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Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

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Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#181

Post by andrepd »

Macha wrote: post #156
throwaways885 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political content is a landmine, articles are often locked because vandals are often indistinguishable from those with better information but still controversial.

One example: Britishfinance/"Ireland as a tax haven"[1] Summary: A user, Britishfinance (believed to be Paddy Cosgrave, disgruntled founder of the web summit, a major EU tech event that moved from Ireland to Lisbon as the Irish government wouldn't give him what he wanted) spent about a year primarily editing articles related to Ireland to make a link of claims about the country being a tax haven the most prominent fe…

All very well and true, but isn't this also a problem in closed encylopedias?? Surely even a paid editor has her biases, and at the very least would have to make a judgement call on whether or not to include that information in the opening paragraph and so on. Wikipedia actually has the advantage here as the discussion is completely open and you can see the all arguments and the process that led to a decision.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#182

Post by andrepd »

dessant wrote: post #167
nickpp wrote: post #80

Wikipedia may have been an amazing idea in the beginning. Then it got taken over by a bunch of entrenched editors more interested in their own power than the accuracy of the pages' information. Today I can see mistakes and inaccurate info in every niche I am familiar with. Because of that, I cannot trust it on subjects I know nothing about. I tried contributing and fixing but nothing got through. Even worse, the leve…

I was quite happy to see one of my projects mentioned on Wikipedia for the first time, in the reCAPTCHA article. I've discovered it from the list of referring sites shown by GitHub Insights, and then the mention disappeared. Looking at the edit history of the article, someone added it a year ago, and then 204.132.216.84 has decided recently that a genuinely informative section must be removed from the article, becaus…

Then add it back? Or at least engage in discussion in the Talk page and find a compromise, like rewording.

Btw, I'm a user of your extension ;)

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#183

Post by Veen »

seanhunter wrote: post #180
nickpp wrote: post #80

Wikipedia may have been an amazing idea in the beginning. Then it got taken over by a bunch of entrenched editors more interested in their own power than the accuracy of the pages' information. Today I can see mistakes and inaccurate info in every niche I am familiar with. Because of that, I cannot trust it on subjects I know nothing about. I tried contributing and fixing but nothing got through. Even worse, the leve…

> I would gladly pay for an encyclopedia written by actual experts, I see a tremendous value in something like that, but alas the market was killed by the free Wikipedia. There are definitely pros and cons. My wife is a professional musician and teacher so at home we have a copy of the "New Grove" encyclopedia of music, which is the industry standard "proper encyclopedia" for music. Each article is written by a speci…

That's true, but including the very latest research isn't really what encyclopedias are for—there are other places for that.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#184

Post by mikro2nd »

exolymph wrote: post #111
cwyers wrote: post #25

> For now, I want to share with you why I’m moving on, and what comes next. I read this twice just to make sure I didn't miss something, and I don't actually see a reason why.

Probably the actual reason is conflict with the board, or being fed up / burned out with running the operation.

Or perhaps "just" the wisdom to understand that organisations need a change in leadership from time to time, and that such change is best made (as stated) at a time when the organisation is strong and the pressures low. Every leader eventually runs out of steam.

My own opinion is that leaders ought to pre-announce their resignation date on the day they take the job in the first place, and that date should be not more than 5 years after they start. Five years on and you're running on empty. Time to move on.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#185

Post by throwaway2245 »

hinkley wrote: post #102
throwaway2245 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Wikipedia becomes unfashionable to the extent it is highly dependent on its savings, it will no be longer valued for being Wikipedia (by definition). It might be valued as an institution with modest economic power, which doesn't seem to me to add anything to the world that isn't already there. 2 years of all current spending as a cushion seems like plenty to me (for Wikipedia, which has not faced any unexpected fi…

Only if you believe that market economies are always efficient. Plenty of things have a huge impact on your life and yet nobody wants to pay for them. They're important, but they're not important. If you have an endowment, you don't have to keep wrestling with keeping the two in sync.

I think our perspectives are different because I'm thinking about what the board of Wikimedia might look like later: when it controls a bunch of money but is essentially dying as a service.

I imagine a political mess, of people trying to extract personal benefit from the remaining endowment.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#186

Post by pixl97 »

nickpp wrote: post #126
sph wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wikipedia may have been an amazing idea in the beginning. > I would gladly pay for an encyclopedia written by actual experts. While you're entitled to your opinion, this is a case of "the grass is always greener on the other side". I'm not a fan of the Wikipedia internal politics, but as a user, Wikipedia is one of the best showcases of the Internet and in my opinion the greatest collaboration project in human hist…

Honestly I feel where you’re coming from, I used to think exactly like you. But I slowly came to my current sad realization. Right now I do believe that free wrong info is actually more damaging than paid correct info. But I am open to and wish for a third option or a solution which is more inclusive and less "for the privileged".

There is plenty of paid correct info out there. You just need to look in the field of data that you're interested in.

I'm pretty sure the days of a general data encyclopedia are past us. The amount of data to gather to make it useful is going to insanely expensive, and will in general be available from many sources for free, thereby decreasing its value.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#187

Post by rossdavidh »

I can easily imagine ways that wikipedia could be better, but the reality is that compared to any other online resource, it is the best. I wish it were less political sometimes, but when I look at any other online resource, they are way more polarized. Periodically I read something (usually in HN) about wikipedia controversy, and I admit to some trepidation about their ability to stay objective as they have become so widely consulted (i.e. powerful), but if compared to any other real-world existing resource, given the current state of the internet, actually they are often by far the best.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#188

Post by bzbarsky »

iNic wrote: post #158
nickpp wrote: post #80

Wikipedia may have been an amazing idea in the beginning. Then it got taken over by a bunch of entrenched editors more interested in their own power than the accuracy of the pages' information. Today I can see mistakes and inaccurate info in every niche I am familiar with. Because of that, I cannot trust it on subjects I know nothing about. I tried contributing and fixing but nothing got through. Even worse, the leve…

Of course Wikipedia has some unique problems due to its fundamental structure, but on the whole it is roughly as accurate as other Encyclopedias [1]. But not every study agrees [2]. See also [3]. It seems to be also be field dependent, and I have to say that personally, as a mathematician, I have never seen anything wrong in any article about mathematics. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/438900a [2] https://www.re…

I don't know that I've ever seen anything strictly _wrong_ in an article about mathematics, but I've certainly seen articles giving equations without defining what any of the variables are and using using very field-specific notation without defining or referencing it, making them impossible to read unless you know enough about the topic to reverse-engineer what they're talking about.

And I'm not talking something like using a Dirac delta without referencing it; I'm talking about pretty esoteric notation that is really only relevant to the topic of the article.

And of course plenty of the math articles are just not very coherently written (and yes, plenty are quite good).

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#189

Post by dessant »

andrepd wrote: post #182
dessant wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was quite happy to see one of my projects mentioned on Wikipedia for the first time, in the reCAPTCHA article. I've discovered it from the list of referring sites shown by GitHub Insights, and then the mention disappeared. Looking at the edit history of the article, someone added it a year ago, and then 204.132.216.84 has decided recently that a genuinely informative section must be removed from the article, becaus…

Then add it back? Or at least engage in discussion in the Talk page and find a compromise, like rewording. Btw, I'm a user of your extension ;)

Hi, I'm glad you found it useful! I don't feel that strongly about the issue to make a case for it, it was just a bit sad to see an article become less informative because of an editor's paranoia, and me being denied immortality :P.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#190

Post by wpietri »

andrepd wrote: post #178
nickpp wrote: post #80

Wikipedia may have been an amazing idea in the beginning. Then it got taken over by a bunch of entrenched editors more interested in their own power than the accuracy of the pages' information. Today I can see mistakes and inaccurate info in every niche I am familiar with. Because of that, I cannot trust it on subjects I know nothing about. I tried contributing and fixing but nothing got through. Even worse, the leve…

Every time the post title contains "wikipedia" out come the same complaints. I say what I always say: can you please point out a specific incident where you saw wrong information, tried to correct it, and were overturned?

It's an important question. Sometimes I see rejection of actual good material,so it happens. Often it's well-meaning noobs running afoul of either the essential complexity (encyclopedias are hard) or the incidental complexity (Wikipedia's a bit of a beast). And sometimes it's people who are sure that THEY ARE RIGHT and HOW DARE THOSE PEOPLE. So we always need to look at specific incidents.
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