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Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

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Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#91

Post by intended »

bawolff wrote: post #4

This seems a bit to be a - water is wet article. I think the more interesting question is what is the impact of these volunteers leaving. Are the toxic comments directed at people who tend to get in the middle of flamewars, or are they innocents? Do these people do good work? Or are they just annoying people until someone snaps at them in a fit of toxity?

There are very few water is wet articles in T&S research. It’s pretty dang hard to get any good scientific information. It’s only in the past few years that I have got an idea of churn and impact of toxicity behavior online on communities.

I’ve been looking into this from before the term trust and safety existed.

It’s THAT bad. Most of our data is behind platform walls.

That water is wet is state of the art.

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#92

Post by empath-nirvana »

Viv_moira wrote: post #88
donatj wrote: post #48

I have been making small contributions for fifteen or so years. I don’t much feel like doing it anymore after a spurt of bad interactions. About a year ago I created a Wikipedia page for a TV personality and author I enjoy. Spent literal hours on it collecting citations and what have you. Within a couple hours the page was deleted for not being noteworthy. He had his own TV show, has multiple published books and a po…

Wikipedia has an ongoing project on improving articles on the subject of western esotericism (quite interesting one even for "scientifially-minded" if you look at the origins of the Royal Society and the surrounding protosciences). I've been using Wikipedia since its early beginnings, on my primary account loosely contributing for well over a decade and many of my edits from years ago were left unchanged. A few month…

I'm sure your already aware of it, but if anyone is interested in digging into western esotericism now, the podcast is great:

https://shwep.net/

But it should really be accompanied by the History of Philosophy without any gaps podcast for more historical context. It's very interesting to hear the contrast between the "mainstream" and the "underground" takes on the exact same philosophers throughout history.

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#93

Post by alboaie »

After an editor, who has edited millions of pages and seems to be a jack-of-all-trades, unjustifiably rejects your contribution on a topic where you have dozens of scientific articles published, the only conclusion is that the system is flawed. There's a need for a fundamental change in approach, probably to a system where censorship exists only in cases of clearly illegal content, and various opinions are allowed to be expressed. On the other hand, to filter out the noise, there's a need for a trust propagation system among editors and viewers, so that each time, you get the most probable form of a page based on the trust given to direct contacts and indirectly to recursive contacts. Maybe AI could also help a bit. Who dare to start a new Wikipedia ;) ?

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#94

Post by borbulon »

rqtwteye wrote: post #57
donatj wrote: post #48

I have been making small contributions for fifteen or so years. I don’t much feel like doing it anymore after a spurt of bad interactions. About a year ago I created a Wikipedia page for a TV personality and author I enjoy. Spent literal hours on it collecting citations and what have you. Within a couple hours the page was deleted for not being noteworthy. He had his own TV show, has multiple published books and a po…

Reminds me of my experience with Stackoverflow. I tried to solve a very specific problem with Windows installers. I only got some responses from oldtimers that basically said “why would you do such a thing?”and similar. It felt extremely unwelcoming. It’s ok to not answer but why be so dismissive? I guess the only questions they like are things like “how do I calculate 2+2 in python?”. Anything more complicated is no…

I had a similar experience in SO, I used the term "the most bulletproof-y way I can think of" or something like that in my answer, definitely used "bulletproof-y." Someone responded with something like "You shouldn't say that. Nothing's really bulletproof, you know."

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#95

Post by borbulon »

mewse-hn wrote: post #80
donatj wrote: post #48

I have been making small contributions for fifteen or so years. I don’t much feel like doing it anymore after a spurt of bad interactions. About a year ago I created a Wikipedia page for a TV personality and author I enjoy. Spent literal hours on it collecting citations and what have you. Within a couple hours the page was deleted for not being noteworthy. He had his own TV show, has multiple published books and a po…

I expect Wikipedia to collapse under its own weight and hard fork within the next 10 years. I think it would be a shattering like Twitter if the content wasn't under a permissive license. Instead I think it's going to be like WoWWiki being acquired and forking to Wowpedia, and then Wowpedia being acquired and forking to Warcraft Wiki. The community around it is extremely unwelcoming and has calcified - only the most…

> And the finances of the foundation, good lord.

Please expound? Or a link is fine, too.

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#96

Post by Levitz »

Ensorceled wrote: post #54

There are a LOT of people putting quotes around "toxic" in this thread and a lot of people claiming to not know what a toxic comment is at all. Really hard not to assume bad faith here.

Hard disagree. Toxic itself is a term used precisely because it's nebulous enough.

Note it's not "obscene", or "insulting" or "offensive". "Toxic" here serves as a synonym to "bad", which meaning is entirely subjective.

This comment of mine might be considered toxic, your comment might too, there is no way to argue otherwise since it entirely depends on the beholder.

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#97

Post by Viv_moira »

empath-nirvana wrote: post #92
Viv_moira wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia has an ongoing project on improving articles on the subject of western esotericism (quite interesting one even for "scientifially-minded" if you look at the origins of the Royal Society and the surrounding protosciences). I've been using Wikipedia since its early beginnings, on my primary account loosely contributing for well over a decade and many of my edits from years ago were left unchanged. A few month…

I'm sure your already aware of it, but if anyone is interested in digging into western esotericism now, the podcast is great: https://shwep.net/ But it should really be accompanied by the History of Philosophy without any gaps podcast for more historical context. It's very interesting to hear the contrast between the "mainstream" and the "underground" takes on the exact same philosophers throughout history.

Thank you, this looks great (and quite academic, which seems difficult to come by). You likely know about him, but Wouter Hanegraaff, who holds an academic chair about western esotericism could be interesting to you.

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#100

Post by Zuiii »

donatj wrote: post #48

I have been making small contributions for fifteen or so years. I don’t much feel like doing it anymore after a spurt of bad interactions. About a year ago I created a Wikipedia page for a TV personality and author I enjoy. Spent literal hours on it collecting citations and what have you. Within a couple hours the page was deleted for not being noteworthy. He had his own TV show, has multiple published books and a po…

Same thing happened to me but in my case, I added a simple "citation needed" on a statement that was objectively false (can be proven by simply going to the vendor's landing page). The citation needed tag got reverted almost instantly and I was told that adding this tag was inappropriate and constituted sabotage. I never clicked that edit tab again.

The thing is, I don't blame the editor. He's high on the smell of his own farts. I blame wikipedia for enabling him. At least with stack overflow, they try to make fighting against this kind of corruption easier by making it's voting-based moderation system visible. Not wikipedia. It's opaque. It reminds me a lot of governments.

Anyway, I still notice false statements on wikipedia from time to time, but I always smirk to myself and carry on :)

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