I can't read the article because the consent parameters for data collection are hidden behind layers upon layers of misleading UI and links, with a broken captcha inserted in the middle.
So, Techcrunch can fuck off from now on I guess.
Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
101–110 of 193 posts
Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
#102Wikipedia 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'…
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Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
#103I’m a big fan of Wikipedia. It’s not perfect, and plenty of pages are outright bad, but repeatedly clicking “random page” [1] is a great source of entertainment to me. There’s so much info out there, yet I reliably get something surprising, interesting, or funny within maybe 10 random pages. And because it’s random, I learn things way outside my normal interests. Try it if you find yourself mindlessly scrolling! It’s…
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…
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Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
#104[deleted]
Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
#105If you speak other languages Wikipedia certainly gets very interesting. German Wikipedia is pretty good, for some topics it is better than English Wikipedia. But Spanish Wikipedia is quite sad to read, todays articles have the quality I remember from when Wikipedia was 2 or 3 years old even though there are many times more Spanish than German speakers in the world. Then there are the Swedish and Cebuana Wikipedias wh…
I absolutely recommend people don't stay just think of the English version as the default. Other language communities certainly produce better articles on subjects they're closer to or where they have a better scholarly tradition. I tend to consult the German and Catalan (!) versions quite a bit, besides the French and English ones.
Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
#106Earlier 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…
I don't think people are downvoting you for your opinion. The comment as it stands however is completely incomprehensible.
Ha, I don't actually think people are downvoting me as much as I expected. Also you seem to be confusing cause and effect. The 1st sentence of my post was asking not to be downvoted, even if people did downvote later on I had no way of knowing that when I wrote that comment.
Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We are incredibly lucky that wikipedia isn't owned by some tech megacorp, it isn't loaded with spyware JS bogging it down, and it doesn't require an account to use. There was Google's attempt in 2007 wih knol(0) - which many called an attempt at a Wikipedia killer. Agreed... We dodged a bullet. Authors could also choose to include ads from Google's AdSense on their pages ... All contributors to the Knol project had…
I think the most fascinating thing is the bit about how people criticized google for placing knol results in more accessible spots on google search and the conflict of interest. This is exactly the same debate we are having over a decade later about AMP.
Their scheme is ranking by popular domain name. This, as a rule, makes shit content rise to the top. A debate about how bad this idea is shouldn't last long. That said, the question then becomes if google.com is worthy of this favoritism. It unquestionably qualifies here. So there is no-such-thing as placing knol in a more accessible spot. google.com is just a more popular website than wikipedia.
Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
#108It's easy to forget how amazing Wikipedia is because people are so used to it. It's also an anomaly in todays internet landscape - no ads, popups or auto-play videos. I think it's literally the best website in existence. If you suggested 20 years ago that there will soon exist a free online encyclopedia, which has two orders of magnitude more words than Britannica, is updated daily and is mostly unbiased - they would…
There are two candidates for "best website in existence," both were made by people born in countries that spawned from the dissolution of the USSR, and one starts with "sci-" while the other starts with "Lib." One ends with "hub" while the other ends with "Gen."
It's okay. You can say Scihub and libgen. Nothing bad will happen.
Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes I worry about projects about Wikipedia and the Archive. When will they run out of storage space and money? When will it become too big to handle?
That will never happen for Wikipedia. Their content is tiny in disk space and not growing very fast. They are also drowning in money, despite what their donation begging messages claim. The Internet Archive, on the other hand, is drowning in data and pinching pennies. Still, they're doing okay, and the constant decrease in per-gigabyte HDD costs are allowing them to continue for the time being. They absolutely need a…
Wikipedia is drowning in money?
Their audited financials:
- Cash in hand: $100m, Annual expenses: $91m - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/3/31/Wikim...
Internet archive:
- Net assets: $2m, Functional expenses: $18m - https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943...
Re: Wikipedia now has more than 6M articles in English
#110Wikipedia 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
I like the explanation that Wikipedia is built on nerds' need to correct each other.