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Wikipedia is 20

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Re: Wikipedia is 20

#181

Post by Kim_Bruning »

fireattack wrote: post #172
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you saying that the world has stood still, and that western thought in general and America in particular have not had any sort of positive influence on the world since 1776? ;-)

I honestly don't understand what your satire is trying to say, and would agree with zozbot234's pretty straight forward reply: the US is probably lean right among Western countries, but compared to all the countries in the world, it's not. Most of Asian and African countries lean much more "right" compared to the US, as a starter.

Specifically -as a nearly trivial statement- en.wikipedia is predominantly edited by those people who can write in English.

These can be:

* Native speakers: From eg. USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland.

* People who speak English as a second language (which is most of the western world including western Europe)

In general out of this set of countries, the USA tends to be fairly (economically) conservative and right-leaning. (Compare with eg. Netherlands, Norway, Germany, France, Canada, New Zealand, etc. )

What makes you say that countries in eg. Asia are more right leaning than the USA? That surprises me a bit.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#182

Post by bawolff »

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…

I dont think they did any of those things because of SEO, but because it was the obvious way to do it.

Deep interlinking - originally it used software called UseModWiki, which would automatically make a link if a page name existed for the word you just used.

subdomains - if you want to make a separate site for each language, that is the onvious way to do it

good content- why would anyone intentionally want to make a site with shitty content unless you are making $$$ off it (and wikipedia wasnt)

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#183

Post by kristopolous »

I remember going first in 2002, a lot of pages were just lists like all the popes or cereals by general mills.

I thought "yeah right, who's going to write an article on like pope pius x and cheerios. nice project but not happening"

It was the second time I had seen a wiki, the first was on vim.org where I changed something in 2001 or so because I just didn't believe the concept was real.

I think I get in on the ground of a bunch of things but I'm just incredulous and not enthusiastic about them. Like all those bitcoins I didn't care about...

It's a problem I should probably work on. I should be more excited about things. Just have to figure out how to get there.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#184

Post by bawolff »

aikinai wrote: post #162
in3d wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one version. Another version, that I know will go over very well here, is that some have invested a lot of money to bring high quality, accessibly-written off-line content by experts in the field to the Web, only for Wikipedia editors to poorly rewrite it in thousands of articles and rank over the original content in Google. And then Wikipedia started using non-follow links so the original sites got no benefit…

> high quality, accessibly-written off-line content by experts in the field to the Web Where is this content? It sounds like you’re alluding to something obvious but I honestly have no idea, and would like to know where to find it if it does exist.

No kidding. I remember trying to find high quality educational content on the web before wikipedia. For certain subjects it existed, but it was few and far between, and of very mixed quality (how do you know how much trust to put on some geocitirs page)?

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#185

Post by fireattack »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #181
fireattack wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't understand what your satire is trying to say, and would agree with zozbot234's pretty straight forward reply: the US is probably lean right among Western countries, but compared to all the countries in the world, it's not. Most of Asian and African countries lean much more "right" compared to the US, as a starter.

Specifically -as a nearly trivial statement- en.wikipedia is predominantly edited by those people who can write in English. These can be: * Native speakers: From eg. USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland. * People who speak English as a second language (which is most of the western world including western Europe) In general out of this set of countries, the USA tends to be fairly (economically) conservative and right…

Of out this set of countries, I agree; but she/he specifically quoted a sentence from your original comment, therefore I think his/her observation is fine.

> What makes you say that countries in eg. Asia are more right leaning than the USA

By living there most of my life.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#186

Post by bawolff »

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…

> It's good for surface level stuff

Almost like its trying to be an encyclopedia or something ;)

If you go to wikipedia looking for a university level course in something, im not sure why you would expect that.

As far as quality... its not perfect, but that's still a relative measure. Its generally significantly better than its competition in my experience.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#187

Post by bawolff »

kortilla wrote: post #173
jessriedel wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having looked into it a bit, I've been severely disappointed that we have no good theory of why Wikipedia works. There are lots of putative explanations, but they all predict the successful existence of all sorts of collaborative projects that we don't actually see. Wikipedia is such a treasure, and it would be extremely valuable to know more about how it works so we can replicate aspects of it for other projects.

Sorry if it’s obvious, but why don’t people think Wikipedia should work in theory? Isn’t it just tapping into the need to tell people things you know and feel good about how smart you are? Or is the concern not around how content is submitted but more around how disputes are resolved?

In the early days most people outside of wikipedia assumed that nobody would contribute to such a project without being compensated, that wikipedia is a communist pipe dream etc. The quote is meant as a play on the quote how communism works in theory but not in practise.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#188

Post by tgv »

zozbot234 wrote: post #71
mattcwilson wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check the sources cited in this particular sentence: Scholarly analysis of the conspiracy theory has concluded that it has no basis in fact and is not based on any actual intellectual tendency.[5][7]

I'm not sure what your point is. That sentence is entirely correct with reference to the conspiracy theory - there's no actual conspiracy or "intellectual tendency" to conspire along the posited lines. Marxist cultural analysis is a rather different animal; to be sure, there are genuinely weird interactions between it and e.g. radical Maoist politics/worldviews which push some proponents of either towards an ideologi…

I think the point is that these articles don't prove anything of the kind. The first one "examines the ways in which Cultural Marxism has moved from the ‘fringe’ to the ‘mainstream’", paying "particular attention to the localised use of the conspiracy in the ‘Safe Schools’ controversy of 2016–2017, whereby Cultural Marxist tropes were imbued with local concerns about sexuality and gender issues". The second one "argues that “Cultural Marxism” is an antisemitic conspiracy theory", focusing "on three of the main proponents", and shows that it "misrepresents the Frankfurt School’s ideas and influence", the latter not being obvious from a quick reading.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#189

Post by bawolff »

nsajko wrote: post #144
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 f…

Its snarky and unrelated to the point the original comment was making.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#190

Post by Kim_Bruning »

fireattack wrote: post #172
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are you saying that the world has stood still, and that western thought in general and America in particular have not had any sort of positive influence on the world since 1776? ;-)

I honestly don't understand what your satire is trying to say, and would agree with zozbot234's pretty straight forward reply: the US is probably lean right among Western countries, but compared to all the countries in the world, it's not. Most of Asian and African countries lean much more "right" compared to the US, as a starter.

I think I'd better explain the "1776" comment a bit better:

America was not the only country to have a great revolution. Starting almost a century earlier, and (in part following america's example) up to this day, many countries have seen revolutions or reforms. The world has continued to evolve and grow.

Americans are often taught of American exceptionalism, that an enlightened America is (was) alone in the dark.

Perhaps (nearly) so in 1776; But the fact today is that America is no longer the only nation with a liberal world view, social progressiveness and openness to diverse views. Now many other nations stand beside it or even ahead of it. This is not a bad problem to have of course (or even a problem at all! )

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