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Wikipedia is 20

economist.com

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Re: Wikipedia is 20

#271

Post by cdmckay »

aerosmile wrote: post #175
creato wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is somehow sad that "caring about content quality" is considered SEO and not just making a good website. I think more than half the things you mentioned are only good SEO because search engines want to send people to websites they will like reading. I think when that is the case, we should be crediting people for making good websites, not good SEO.

SEO changed dramatically over the last 20 years. Thankfully, we are today exactly at a point that you described (it all started with Panda in 2011). As you'll see below, getting there was not just a technological challenge, but also one of fixing misaligned incentives. Prior to 2011, Google enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with content farms which splattered their pages with AdSense ads (and Google ranked t…

For anyone wondering what Panda is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Panda

“Google Panda is a major change to Google's search results ranking algorithm that was first released in February 2011. The change aimed to lower the rank of "low-quality sites" or "thin sites", in particular "content farms", and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results.”

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#272

Post by xiphias2 »

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’m not sure how it’s done now, but Wikipedia had special promotion on Google ranking (which would have probably set lower manually if it would run ads, while people would stop comtributing content).

That guy who wants to run ads on it sounds like a really evil person: he doesn’t get it that Wikipedia changed the world already, it doesn’t need to do ,,more good’’.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#273

Post by jessriedel »

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?

> Isn’t it just tapping into the need to tell people things you know and feel good about how smart you are?

As I said: this putative explanation predicts we would have all sorts of great free things that we don't have, e.g., free reliable news, free trustworthy product reviews, good documentation for python libraries, etc., etc. Yes, it's possible to tell a bunch of just-so stories, but the number of free parameters you need always exceeds the amount of data explained.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#274

Post by jessriedel »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #113
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.

http://wiki.c2.com/?WikiHistory Start here. * There's a variant on design patterns which you can call Community Patterns. * Some patterns are software design patterns * Some patterns describe Agile software development. * Some patterns describe how to run a wiki (and why) * Wikipedia originally adopted these patterns and extended them for its own policy. See also: http://wiki.c2.com/?WhyWikiWorks If you want a long t…

I've read a fair amount about the history of wikipedia. Giving me a dump of facts does not amount to an explanation, and I don't find the theories you give to actually be explanatory.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#275

Post by ghaff »

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?

Really just generally how Wikipedia works relatively well.

And you're right. It's never been entirely clear why Wikipedia succeeded vs. others although there are various theories.[1] Certainly there have been failures: Goggle Knol and, at this point I think it's fair to say, Quora.

[1] https://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/the-contribution-conundrum...

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#276

Post by jjice »

olivermarks wrote: post #4

2017 - 'Researchers found that 77 percent of Wikipedia articles are written by 1 percent of Wikipedia editors, and they think this is probably for the best.' https://www.vice.com/en/article/7x47bb/wikipedia-editors-eli...

That's a damn strong Pareto distribution. Makes sense though. Those are an interesting and passionate few.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#277

Post by iamacyborg »

xiphias2 wrote: post #272
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’m not sure how it’s done now, but Wikipedia had special promotion on Google ranking (which would have probably set lower manually if it would run ads, while people would stop comtributing content). That guy who wants to run ads on it sounds like a really evil person: he doesn’t get it that Wikipedia changed the world already, it doesn’t need to do ,,more good’’.

He's not evil, he just can't see past making money.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#278

Post by iamacyborg »

DanBC wrote: post #233
aikinai wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

If you want to understand suicide in the UK you need to know, at a minimum, about ONS, NCISH, Fingertips, and then coroners for England and Wales and whatever the equivalent is for Scotland and Northern Ireland. Here's a list of links: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde... https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/ncish/ https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile-group/mental-health/pr... https://www.judici…

I hate to be that guy, but if the content on Wikipedia is wrong, why not fix it? Unlike other profit-driven community sites (cough, Fandom, cough) you'll actually be helping other people.

Re: Wikipedia is 20

#280

Post by M2Ys4U »

iamacyborg wrote: post #277
xiphias2 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure how it’s done now, but Wikipedia had special promotion on Google ranking (which would have probably set lower manually if it would run ads, while people would stop comtributing content). That guy who wants to run ads on it sounds like a really evil person: he doesn’t get it that Wikipedia changed the world already, it doesn’t need to do ,,more good’’.

He's not evil, he just can't see past making money.

Well, the love of money is the root of all of evil...
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