Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English

#91

Post by jacobwilliamroy » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #70

soheil wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't hate on my comment, all I can do is ask not to be downvoted, at least I tried. Here is my case against Wikipedia. In a capitalistic model it makes little sense why Wikipedia should thrive without enriching someone so massively in the process, therefore, it must be corrected. If we assume that line of thinking is valid (which I'm not saying we should or shouldn't) then it follows that an alternative Wikip…

You're glossing over that Wikipedia would not be feasible if you had to pay people to do it, and if it were not free, you'd have to pay people to do it. Your "capitalistic model" likely does not correspond sufficiently to reality to be useful. And why did you write this comment? There is no need for a "case against Wikipedia."

>why did you write this?

It looks like satire to me. If soheil is serious, I don't know what to say.

Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English

#92

Post by jfim » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

majos wrote: post #46

Liquix wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is AWESOME and I admire your selflessness & generosity in donating to a cause :) However, before giving them any more money I would recommend reading through the (Wikipedia-hosted, ironically) article titled "Wikipedia has Cancer". The revenue vs. employee count/operating costs ratio is way off. Like, orders of magnitude off. It's a tough pill to swallow considering how useful the site is and their respecta…

I remember this essay, the author’s main argument was: Wikipedia seemed fine 10 years ago with 5% of its current money, so the increased spending (and calls for donations to cover it) seems unjustified. I side with the author in requesting more transparency about what exactly donations get spent on, but this strict argument in terms of how spending growth just “looks” unreasonable isn’t convincing. Namely, it’s prett…

They're actually pretty transparent in their annual report [0].

The issue is that their ads are slightly misleading in that they hint that they might have to pull the plug ("we depend on donations [...] we need your help [...] time is running out in 2019 to help us") even though the time is running out in 2019 part is because they're running the ads during the end of the year, not because they're running out of money. They spent 46 million in salaries out of 120 million in revenue, while the hosting expenses are one of their smallest line items at 2.3 million.

[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/3/31/Wikim...

Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English

#93

Post by jacobwilliamroy » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:37 AM UTC

rapnie wrote: post #87

soheil wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am saying that it would not be feasible, we're actually in agreement on that point. > And why did you write this comment? I feel like you want comments to always have a political motive. > There is no need for a "case against Wikipedia." It's an intellectual exercise.

I agree with asdfasgasdgasdg, and don't understand your reasoning. Imho the fact that Wikipedia is not commercially marketized is inherent to its success. Feels like a breath of fresh air to have such a rich source of open access information, to search for e.g. medical info rather than trusting Google with it. If anything, Wikipedia shows to me that people have a longing for more initiatives like that, and they will…

Did you copypaste that guy's name, or did you type the whole thing out? Did you have his comment out in a second window so you could look back and forth to check your spelling?

Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English

#94

Post by tito » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:40 AM UTC

lasagnaphil wrote: post #83

tito wrote: post #49

Just 6,000,000 topics of interest to cover all of history. That's about 1 per 1,000 people on the planet. There are 5.6 million small businesses in the United States alone. [1] Imagine a Wikipedia that had more like 6 trillion articles. I'm enamored with a startup named Golden ( https://golden.com ) which aims to do just that. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/257521/number-of-small-b...

I don’t think that startup will succeed to the same degree as Wikipedia. Making an successful online encyclopedia isn’t a tech problem, it’s more of a community problem. And it’s stupidly hard to maintain such a vibrant community, moreso if for-profit entities are involved. I’ve seen so many cases where the contributors leave the website due to clashes with corporate members (see StackExchange for an example) In a fo…

But what if it did succeed?

Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English

#95

Post by rapnie » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #93

rapnie wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with asdfasgasdgasdg, and don't understand your reasoning. Imho the fact that Wikipedia is not commercially marketized is inherent to its success. Feels like a breath of fresh air to have such a rich source of open access information, to search for e.g. medical info rather than trusting Google with it. If anything, Wikipedia shows to me that people have a longing for more initiatives like that, and they will…

Did you copypaste that guy's name, or did you type the whole thing out? Did you have his comment out in a second window so you could look back and forth to check your spelling?

I copypasted first, then started writing :)

Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English

#96

Post by soheil » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:46 AM UTC

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #93

rapnie wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with asdfasgasdgasdg, and don't understand your reasoning. Imho the fact that Wikipedia is not commercially marketized is inherent to its success. Feels like a breath of fresh air to have such a rich source of open access information, to search for e.g. medical info rather than trusting Google with it. If anything, Wikipedia shows to me that people have a longing for more initiatives like that, and they will…

Did you copypaste that guy's name, or did you type the whole thing out? Did you have his comment out in a second window so you could look back and forth to check your spelling?

The real question is did you copy and paste and searched for it to see if it is actually the same username or did you just guess that they're the same spelling?

Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English

#97

Post by xmprt » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:49 AM UTC

soheil wrote: post #65

preommr wrote: post #19

Wikipedia is the most incredible creation in modern times. Because it's not about some law of the universe that people have learned enough about to use to their advantage like electricity or nuclear physics. It's something inherent to us as a species that we came together to create a resource for everyone to access and that it has such a high level of quality. The culture around Wikipedia - the culmination of knowled…

Please don't hate on my comment, all I can do is ask not to be downvoted, at least I tried. Here is my case against Wikipedia. In a capitalistic model it makes little sense why Wikipedia should thrive without enriching someone so massively in the process, therefore, it must be corrected. If we assume that line of thinking is valid (which I'm not saying we should or shouldn't) then it follows that an alternative Wikip…

I don't think people are downvoting you for your opinion. The comment as it stands however is completely incomprehensible.

Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English

#98

Post by jacobwilliamroy » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:49 AM UTC

soheil wrote: post #96

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you copypaste that guy's name, or did you type the whole thing out? Did you have his comment out in a second window so you could look back and forth to check your spelling?

The real question is did you copy and paste and searched for it to see if it is actually the same username or did you just guess that they're the same spelling?

I opened two tabs and looked back and forth.

Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English

#99

Post by AYBABTME » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:55 AM UTC

soheil wrote: post #65

preommr wrote: post #19

Wikipedia is the most incredible creation in modern times. Because it's not about some law of the universe that people have learned enough about to use to their advantage like electricity or nuclear physics. It's something inherent to us as a species that we came together to create a resource for everyone to access and that it has such a high level of quality. The culture around Wikipedia - the culmination of knowled…

Please don't hate on my comment, all I can do is ask not to be downvoted, at least I tried. Here is my case against Wikipedia. In a capitalistic model it makes little sense why Wikipedia should thrive without enriching someone so massively in the process, therefore, it must be corrected. If we assume that line of thinking is valid (which I'm not saying we should or shouldn't) then it follows that an alternative Wikip…

You can only reach these sort of conclusions if you put capitalism on a stand, like a god from which everything true clearly must derive. Like an axiom. If that's what you believe, then so be it. But otherwise what you're saying seems to be nothing more than a random walk.

Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English

#100

Post by phamilton » Fri, Jan 24, 2020, 5:59 AM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #80

preommr wrote: post #19

Wikipedia is the most incredible creation in modern times. Because it's not about some law of the universe that people have learned enough about to use to their advantage like electricity or nuclear physics. It's something inherent to us as a species that we came together to create a resource for everyone to access and that it has such a high level of quality. The culture around Wikipedia - the culmination of knowled…

> It's something inherent to us as a species that we came together to create a resource for everyone to access and that it has such a high level of quality. Oh man, if only it were true! If anything, wikipedia should be seen as an overcoming of our terrible human nature in making something good in the world, not as a property of humans. It is SO precious and fragile in our mortal hands. The story of the Encyclopédie'…

It's a great resource, but isn't it pretty well established that the foundation does not need more funding?

For anyone interested, take a read through https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:FY17...