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

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

#411

Post by marginalia_nu » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

Grumbledour wrote: post #297

marginalia_nu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I noticed a kind of sickness that seems to have taken hold of many people working in tech over the last 15 years. The belief, that nothing can be done unless you got dozens of people, millions of funding and years of time. Or maybe it's just more younger people in this space, who don't remember that we used to build social networks in our free time in our garages? Now, maybe it's mainly a hacker news problem, because…

Yes I've been thinking about this a lot too. There are these unquestioned notions about what is possible, and they're more often than not self-fulfilling prophecies.

I think it's easier to convince someone they're wrong by showing than telling. This is fairly central to what I'm trying to do with my search engine project. Build something so profoundly contradictory to expectations about what is possible to make sticking to those notions completely untenable.

I think the SerenityOS gang does a fantastic job at this too, much better than I do arguably.

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

#412

Post by simbolit » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

xacky wrote: post #315

101011 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may ask, how did you 'vandalize' it? It sounds like the definition of this word has some additional connotation within Wikipedia.

It's a long story, I was a legitimate editor for a about a year and just built up a grudge which turned into making more unhelpful edits until I got banned. Wikipedia is not a good environment for when things go wrong.

I don't want to judge prematurely, but have you ever thought about the possibility that perhaps you are the problem?

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

#413

Post by seattle_spring » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

soundnote wrote: post #318

giraffe_lady wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the culture of "just assume people are joking" is that some people aren't joking. The background of edgy jokes was used very effectively by actual hate movements, to massive impact. We all have to live with the consequences of that, and one of yours is that you're not getting the benefit of the doubt on nasty jokes anymore. You need to acknowledge that something went wrong, and then consider why it d…

[flagged]

Do you typically cherry pick the most extreme and ridiculous fringe quotes to try and prove your point? Or only in this case?

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

#414

Post by dang » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

terminous wrote: post #399

xacky wrote: post #35

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 t…

It sounds like you're not addicted to Wikipedia, you're addicted to imposing your particular point of view on everyone else, and all the messy Internet drama that results from that. Things don't go your way in a collaboration and so you "vandalize" other people's contributions, and then blame the platform that "addicted" you? It sounds like if you joined any open source, open collaboration project, or volunteer organ…

Please don't cross into personal attack, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. It only makes things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#415

Post by anononaut » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 4:53 PM UTC

js8 wrote: post #306

anononaut wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to discuss online my burnin disdain for governments. I'm certain likeminded people would not be allowed to on a platform operated as a public service. For true freedom of expression, it's a nonstarter.

I think you're wrong, there were plenty of anti-government people appearing in public TV back in the 60s, 70s, 80s.. The government doesn't really care as much as you think it does.

The world is radically different now than it was back then.

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

#416

Post by simbolit » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 4:53 PM UTC

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #252

matkoniecz wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to pitch OpenStreetMap as another example (to be clear there are also banners about donating, but it is smaller and not misleading one)

Yes, but I have no idea how to participate in OSM and I'm a huge map nerd. Not true of Wiki

Back when I used android devices, I used https://streetcomplete.app/ - great user interface, it directs you to a location and asks you simple questions.

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

#417

Post by soundnote » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 4:53 PM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #413

soundnote wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Do you typically cherry pick the most extreme and ridiculous fringe quotes to try and prove your point? Or only in this case?

Just noting that openly, not at all subtly racist hatemongers somehow have jobs and are called "antiracist". And in Lombardo's case, educating our teachers this way doesn't exactly sound like a good idea.

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

#418

Post by wiseowise » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 4:54 PM UTC

DeIlliad wrote: post #326

wiseowise wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

People of a similar background tend to have similar thoughts. If you grew up white in America or black in Africa you will have at least a few experiences that most people of your background share. Expand the amount of people with diverse background and you will get a wider range of thoughts.

Whatever fits your agenda.

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

#419

Post by gvurrdon » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 4:54 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #202

OfSanguineFire wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By 1995 I was regularly interacting on the internet with Japanese, people in the former USSR (who wouldn't necessarily be considered "white"), Romanians, etc. What was special is that when those people had political and social views that may have differed from one's own, but were representative of their countries, they could air those views. And the result was that a user of the nascent internet could learn about the…

I think “political and social views” covers a very wide range of thought. For instance, an avowed Nazi would not have been welcome in a holocaust survivors newsgroup in the early internet. Someone who is “anti-LGBT” to the extent that they wish those people dead have a similarly extreme view and I’m not surprised that they are policed. > they would be unwelcome on the Fediverse I think part of the problem here is cen…

Your comment reminds me of a time I was a member of a sports club. One other member was thrown out as they were revealed in a newspaper article to also be an active member of a neo-Nazi organisation. But, they'd never said or done anything that gave the slightest hint of it and appeared to be quite pleasant and liked within the club.

I wonder if anyone in the sports club would ever have noticed if it weren't for a journalist looking into that neo-Nazi group.

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

#420

Post by jl6 » Wed, Nov 08, 2023, 4:55 PM UTC

soundnote wrote: post #249

aCoreyJ wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That site seems to have a captcha issue. Wikipedia editors shouldn't have more say in someone's gender than the person themselves. I guess that seems obvious to me. And yea being inclusive of trans people and accepting current theories of psychological and medical treatment is a Western bias. But I don't think any other angle would make sense, people are the gender they say they are seems to be a very simple policy.…

> people are the gender they say they are seems to be a very simple policy. Simple, yes, but is the policy particularily sane? Consider, for example, if I were to claim I was a duck. Should my wikipedia page pretend I have been a duck all my life? That would be preposterous, because as anyone can see, I am human. Our science and medicine cannot change a person's sex, we can force the body to act a bit more like the o…

Often completely missing from this debate is the concept that context matters. Sometimes, in casual contexts, it really doesn't matter what someone's sex or gender is, so you may as well address them using the gender terms they prefer, just as you would address them by the name they prefer. If someone looks like a woman, and the context is a casual conversation in the office, then it would be a bit mad to call them he/him, even if they don't really pass, because (a) it's rude, and (b) you don't have a way of absolutely confirming their sex. So, casually, it seems like we should treat trans women as women.

But then some contexts aren't casual, and a person's sex really does matter. It would be equally mad to exclude trans women from prostate cancer screenings, for example, when they are unambiguously male. Given what we know about male pattern offending, granting males (regardless of their gender identity) access to intimate female spaces creates risks that many females would rather not take. Given what we know about male physique and the impact of testosterone, granting males (regardless of their gender identity) access to women's sports creates injury risk and unfairness. So, in these not-so-casual contexts, sex trumps gender and it seems we should treat trans women as men.

Personally, I think a sex offender's sex is absolutely relevant to their crime and thus relevant in a Wikipedia article about their crime - and it's genuinely absurd to read about a male rapist and "her" victim, besides being grossly offensive to women in general. This is not a casual context, and the polite fiction should not take precedent.