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Wikipedia is 20

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Re: Wikipedia is 20

#141

Post by aerosmile »

nsajko wrote: post #135
aerosmile wrote: post #40

I am surprised that the comments haven't mentioned the role of SEO in Wikipedia's growth and defensibility. Wikipedia's habit of deep interlinking helped it rank back in the early aughts when the SEO rules were rather simple. Add to that the subdomain-driven localization strategy and many other moves that were considered SEO best practices back in those years when the on-page factors used to matter. But that was just…

> Add to that a surprisingly under-the-radar company culture which has avoided any major blow ups despite its community wielding so much leverage over the world's education and having to make a lot of difficult calls on a daily basis. There's been and still is plenty of controversy regarding both the Wikimedia Foundation and its relationship to the community of volunteers. In fact I'd say the whole thing's kind of ro…

I am aware of many of their issues, especially on smaller international sites. But even so, on a risk-adjusted basis I think they've managed to avoid more drama than other teams would have pulled off given the environment they are in.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#142

Post by Kim_Bruning »

HDMI_Cable wrote: post #51
IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One reason Wikipedia was able to grow so quickly was because of its scale. I've carefully studied all three definitions of "scale" my dictionary offers up, and come to the conclusion that this sentence either means absolutely nothing ("It is big because it is big"), or something really strange ("Wikipedia grew because of its plate-like skin coverings").

Sorry, that was a bit unclear on my part. I was alluding to scale as in Wikipedia's massive pool of available editors being able to publish more content than competitors, thereby driving more traffic. (But of course, we all know that Wikipedia is run by the lizard people with the aforementioned plate-like skin coverings.)

So how did wikipedia get those editors?

But maybe that's a trick question!

Rather: What does Wikipedia consider to be its pool of editors?

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#143

Post by nsajko »

disown wrote: post #129
shepherdjerred wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is incredible. I find it frustrating when friends say it's unreliable/not to be trusted. Of course it's not perfect, but I've learned plenty enough from it to be well worth the trade-off

> Wikipedia is incredible. It's good for surface level stuff. The apolitical superficial knowledge is where wikipedia excels. > I find it frustrating when friends say it's unreliable/not to be trusted. In terms of depth and breadth of knowledge of topics, it is sorely lacking. And it is highly untrustworthy when it comes to anything remotely political/historical/economic/etc - which are ultimately all political. > Of…

Doesn't even have to be political. Moneyed interests and fanboys and cultists use Wikipedia for PR and similar all the time. See Falun Gong, for example.

There are also groups of Wikipedia "editors" who coordinate off-wiki to influence its workings. (Sock-puppeting and meat-puppeting)

Even if we disregarded all the malicious actors, harmful incompetence is rampant on Wikipedia.

And I was just talking about the English Wikipedia here, there are many "small" Wikipedias which are much much worse.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#144

Post by nsajko »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #63

Three aphorisms in honor of Wikipedia, greatest encyclopedia in world history, and its 20 years of free knowledge uncorrupted by advertising: * Wikipedia works in practice, but not in theory. * Wikipedia is the worst source of information, except for all the others. * Wikipedia: the Internet’s greatest reason to feel a little bit optimistic about human nature.

Here, I'll fix that for you:

* Wikipedia works in theory, but not in practice (as soon as you scratch the surface). - The problem is that there are many good pages, but that just lulls one out of the necessary skepticism.

* Try the Wikipedia sources that are hopefully on the bottom of each page instead. Also search on Stack Exchange and Reddit for book recommendations.

* Wikipedia: the Internet’s greatest reason to feel pessimistic about the state of disinformation and propaganda

EDIT: my comment is definitely more substantive and thoughtful than the one it is responding to, so I would appreciate if the downvoters could likewise reply to this comment, in addition to down-voting it.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#146

Post by elliotec »

cyphar wrote: post #134
elliotec wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, should it have all the foundational build-ups to get to an understanding of the topic? I think that'd be amazing but quite difficult given it took you however many years to get that degree, and I can barely get a computer to do basic arithmetic for me.

That's not my point. My point is that to understand a fairly rudimentary topic using only Wikipedia you already have to understand post-grad mathemarics concepts because the derivation and terminology is needlessly contrived because the editors are usually post-grads writing as though the article is for other post-grads. There are countless examples but I'm on my phone at the moment.

Hmm. Maybe these post-grads are on their phone too writing about very complicated mathematics that to a post-grad might seem rudimentary.

The beauty is that nothing prevents YOU from adding clarity to these "needlessly contrived" concepts... so what's stopping folks like you from contributing?

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#147

Post by nsajko »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #136

Is there an easy way to browse past versions of Wikipedia? I’m aware of the Wayback Machine, but that only works for a particular article. I ask because it’s become increasingly obvious that articles are changed to fit the contemporary zeitgeist. Writers that died a century ago are recast into different people, depending on the popular ideology of the day. The choice of acceptable sources is also pretty disappointing…

Every Wikipedia page has its history accessible through "View history".

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#148

Post by Kim_Bruning »

throwawaysea wrote: post #10

I've been funding Wikipedia for years and use it several times daily. It has indeed grown into an amazing source of knowledge documenting this world. However there are insidious problems building up. For example, I've noticed that they are starting to encode a lot of biases into its articles, particularly on topics that are part of the political sphere. These articles often reflect a US progressive-left worldview rat…

Saying that (en.)wikipedia has a US progressive-left worldview is subtly misleading.

Specifically en.wikipedia.org has a western (US/UK sphere of influence) worldview.

This is because en.wikipedia is/can be edited by everyone who speaks English: not just the USA, not just regular English speaking countries, but also all those countries that teach children English as a second language, (and a not insignificant smattering of people who learn English outside of school too)

When you compare countries around the world, The United States of America is said to lean rather right of center.

Thus from a US perspective you would expect en.wikipedia to appear to indeed be a bit on the left.

(this is not a comprehensive answer, but it does cover a lot of the ground)

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#149

Post by ceilingcorner »

nsajko wrote: post #147
ceilingcorner wrote: post #136

Is there an easy way to browse past versions of Wikipedia? I’m aware of the Wayback Machine, but that only works for a particular article. I ask because it’s become increasingly obvious that articles are changed to fit the contemporary zeitgeist. Writers that died a century ago are recast into different people, depending on the popular ideology of the day. The choice of acceptable sources is also pretty disappointing…

Every Wikipedia page has its history accessible through "View history".

Yes I meant if there’s a way to view the entire site, not only specific pages.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#150

Post by SoSoRoCoCo »

Merman_Mike wrote: post #59
admiralspoo wrote: post #23

Its reputation is severely declining, especially on topics relating to current events, figures, or politics. It, however, remains excellent for technical knowledge.

This is a current event that is extremely political: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_States_Capitol_pro... It cites 462 sources and the parts I read are at least as objective as any news outlet. I know that Wikipedia editors lean left. I'd be interested to see examples of this bias in Wiki entries though.

> I know that Wikipedia editors lean left.

Reality leans left.

FTFY.

And before you all go downvote happy, just take a look at which direction culture has gone in the past 100 years. More conservative? Nope.

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