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Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

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Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#171

Post by zamalek »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #34

I think Wikipedia is mostly good contentwise. Of course there are two extremes where there are problems: disputed topics (especially contemporary political topics) and niche topics receiving little to no attention. I think for both an improvment can be made by improving the view on the editing history. Showing what kind of editors (new accounts or ong term members? Editing only few articles or across the board? etc.)…

> I think Wikipedia is mostly good contentwise.

Wikipedia politics is insane[1], and this power hunger can lead to objectively incorrect information being defended and sustained.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_cabals

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#172

Post by PCGamer_Empath »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #30

Get the Wikimedia Foundation to spend money on the technical foundation of the sites, rather than spraying millions up the wall of "racial justice". That's not me making a strawman by going straight to "omg, the SJWs", it's a exact phrase from the 3rd paragraph of the 4.5 million Knowledge Equity Fund page [1]. That, and executive pay, is where donations go, not to keeping the lights on. The running cost to keeping t…

Since you're familiar enough with the activities of the knowledge equity fund to be confident that it's a waste, can you fill in more detail about which grants that it has issued that ended up being wasteful? I understand that you're not "going straight to OMG, the SJWs", so surely you have some knowledge of how these millions of dollars were allocated and at least some vague understanding of their particular failures.

Unless of course you read "racial equity" and assumed that there could not possibly be a valuable distribution of funds based on that idea. Assuming that's not the case, could you give an example of a grant writing fund that ostensibly supports the idea and has created value?

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#173

Post by sdoering »

ALittleLight wrote: post #167
sdoering wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I could do this. But I could also just accept the fact that Wikipedia isn't even willing to delete contested information when offered proof. I don't need the facts to be in the entry. I don't care. I only care about the fake facts in there and ask myself how much of the rest of Wikipedia is also riddled with falsehoods and nobody would want to remove that if shown actual state documents that show what is wrong.…

There are problems with the approach of requiring third party reputable sources, for example the problems you are running into. There are associated costs, some published information will be wrong. There are also problems with the alternatives - e.g. primary sources providing motivated misinformation or volunteer editors being fooled by bad sources. It's easy to find problems with wikipedia's current model, but harde…

Evaluating the quality of a source was one of the most difficult and also most important skills we were taught in university.

Do I still get it wrong. Oh dear, yes. Did I learn how important it was? Oh yes.

I especially learned to qualify what I wrote and to mark when a source could not perfectly be trusted, but the argument/point of view was interesting to discuss nonetheless.

Why can't Wikipedia at least either remove false information once provided credible sources. Or at least somehow mark the relevant section/parts with a disclaimer so that readers are at least aware that something might be suspicious.

Could it be gamed? Weaponized? Probably. Would it be helpful to readers? Maybe.

But how is the current situation better?

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#174

Post by aliswe »

PCGamer_Empath wrote: post #172
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #30

Get the Wikimedia Foundation to spend money on the technical foundation of the sites, rather than spraying millions up the wall of "racial justice". That's not me making a strawman by going straight to "omg, the SJWs", it's a exact phrase from the 3rd paragraph of the 4.5 million Knowledge Equity Fund page [1]. That, and executive pay, is where donations go, not to keeping the lights on. The running cost to keeping t…

Since you're familiar enough with the activities of the knowledge equity fund to be confident that it's a waste, can you fill in more detail about which grants that it has issued that ended up being wasteful? I understand that you're not "going straight to OMG, the SJWs", so surely you have some knowledge of how these millions of dollars were allocated and at least some vague understanding of their particular failure…

there should be a pie chart specifying where the Wikipedia budget is going

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#175

Post by shrimp_emoji »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #66
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #30

Get the Wikimedia Foundation to spend money on the technical foundation of the sites, rather than spraying millions up the wall of "racial justice". That's not me making a strawman by going straight to "omg, the SJWs", it's a exact phrase from the 3rd paragraph of the 4.5 million Knowledge Equity Fund page [1]. That, and executive pay, is where donations go, not to keeping the lights on. The running cost to keeping t…

This could almost be taken word for word from an article about Mozilla. People who think 'social justice' is a bad thing seem to set really high standards for the open, independant organisations they say they support, and they're not afraid to give them some extreme tough love and undermine them at every step if they don't follow their priorities.

Spoken like a true Culture citizen.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#176

Post by paulcole »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #90
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could almost be taken word for word from an article about Mozilla. People who think 'social justice' is a bad thing seem to set really high standards for the open, independant organisations they say they support, and they're not afraid to give them some extreme tough love and undermine them at every step if they don't follow their priorities.

Social justice isn't a bad thing. Social justice instead of actually fulfilling your primary goal is. If all the bugs are closed, the product is beautiful and there's still money sloshing about, then fill your boots. Also, make sure that your donors know their donation is going to go to racial education of Arab journalists (grantee #1), and not to paying developers and server bills. The begging banners on Wikimedia s…

Instead of treating it as a nice-to-have when everything else is perfect, maybe consider that pursuing social justice will help you fulfill your primary goal?

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#177

Post by [deleted] »

adhesive_wombat wrote: post #30

Get the Wikimedia Foundation to spend money on the technical foundation of the sites, rather than spraying millions up the wall of "racial justice". That's not me making a strawman by going straight to "omg, the SJWs", it's a exact phrase from the 3rd paragraph of the 4.5 million Knowledge Equity Fund page [1]. That, and executive pay, is where donations go, not to keeping the lights on. The running cost to keeping t…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#178

Post by smt88 »

itsoktocry wrote: post #117
smt88 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally haven't seen a biased Wikipedia article in a very long time. It is absolutely astounding to me and seems like one of the great successes of internet culture. I assume OP has a particular set of issues that they are not in agreement with the majority of experts on.

> I personally haven't seen a biased Wikipedia article in a very long time. What leads you to believe you can so easily spot a biased article? Everyone believes they're a neutral arbiter.

"Biased" to me doesn't mean "I disagree".

It means:

- presented as a fact, rather than as the opinion of a scholar/researcher/etc. (meaning Wikipedia says it is true without citing anyone else)

- ignoring a significant controversy or dissent

- describing uncertain information as certain

- perpetuating the myth that science is settled and can't be updated with new information

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#179

Post by Mezzie »

thepasswordis wrote: post #116
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #30

Get the Wikimedia Foundation to spend money on the technical foundation of the sites, rather than spraying millions up the wall of "racial justice". That's not me making a strawman by going straight to "omg, the SJWs", it's a exact phrase from the 3rd paragraph of the 4.5 million Knowledge Equity Fund page [1]. That, and executive pay, is where donations go, not to keeping the lights on. The running cost to keeping t…

From the first link: >The Wikimedia Foundation defines racial equity as shifting away from Eurocentricity, White-male-imperialist-patriarchal supremacy, superiority, power and privilege to create an environment that is inclusive and reflects the experiences of communities of color worldwide. What an interesting signaling statement. If you did not know what "racial equity" was, imagine trying to parse out what it is f…

I just always find it funny that 'Eurocentricity' is one of the problems, given the whole movement is AMERICA-CENTRIC as hell. We've even co-opted what being 'Eurocentric' means! Talk about arrogance!

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#180

Post by jl2718 »

Humor (sort of): https://medium.com/@johnlakness/case-study-decentralizing-th...

My idea for this specifically is to make a pijul repository for Wikipedia, and then a staking/delegation/voting mechanism for acceptance of each vertex in the hash tree. At each level of the tree, a user would be presented with versioning options based on maximum aggregation of unique voters, like in hierarchical clustering, which will roughly define the ‘tribes’ of viewpoints. It would also be possible to render from a specific hash. I would hope to build a user interface with maximum flexibility to explore across ‘versions’ and encourage voting and merges across clusters.

I’ve also considered using randomization, as in, selecting a hash to render with probability equal to the vote within the user’s cluster. This would be to prevent too much separation among the clusters.

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