Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Wikipedia became the last good place on the internet

cambridge.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 669 posts

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

#581

Post by ToValueFunfetti »

ToValueFunfetti wrote: post #450
giraffe_lady wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we though? That comment demonstrates very clearly that it wasn't as democratic as people are remembering. You had a chance to make an inclusive internet, and you made an encyclopedia that was blind to the largest most significant art & cultural movement in generations. What are you going to do differently this time?

I enjoyed the tweet above as a glimpse into the past, but it's far too cherry-picked for you to use it as an indictment of the early internet. The article for 'Gangsta Rap' (May '01) predates 'Country Music' (Oct '01), 'English Language' (Nov '01) and 'Mayonnaise' (Jul '02), but you wouldn't think very highly of me if I used that to make an opposite claim. I don't think the 'Hip Hop Music' (Apr '03) cherry-pick even…

I tracked it down, the 'Hip hop' page is from June 2001.

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

#583

Post by shadowgovt »

2devnull wrote: post #576
shadowgovt wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested to learn more. What is the bad kind of diversity, and what is the good kind of diversity?

Like San Francisco used to be more diverse, that’s what I’m getting at. People will argue that point, because the word diversity has taken on different meanings. I’d say there is diverse-diversity and less-diverse-diversity. I prefer one thing, other people are more tribal and prefer that other structure. Both types are needed, but I think we could use a bit more diverse-diversity at the moment, to increase dynamism.…

Interesting. If I'm understanding the analogy to San Fran's past diversity, you mean like it used to be far more multicultural-but-overlapping and now it's a bit more homogeneous-techbro even though a lot of people from different backgrounds still live there?

If I've understood correctly... Yeah, I don't know if it's for good or ill but I think we see less of that kind of diversity as the enlargement of the Internet allows people to build virtual communities that are more like-minded and have less need to tolerate uncomfortable differences (in that you have the option of going somewhere else instead of "putting up with the asshole next door" because this is the only online space that caters to the thing you like).

On the other hand, I have no strategy to force people to coexist in the same virtual space when they don't want to, nor do I have concrete evidence that's even a desired outcome.

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

#584

Post by gosub100 »

extraduder_ire wrote: post #571
gosub100 wrote: post #133

One band-aid that would help (but not fix) the internet is a revolt or at least a separation between web2.0 and web1.0. There should be organized, easy ways to consume and switch between 2.0 and 1.0, and while I know this already exists to some extent, I am referring to a social movement on top of the technical differences. Publishers should be pressured to offer web 1.0 (or at least know that a sizeable subset of vi…

I thought the main distinction between web 1.0 and 2.0 was that 1.0 sites are operated and created (content written by) by the same people, whereas 2.0 sites are mostly content from the users of a site. (I know the name is a bit of a retrofit from after O'Reilly decided to host a web 2.0 conference. Back when it was meaningless.)

I was mainly going after javascript and the notion of interactive pages and styling. I might be using the name web2.0 incorrectly, if so my apologies. Chrome had "reader view", not sure if that's still around.

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

#585

Post by marcusverus »

afavour wrote: post #513
marcusverus wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lefties always rationalize their embrace of illiberal tactics like censorship by citing extreme cases (“we just want to filter out people who want us dead”), only to turn around and apply the tactic very broadly (wrongthink = permanban). This Motte-and-Bailey fallacy is the rhetorical lever which has allowed the left to crybully millions of erstwhile liberals into becoming so many cheerleaders for censorship.

You’re putting words in peoples mouths here. I’m not LGBT but it’s my understanding that many LGBT folks are open about wanting to block beyond just extreme cases. They wish to participate in a community of shared values, which is hardly a new notion. What is new is that the blurred lines of public vs private spaces has confused everyone’s concept of “free speech”. An LGBT community is in no way obliged to listen to…

> You’re putting words in peoples mouths here.

I call it like I see it.

> I’m not LGBT but it’s my understanding that many LGBT folks are open about wanting to block beyond just extreme cases. They wish to participate in a community of shared values, which is hardly a new notion.

Nobody cares about gatekeeping in niche communities. The problem is when niche groups enter larger communities and employ the tried-and-true Motte and Bailey harangue for censorship, which ultimately ends up becoming political and problematic, as with old twitter.

> What is new is that the blurred lines of public vs private spaces has confused everyone’s concept of “free speech”.

What’s new is erstwhile liberals abandoning their commitment to open discourse, advocating for corporations to police speech, and boycotting/organizing against corporations who commit the sin of platforming wrongthink.

> An LGBT community is in no way obliged to listen to anti-LGBT voices. In the same way that an unlocked front door is not an invitation for me to enter.

Agreed! But nor should LGBT voices be permitted (or, rather, used) to dictate rules to everyone else on the planet.

> Nor is being blocked from that community a strike against free speech: you are able to speak freely in any other location of your choice.

This is a cynical and deeply authoritarian take. Does first amendment apply to social media? Of course it doesn’t. The first amendment prevents the federal government from squashing speech, because they can’t be trusted with such power over the people. Are you of the opinion that a power that’s considered too corrupting to be wielded by our elected officials can be responsibly wielded by unelected technocrats?

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

#587

Post by naasking »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #543
bebop404 wrote: post #434

One thing (perhaps the thing) that makes Wikipedia great is that it doesn't seek the truth. Instead, it seeks verifiability. This means that editors don't have to be experts to write articles, which is the main reason the site is useful at all. The truth can be very elusive. So it makes sense to move that burden to the sources.

I guess that's one reason I can't fully trust Wikipedia. Because of its beauracracy, primary sources can't make much headway. If I had an entry and they got my birthday wrong, I can show them my birth certificate and they wouldn't accept it. But if I talked to Fox News and said I was born in X, suddenly it's "a good source for wikipedia". I think it's a good rule of thumb to not have people edit articles too close to…

> If I had an entry and they got my birthday wrong, I can show them my birth certificate and they wouldn't accept it

It's a bizarre rule that doesn't consider a birth certificate to be a primary source.

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

#588

Post by nvy »

silent_cal wrote: post #577
nvy wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are factually incorrect. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7081045/ >In clinical medical research, causality is demonstrated by randomized controlled trials (RCTs). https://www.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/upm-binaries/236... https://www.statisticssolutions.com/dissertation-resources/r... https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/understanding-statistics/s... https://www2.stat.duke.edu/~jerry/Papers/causal.…

You're confusing strong evidence for causality with establishment and absolute proof of causality. This is even discussed in the sources you've cited (second link). For example here is a quote from one of your sources about the necessity understanding the underlying mechanism before causality can be established: > A causal mechanism is the process that creates the connection between the variation in an independent va…

>If you argue this further I'm just going to conclude you're trolling and won't respond again.

>You are wrong. Face it.

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

#589

Post by olddustytrail »

baja_blast wrote: post #467
bebop404 wrote: post #434

One thing (perhaps the thing) that makes Wikipedia great is that it doesn't seek the truth. Instead, it seeks verifiability. This means that editors don't have to be experts to write articles, which is the main reason the site is useful at all. The truth can be very elusive. So it makes sense to move that burden to the sources.

So when the sources contain inaccurate information then Wikipedia does so as well. I don't see how that is a good thing people view Wikipedia as the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica which was curated by experts. Wikipedia should strive for the truth since finding truthful and factual information is becoming increasingly more difficult online.

And yet Wikipedia has ended up being more accurate than "Encyclopedia Britannica which was curated by experts".

How odd.

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

#590

Post by olddustytrail »

hindsightbias wrote: post #322
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #177

Can't really trust an academic on this matter, Wikipedia is like academia it's a closed system where a small group get to decide what opinions are correct, what facts get a mention and what are worth looking at with a feedback loop to itself that is used to control facts by deciding what sources are valid. Really the open decentralized internet is the antithesis of academia. Not to say its all bad but reading wikiped…

Add generational lens. I barely recognize much of the 70's and 80's history on wiki. A lot of it clearly wasn't written by someone who lived through it, and if it isn't linkable it basically doesn't exist. History is written by the victors, and they only do the internet. All those books, newspaper and magazine articles of that era just don't exist outside of libraries and microfiche and it's clear none of those wiki…

[flagged]
Post reply on HN