Wikipedia is very good.
Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?
211–220 of 301 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The fact that many believe that male circumcision is a grave violation of boys' rights to body autonomy is not. For reference, how many people believe that? Like, is it a view held by 50% of the population, 10% of the population, or is it more of a niche view, or..? Because when we get down to stuff that --- Tried looking it up; appears to be a niche perspective. A significant minority of the population doesn't fav…
> Dutch doctors want politicians and human rights groups to speak out and discourage the practice of male circumcision in the Netherlands because they say it is a “painful and harmful ritual,” and a violation of children’s rights. > Between 10,000 and 15,000 boys are circumcised in the Netherlands each year, mostly for religious reasons and not always with an anesthetic, according to the Royal Dutch Medical Associati…
I appreciate that you're able to show that some people hold such beliefs, but the numbers I'm finding suggest that it's still less common than beliefs in, say, 9/11-conspiracy theories.
Don't get me wrong -- I appreciate that you can show that there're advocacy groups in that arena. But there're groups who advocate 9/11 conspiracy-theories, aliens, anti-vaccination, flat-Earth, mysticism, etc., so the mere existence of advocacy groups doesn't seem like a distinction from such things.
Instead, is there some sort of poll/survey -- non-American, if you prefer -- that demonstrates that a significant portion of some population holds such strong views against circumcision?
To note it: If you want to get Wikipedia to change its presentation, presenting such evidence might help out. Because, it really does seem like you're advocating a niche belief; but, if you can demonstrate that it's held by a significant portion of people on Earth, then that might change stuff.
Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?
#213Without specific examples this is pretty meaningless. Every now and then there are groups that try to gain control of an article or group of articles on Wikipedia (especially around big current events) and then they start looking for ways to game the system all the while bitching about how Wikipedia is 'broken'. The way I see it: Wikipedia is imperfect, but not broken, and it has developed a pretty impressive array o…
> Without specific examples this is pretty meaningless. I'd go one step further: specific examples are still meaningless. On a site with editors from every country and region on the world and millions of articles (not each one equally popular and viewed/vetted by other editors), of course you'll find examples for any point of view. I'm also afraid it might then become a conversation about those specific examples. Pro…
I think you overestimate who actually write and edits articles on Wikipedia. Its a very very very small group of people who does 80% and then an other small group who does 19% and then you have the millions of random people with internet who have contributed something.
Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Your friends and family probably wouldn't participate in a debate about how to build an encyclopaedia that is representative of the world, not just the world according to a bunch of mostly middle class white nerds. If they did have an interest in such a debate, I am sure they would be capable of processing that statement. There's nothing intellectually controversial about Wikipedia's statement, to argue against it on…
If the content of the encyclopedia is meant to be a representation of objective facts, then why on earth could it matter what the race of the people writing it is?
This sounds like straight up Nazi propaganda. The idea that races are so different that we literally inhabit separate realities is insane levels of bigotry.
Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?
#215I'm not sure if I share the same assessment. I am amazed at how robust your typical Wikipedia page is despite the chaos that goes into writing it. Given that it's not possible to make a version of reality that everyone is happy with, I think Wikipedia comes pretty dang close.
As an example, I want to point people to the page I have been spending a lot of time on as of late: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai... Is the information on this page perfect? Obviously not. But this single page probably represents the best up-to-date summary of information you will find on the internet. And I can only imagine the thankless work volunteer editors put into making it cohere…
I didn't read it all but wasn't hard to find "mistakes" in that wiki article
For example: "Several countries which are historically neutral, such as Switzerland and Singapore have agreed to sanctions."
Clearly a misrepresentation of Swiss neutrality. The news outlets all over the world posted this and various similar claims over the last week and wiki picks it up. Some news articles even straight out tell you that Switzerland ditched its neutrality and "picked a side" in this war. It could not be more wrong. But Wikipedia doesn't care about right or wrong it just repeats what a subset of sources say even if its like in this case obviously propaganda.
Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an example, I want to point people to the page I have been spending a lot of time on as of late: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai... Is the information on this page perfect? Obviously not. But this single page probably represents the best up-to-date summary of information you will find on the internet. And I can only imagine the thankless work volunteer editors put into making it cohere…
I didn't read it all but wasn't hard to find "mistakes" in that wiki article For example: "Several countries which are historically neutral, such as Switzerland and Singapore have agreed to sanctions." Clearly a misrepresentation of Swiss neutrality. The news outlets all over the world posted this and various similar claims over the last week and wiki picks it up. Some news articles even straight out tell you that Sw…
Can you elaborate with sources for someone who have only read the main stream media about this?
Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your friends and family probably wouldn't participate in a debate about how to build an encyclopaedia that is representative of the world, not just the world according to a bunch of mostly middle class white nerds. If they did have an interest in such a debate, I am sure they would be capable of processing that statement. There's nothing intellectually controversial about Wikipedia's statement, to argue against it on…
If the content of the encyclopedia is meant to be a representation of objective facts, then why on earth could it matter what the race of the people writing it is? This sounds like straight up Nazi propaganda. The idea that races are so different that we literally inhabit separate realities is insane levels of bigotry.
The hyperbole isn’t helpful. As has been highlighted time and time again, Wikipedia is the work of a relatively small amount of people and there is a great deal of bias because humans suffer from bias — regardless of their intentions.
“History is written by the victors” is a famous phrase a reason — facts are a representation of the information we are most confident in, not truth.
Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?
#218You can't. Anything that is editorialized will skew to an extreme over time. In the past, wikipedia was bad because its quality of information was generally terrible. "Alan Turing proved in 1936 that a general algorithm to solve the halting problem for all possible program-input pairs cannot exist." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem Alan Turing did no such thing, but that's wikipedia for you. On topics yo…
The pages on Verlet integration are also quite poor. If you follow the sources, they sometimes directly contradict the article text.
Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an example, I want to point people to the page I have been spending a lot of time on as of late: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai... Is the information on this page perfect? Obviously not. But this single page probably represents the best up-to-date summary of information you will find on the internet. And I can only imagine the thankless work volunteer editors put into making it cohere…
I didn't read it all but wasn't hard to find "mistakes" in that wiki article For example: "Several countries which are historically neutral, such as Switzerland and Singapore have agreed to sanctions." Clearly a misrepresentation of Swiss neutrality. The news outlets all over the world posted this and various similar claims over the last week and wiki picks it up. Some news articles even straight out tell you that Sw…
I don't really think it's Wikipedia's job to litigate the truthfulness of such claims -- it's about consensus, not about "truth." Assigning Wikipedia the job of deciding what is true and what is not beyond just summarizing mainstream consensus and Wikipedia ends up having to take many more political stances and the project could quickly break down.
Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?
#220Bias I've seen in politically charged articles:
- Only allowing "reliable sources", and defining that based on criteria which essentially excludes any right wing publication, even when the unreliable source has irrefutable evidence of the claim (video, etc). Similarly, citing claims from 'reliable' sources that are misleading, or slightly incorrect (you don't need to look at many news articles to find an example of this)
- Using social academic sources, like gender studies, to cite things that are literally just opinions. Social sciences have a lot of these publications putting forth claims, that are basically citing each other in a circle, with the root claim being someone's opinion (usually grievance studies).
- Citing lack of 'relevance' to stifle any claim that doesn't fall under the above two. Who decides what's relevant? Well that's the trick; there's no objective criteria, so the power mods decide it.