funding can go away if enough people, such as yourself, complain about this. They need to sustain themselves, just like any other organization. If they are a net negative in the world, I would withhold donations. For producing material like this? It's still a net positive and therefore still worthy of donating to.

Re: Leading with Wikipedia: A brand proposal for 2030

#20

Post by MrLeap »

untog wrote: post #4
painful wrote: post #3

This seems like a narrowly thought out proposal. Contrary to what Wikimedia may think and see today, Wikipedia is not the future. The future is something closer to robotopedia or machinepedia or autowikipedia, if you get what I'm saying. The name Wikimedia is fine. I have seen the future, and there is no place for human writers in it.

> The future is something closer to robotopedia or machinepedia, if you get what I'm saying Can't disagree with that enough. Wikipedia owes its incredible quality to the human editors doing thankless work behind the scenes. A machine-driven alternative would be awful.

He's probably right about nlp robot garbage being the future. Same as how we don't build pyramids anymore. Brick buildings have given way to toothpicks and foam. Quality seems to decay when the tide of novelty recedes. Robo-wikipedia probably costs 1/10000th the price get content quality about 60% as good.

People will try to sell people on burning the modern library of Alexandria yet again. Good thing we can backup offline copies! I've been in the woods for the last few months and offline simple english wikipedia has been awesome. Some of the articles on more serious subjects are comedy gold mines in simple english.

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