21–30 of 123 posts
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 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.
If they are a net negative in the world, I would withhold donations.
It's not about good or bad, it's about opportunity cost. Most people have a limited budget for donations.
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.
> 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…
(I feel compelled to point out that my example isn't anti-MS: "word" hardly colonizes the idea of "word processor")
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wikimedia has sufficient assets to host Wikipedia in perpetuity ($91 million @ 4 percent withdrawal rate = $3.64 million, ~$1 million above their current hosting tech and people costs). As long as Wikipedia text and media dumps are archived in the Internet Archive, it's not going to disappear even if Wikimedia Foundation goes defunct. No further fundraising is required, ever, if properly managed.
Provided continuing funding for the Internet Archive, of course.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The future is something closer to robotopedia or machinepedia, if you get what I'm saying Can't disagree with that enough. Wikipedia owes its incredible quality to the human editors doing thankless work behind the scenes. A machine-driven alternative would be awful.
He's probably right about nlp robot garbage being the future. Same as how we don't build pyramids anymore. Brick buildings have given way to toothpicks and foam. Quality seems to decay when the tide of novelty recedes. Robo-wikipedia probably costs 1/10000th the price get content quality about 60% as good. People will try to sell people on burning the modern library of Alexandria yet again. Good thing we can backup o…
Or for that case when you get transported back in time...
The thing that depresses me the most about Wiki[mp]edia is that the US$ 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…
> 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
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…
The price i'm paying with my few donations i made over the years, are donations i don't bother to check what they are doing with it.
Why? I'm not part of it. I'm just here, reading stuff on wikipedia.
I don't know what they wanna try out. I don't know who or why so many people are part of it. I haven't written a single article. I fixed stuff but thats it. Perhaps they need it to build the community around.
They got my trust.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
As long as machine writing is below human level quality, yes. But that won't be the case for too many more years.