How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by Gulstar » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 2:02 PM UTC

hliyan wrote: post #43

CuriouslyC wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SEO, content farms and click mills are the things ruining the internet. All of this is the result of advertising as a business model. For any content, the perverse incentive is to copy it repeatedly with slight variations then monetize the copies with ads and SEO your monetized version to the top of the search results. What we need is a social-first internet where every piece of content is associated with an actual h…

Also, a pay-per-use Internet (where appropriate), where people will vote for content with their wallets, instead of having to purchase subscriptions whether they read an article or not. Just a few minutes ago, I wanted to read an NYT article but it asked me to buy a $1/mo subscription. Very cheap, but a) I don't read NYT that regularly and b) doing that with every news outlet I occasionally read, adds up. On the othe…

There is this Dutch company called Blendle that started out with this idea, the NY times even invested in it. But unfortunately it was not a viable model, so they switched to a all you can consume type of subscription like every other platform

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

#82

Post by aakjsdfajsdfh » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 2:02 PM UTC

2mol wrote: post #29

aakjsdfajsdfh wrote: post #12

[flagged]

Maybe as a slight input to why your comment would get downvoted: You're expressing a few semi-related frustrations, but it reads pretty incoherent, since you seem to assume folks already know the concepts you're talking about and agree with that worldview. As such you're not really making sense, and human to human suggest the following: Try to get a different perspective and mingle more with offline people. The whole…

thanks. there's plenty pro-constructivism in my humanist-marxist circles. They are either openly hypocrites or too young still (like utilitarianism, it is a good thing if possible after all)

But yeah, if you don't still agree it is fringe, and still think so after reading the only link on my comment, then you might as well downvote me. But that is one i'd take gladly.

it is just an intro though. my point is that they are posting several academic articles on that one wikipedia which hunt "succcess" story. and somehow i've seen all of them on the front page here.

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

#83

Post by senortumnus » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 2:02 PM UTC

wildrhythms wrote: post #71

js8 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think socialism is the mechanism - one person one vote with the stake of ownership. I am pretty liberal but it I believe it needs socialism (democracy in economic sphere) to avoid capture by corporations. (And vice versa, socialism needs liberalism to prevent capture by government. They can't survive without each other, being constantly threatened by authoritarianism.)

Socialism has nothing to do with 'government capture'; it only concerns itself with worker ownership over the means of production.

And government protections / mandates toward that end or masquerading as being toward that end

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

#84

Post by lo_zamoyski » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 2:02 PM UTC

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…

A path to some desired state requires an incentive and a reduction of friction (like cost). Absent those things, you will get nowhere.

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

#85

Post by tusqasi » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 2:02 PM UTC

marginalia_nu wrote: post #33

tusqasi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Think of the numbers of tik-tok, youtube, facebook, instagram, snapchat, and all those Social media users. All these users are "normal" people nowadays. Maybe the effects habits of the minorities on the trajectories of "The Internet" are diminished.

(Just thoughts. Not based on anything other my opinions)

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

#86

Post by unpopularopp » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 2:03 PM UTC

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…

>or Mastodon and post a bit.

Yet when I open the explore page on Mastodon I still see the same shit: politics. https://mastodon.social/explore

It's almost as if the whole point of Mastodon wasn't anything more than just to be another echo chamber. But hey no bad guys from "the other side" so guess we good.

HN is still the best. We need more HN not Twitter or Mastodon.

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

#87

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 2:03 PM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #76

LastTrain wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every bit of content has a POV, there is no getting around that. Neutral POV is the Wikipedia ideal - one they work towards but will never reach. They do as good a job as anybody at it.

>Every bit of content has a POV Every bit of content has multiple POVs, and when you continuously present only the POVs associated with one part of the political spectrum, that's an avoidable bias. >They do as good a job as anybody at it. Actual encyclopedias do a much better job of it.

[deleted]

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

#88

Post by gosub100 » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 2:03 PM UTC

sanex wrote: post #56

hliyan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, a pay-per-use Internet (where appropriate), where people will vote for content with their wallets, instead of having to purchase subscriptions whether they read an article or not. Just a few minutes ago, I wanted to read an NYT article but it asked me to buy a $1/mo subscription. Very cheap, but a) I don't read NYT that regularly and b) doing that with every news outlet I occasionally read, adds up. On the othe…

I've been saying this for a while. It doesn't even need to be that expensive either. Pay a penny to watch a YouTube video type of deal. It can be done through lightning network to avoid per transaction credit card fees which would probably otherwise make it too expensive. My biggest hangup is paying for something that quickly turns out to be crap. I guess people would learn pretty quickly and hopefully the recommenda…

I would love that. just a tip jar button on my browser that I load up with a few bucks every month, and send to websites or commenters who made me laugh or got me thinking. Streamers have proven (albeit crudely) that viewers are more than willing to part with their money (if they have it). And I'm not just hinting at salacious young women (who probably receive the bulk of the dollar value). There's a streamer team who broadcast live at LAX and other airports and get excited about the various air traffic. It's fun watching their dedication and passion, their broadcasting skills grow, and how happy they are to do what they enjoy. I've donated probably $200-$300 over the years to them.

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

#89

Post by tentacleuno » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 2:03 PM UTC

CuriouslyC wrote: post #22

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…

SEO, content farms and click mills are the things ruining the internet. All of this is the result of advertising as a business model. For any content, the perverse incentive is to copy it repeatedly with slight variations then monetize the copies with ads and SEO your monetized version to the top of the search results. What we need is a social-first internet where every piece of content is associated with an actual h…

> SEO, content farms and click mills are the things ruining the internet.

Right, so how do we fix it? I'm wondering if uBlacklist has a place here (a tool to block domains from search results) -- it would be interesting to see if we could all come together and contribute to a database of SEO farm / junk websites to improve search results.

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

#90

Post by StevePerkins » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 2:03 PM UTC

ants_everywhere wrote: post #16

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…

These are all great ideas, and I echo them. But I do feel like these sorts of collective problems are hard to solve by each person trying to do their own part working alone. One reason that corporate internet won is that money transfers to a single entity, and that pot of money can be used to coordinate action in some particular direction (for better or worse depending on your view). Without some coordination mechani…

There was absolutely nothing "collective" about the early web. 180-degrees the opposite. You're not going to recapture that ethos, either for the overall Internet or even for a smaller interested subculture within in, by making it NPR. It would be something else, and likely not any better than the corporate walled garden.