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How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet

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Re: How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet

#31

Post by derelicta »

bad_alloc wrote: post #2

People complain a lot about the internet getting worse and worse. We can fix it, if we put in the effort to rebuild it. * Join fediverse services, e.g. [Lemmy](feddit.de) or Mastodon and post a bit. * Create your own website if you have sth like a cool hobby to share. Webhosting is available for free or cheap, depending on what you want. Link other pages you like to form a net. * If you can, host your own instances a…

What id like to see is a federated MySpace-like service. Users could host their blog on an instance of their choice, toy around its styling or its content directly as to learn about web techs (or keep it simple and remain with the default stylesheet!), and yet remain discoverable thanks to the federated nature of such service. If I had the time its honestly something id love working on.

Re: How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet

#32

Post by thih9 »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #6
bad_alloc wrote: post #2

People complain a lot about the internet getting worse and worse. We can fix it, if we put in the effort to rebuild it. * Join fediverse services, e.g. [Lemmy](feddit.de) or Mastodon and post a bit. * Create your own website if you have sth like a cool hobby to share. Webhosting is available for free or cheap, depending on what you want. Link other pages you like to form a net. * If you can, host your own instances a…

I’ve been to fediverse. Many mastodongs are just the same entitled first world outrage vents as twitters, even more toxic at times because there are no moderators to shut them up.

Anecdotally, I'm happy with my mastodon instance and its level of moderation.

> Many mastodongs are just the same entitled first world outrage vents

Calling others "mastodongs" is not exactly the opposite of an entitled first world outrage vent. Have you tried to solve the problem yourself, e.g. finding an instance that suits you better?

Re: How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet

#33

Post by marginalia_nu »

tusqasi wrote: post #7
bad_alloc wrote: post #2

People complain a lot about the internet getting worse and worse. We can fix it, if we put in the effort to rebuild it. * Join fediverse services, e.g. [Lemmy](feddit.de) or Mastodon and post a bit. * Create your own website if you have sth like a cool hobby to share. Webhosting is available for free or cheap, depending on what you want. Link other pages you like to form a net. * If you can, host your own instances a…

I think that is not how we can rebuild the internet. The majority don't even know what is wrong with the internet in the place, not everyone reads hnews(That is nichest of the communities), and most users aren't even using twitter for alternatives to have an impact. (I have zero idea about the actual numbers)

Does the majority need to be part of it? Since day one the web was always built by the oddball minorities. It's easy to forget how weird it was considered to spend any amount of time online in the pre-smartphone era.

Re: How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet

#34

Post by Angostura »

Namari wrote: post #8

It would be good if Wikipedia could stay neutral and not biased. It's not as good as it was.

This is a common complaint against many publications or resources that attempt unbiased coverage - they are are attacked by people on all sides as being biased against their side.

Re: How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet

#35

Post by xacky »

Wikipedia has become the worst place on the internet for me, it's so addictive that I've been on it for decades despite being banned from editing because I vandalized it years ago. If you look at the list of "long term abuse" on Wikipedia you see a lot of addicted people taking out their frustration on Wikipedia. There is not much true difference between an admin and a vandal, in fact a lot of admins became vandals themselves, including one this month. The deletionists are the worst of all, the digital version of book burners.

Re: How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet

#36

Post by jwestbury »

bko wrote: post #15

> Over time, Wikipedians who supported fringe content departed or were ousted. Thus, population loss led to highly consequential institutional change. Is this a good thing? It seems like homogenous hive mind effects. Works in some instances but we should aim a little higher A big problem is homogeniety in media. For instance, everyone from every major newspaper more or less went to the same schools, has a similar wor…

Well, yes, when it comes to knowledge I'd say that it is a good thing to remove those supporting fringe content. Consensus amongst those who generally care about a topic is probably better for ensuring largely correct data than the alternative of a large number of voices, each with a questionable level of actual subject matter expertise.

Re: How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet

#37

Post by _uhtu »

hliyan wrote: post #21

To me, the main difference between almost every other place on the Internet (save for personal websites) and Wikipedia is the lack of advertising, or attempting to generate revenue through engagement. That is the reason why Wikipedia still remains tolerable.

I'd be willing to say this is causation. Wikipedia is one of the few places on the Internet where there isn't an a absolutely desperate end goal to keep people staring at it all day and all night to make 0.006 cents on ad revenue. So the content can actually be useful instead of drowned out in SEO and ads.

Re: How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet

#38

Post by kalleboo »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #6
bad_alloc wrote: post #2

People complain a lot about the internet getting worse and worse. We can fix it, if we put in the effort to rebuild it. * Join fediverse services, e.g. [Lemmy](feddit.de) or Mastodon and post a bit. * Create your own website if you have sth like a cool hobby to share. Webhosting is available for free or cheap, depending on what you want. Link other pages you like to form a net. * If you can, host your own instances a…

I’ve been to fediverse. Many mastodongs are just the same entitled first world outrage vents as twitters, even more toxic at times because there are no moderators to shut them up.

At least on federated services there are no algorithms pushing them in your face. Create your own instance, invite like-minded people. You can't do that on centralized services.

The first time I heard about Mastodon was from conservative libertarian-type folk who disagreed with Twitter policy, several years ago. I disagree strongly with their politics but at least they decided to create something instead of just use it as victim politics like the mainstream politicians.

Re: How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet

#39

Post by eloisant »

bad_alloc wrote: post #2

People complain a lot about the internet getting worse and worse. We can fix it, if we put in the effort to rebuild it. * Join fediverse services, e.g. [Lemmy](feddit.de) or Mastodon and post a bit. * Create your own website if you have sth like a cool hobby to share. Webhosting is available for free or cheap, depending on what you want. Link other pages you like to form a net. * If you can, host your own instances a…

The problem is that too many people don't go to website other than their usual social media sites.
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