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DNS over Wikipedia

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Re: DNS over Wikipedia

#152
post #32

Wikipedia editors have noticed that people use wikipedia for this purpose (finding the current location of sites) and so they have started to censor links for sites they don't want to encourage people to access. Right now this mostly impacts sites few would condone, like 8chan or kiwifarms. But in theory the policy applies to any site with illegal material so places like the pirate bay or scihub could have their link…

I wonder if Wikipedia could take an approach similar to what package managers do in Linux distros when they decide not to include non-free packages by default: savvy users must add external repositories containing the banned entities (with such a repository possibly being unofficial and externally hosted).

Perhaps this could be realized by letting logged in users fill out a field for sources of third-party domain records, each of which could be a source of domains across the entire Wikipedia site. Or, more simply, just flag certain domains as such, and silently require users enable something like HN's "showdead" bit.

Otherwise, if you look at the size of that talk page, trying to decide this once and for all brings to mind the idea that "hard cases make bad law".

Re: DNS over Wikipedia

#153
post #74
post #53

Why Wikipedia though? Wikidata should be one to get this kind of data and all Wikipedia articles has Wikidata items. On top of that Wikidata even keep records of site name, like when someone change their site name.

I suppose the thought process is, more eyeballs are on corresponding Wikipedia pages for entities than are on Wikidata entries, so it's more likely to be corrected/up-to-date.

In many type of Infobox on Wikipedia, it's Wikidata which is working from the behind and editing the data in such articles is basically being done at Wikidata.

Re: DNS over Wikipedia

#154
post #32

Wikipedia editors have noticed that people use wikipedia for this purpose (finding the current location of sites) and so they have started to censor links for sites they don't want to encourage people to access. Right now this mostly impacts sites few would condone, like 8chan or kiwifarms. But in theory the policy applies to any site with illegal material so places like the pirate bay or scihub could have their link…

I think i will just redirect scihub on wikipedia to another hub :) just for fun.

Re: DNS over Wikipedia

#155
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe an enhancement would be to have it look at the edit history and use the most recent URL that has remained on the page for at least X hours/days

One challenge with this approach can be seen by considering a scihub takedown followed immediately by a correction to a new TLD. The new(and suddenly correct) address would be changed to an incorrect old address.

pop up a warning instead to say there's been churn and let the user pick?

Re: DNS over Wikipedia

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the internet helps nazis. Telephones help nazis. I'm a consequentialist. I'll make the decision based on the overall consequences. So for instance the internet helps nazis, but it also does a lot of good for a lot more people. Now if the effect of the internet was 99% to help nazis, that would be a problem. > Side note: the wikipedia article for stormfront retains the link to the site. Removal was discussed on…

> I'm a consequentialist. That's how I lean too. I'm maybe just more leery of the long term consequences of censorship and proscribed ideas. I think they are ultimately poisonous. > If it was up to me, I would not allow that link. How would you write that policy for wikimedia, so your editors would know which articles could link to the website they describe, and which could not?

> That's how I lean too. I'm maybe just more leery of the long term consequences of censorship and proscribed ideas. I think they are ultimately poisonous.

Over the years, I figured that in practice pretty much nobody is truly willing to commit absolutely to their ideals. Everyone has a breaking point where if they have bad enough consequences, ideals will be discarded.

Musk is showing this on Twitter right now.

And I think most any sane person would do the same, because unyielding commitment can trivially be taken advantage of. Eg, if you open up your house to absolutely everyone, and hold steadfast when people start punching holes in the walls, eventually you won't have a house to offer anymore.

> How would you write that policy for wikimedia, so your editors would know which articles could link to the website they describe, and which could not?

That highly depends on my position, the leadership structure, the state of the organization, and so on. As per the above I have some moral flexibility and will compromise somewhat for the greater good.

Re: DNS over Wikipedia

#157
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so it's just matter of time, and wikipedia is no better than google

They certainly are no better than Google in that respect. Wikipedia has been censoring and promoting tilted political edits to the pages of certain figures for years now. Unbeknownst to most people, Wikipedia is central to the global censorship apparatus that's been put in place in the last decade or so.

"Global censorship apparatus"

Uh huh

Re: DNS over Wikipedia

#158
post #146

Once upon a time I built an iOS language translation/dictionary app which used Wikipedia as a back end. Basically, if you entered a word in language X and the Wikipedia version for language X had an entry, it could find the translation for that word in language Y by looking at the "this article in other languages" information in the source for that page. It was useful for finding translations or transliterations of t…

Your app was probably taken down because you apparently don’t understand what a trademark is, or what it is for. > Wikipedia's asshole lawyers didn't like that I used a serifed W in the logo It’s not the lawyers which don’t like it. Trademark exists to protect consumer confusion . If a reasonable person could reasonably (but incorrectly) believe that your app was officially associated with Wikipedia based on only loo…

Here’s my app’s logo: https://github.com/GarrettAlbright/wptrans/blob/master/Icon%...

Note that it does not use the same colors as the Wikipedia logo or the same puzzle piece/globe iconography. It uses a serifed “W” as well as characters from other writing systems, with a brown and yellow color scheme - alluding to Wikipedia as well as the app’s purpose, but intentionally avoiding copying to a degree that would cause confusion. If, after considering this, you still believe I was intentionally inviting confusion between my app and an official Wikipedia product even before all of the documentation stating that is not the case, I believe that you are either operating on very bad faith, or are one of Wikipedia’s lawyers trying to justify your invoice. “Our firm removed 20 violating apps from the App Store this month!”

Re: DNS over Wikipedia

#159
post #32

Wikipedia editors have noticed that people use wikipedia for this purpose (finding the current location of sites) and so they have started to censor links for sites they don't want to encourage people to access. Right now this mostly impacts sites few would condone, like 8chan or kiwifarms. But in theory the policy applies to any site with illegal material so places like the pirate bay or scihub could have their link…

Here's a well-reasoned argument linked from that thread for keeping extremist URL in articles about extremist websites. Strange what can change in just a couple of years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(poli...

Got a TL;DR ?

Re: DNS over Wikipedia

#160
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, Wikipedia pages seemingly get "vandalized" all the time and sometimes aren't corrected immediately. Doesn't this create a situation where a bad actor could change the Wikipedia page for a `semi-popular-brand.com` url listing to something bad? Anyone who used `semi-popular-brand.idk` in that timeframe would land in the bad page. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding.

Maybe an enhancement would be to have it look at the edit history and use the most recent URL that has remained on the page for at least X hours/days

That would take way too long.
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