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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

#191

Post by Ensorceled »

vasco wrote: post #22

"Toxic" would not be the thing I'd start with. I'd start with "being told no for the first time", which might or not have an overlap with toxicity. But I think it's much more likely that someone will start making edits, only get uninterested comments or bot engagements, keep editing, then at some point someone reverts the edits - tells them no, and so they stop. Potentially this scenario even catches situations like:…

They are using an established tool to measure toxicity ("A rude, disrespectful, or unreasonable comment that is likely to make people leave a discussion.") and extreme toxicity ("A very hateful, aggressive, disrespectful comment or otherwise very likely to make a user leave a discussion or give up on sharing their perspective. This attribute is much less sensitive to more mild forms of toxicity, such as comments that include positive uses of curse words.") not what you are saying.

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

#192

Post by yesco »

juliusdavies wrote: post #180
tptacek wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet it's one of the crowning achievements of the entire Internet, and a contender for one of the most important written works of the last century. This is always the challenge trying to dismiss Wikipedia: something they're doing is working, not just well, but well on a level that is virtually unprecedented.

I consider Wikipedia to be the last standing wonder of the WWW (world wide web). - Google search results get worse every year. - Stackoverflow lies in ruins (albeit the ruins are still useful). - ICQ/Gtalk/AIM completely dead and all in silos now (Slack). - Twitter is dead. - Facebook is too annoying now. Google Maps is still amazing, but I consider that more a miracle of the internet as opposed to a miracle of the W…

> So why not Wikipedia?

- Cheap to host, just text and images

- Funded by non-profit with too much funding

- All images are permissively licensed

- Easily archived

- Easily forked

The only potential "death" I can ever see happening to Wikipedia is the kind that happens from some kind of fracturing, similar to what we often see with fan wikis. But this kind of outcome could be a good thing really, multiple competing Wikipedia's would probably help keep each other honest, and wouldn't functionally be too different than the non-english sections of Wikipedia that already exist.

If anything I'm a bit concerned that Wikipedia might be getting a bit too influential than an encyclopedia aught to be.

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

#193

Post by anoxor »

mikeyouse wrote: post #182
anoxor wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were women's spaces (bathrooms / changing rooms) for example that kept women safe from predatory men. Who should be allowed in those? Is it defined by the clothes? If a predatory man / bad actor decides to put on those clothes to abuse the system, then what? What if the predatory man / bad actor decides to hang just below the bar of illegality, and creep on women long term?

Is this something that you spent a lot of time worrying about prior to this bizarre trans panic? All of the existing laws that prevent predatory men from creeping on women in those spaces also apply to trans people..

Trans panic?

Totally disagree, it’s now entirely legal in many places for a predatory man to say he identifies as a woman, and change in spaces previously created to keep women safe.

And yes, thanks, I do like thinking about issues of justice, morality, and politics.

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/01/30/putting-t...

Excellent example. Is it possible for a convicted criminal to game compassion to be moved from a men’s to women’s prison. Would anyone lie in that situation? There is probably a whole lot more people to take advantage of if your a convicted predator in a woman’s prison.

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

#194

Post by Manuel_D »

tptacek wrote: post #125
tivert wrote: post #60

Here's how they define toxicity (only clearly described in their "Supplementary material"): https://oup.silverchair-cdn.com/oup/backfile/Content_public/... Honestly, that's probably the most "measurable" kind of toxicity, but Wikipedia has a much bigger problem with toxicity than that. The whole place is infused with passive-aggression (by policy) and toxic double-standards. IMHO, you have to be deeply weird to be a…

And yet it's one of the crowning achievements of the entire Internet, and a contender for one of the most important written works of the last century. This is always the challenge trying to dismiss Wikipedia: something they're doing is working, not just well, but well on a level that is virtually unprecedented.

Wikipedia's flaws are more subtle. Pages sometimes present controversial, or even wrong claims as unambiguously true. Note, this is not actually that bad on pages that are clearly covering controversial topics (namely historical & political topics). The issue is more prevalent on niche topics where the average reader wouldn't recognize the controversy being claimed. I've sometimes encountered citations where the cited material directly contradicts the claim made on the page.

I highly suggest reading the talk page of wikipedia articles. Not just the talk page, but read through the history of the talk page too. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Ada_Lovelace...

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

#195

Post by rurp »

juliusdavies wrote: post #180
tptacek wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet it's one of the crowning achievements of the entire Internet, and a contender for one of the most important written works of the last century. This is always the challenge trying to dismiss Wikipedia: something they're doing is working, not just well, but well on a level that is virtually unprecedented.

I consider Wikipedia to be the last standing wonder of the WWW (world wide web). - Google search results get worse every year. - Stackoverflow lies in ruins (albeit the ruins are still useful). - ICQ/Gtalk/AIM completely dead and all in silos now (Slack). - Twitter is dead. - Facebook is too annoying now. Google Maps is still amazing, but I consider that more a miracle of the internet as opposed to a miracle of the W…

I sadly agree with everything you said, except would add that Google Maps has already died for many users outside of urban areas. Satellite view has always been great for scouting outdoor areas but the app falls apart if you actually go anywhere with poor service and try to use it.

One of the most basic features, saving a pin on a map, broke years ago and despite many complaints on their support forum it hasn't been fixed. Directions can be terrible in less traveled areas, and dangerous if followed blindly since they will happily lead you down roads that require 4x4 or are totally impassible. Not to mention saved offline maps are unreliable and the UI clutter has gotten drasticaly worse over the years.

Maps still works fine for the typical things a Google emplyee cares about like getting directions in a well traveled city or finding places to shop, but it's only a matter of time before those usecases get crushed under the ever-building pressures of short term monetization, enshittification, and Google's general apathy and lack of care for users.

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

#196

Post by rurp »

shagie wrote: post #176
novaleaf wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my son created an account and tried to add a page for his middle-school, only to have the page deleted and told it's not notable enough to have a page. after that my son hasn't tried editing Wikipedia.

There are roughly 13,000 middle schools in the United States. Creating a page for each one and curating it represents a significant amount of volunteer work. The "not notable enough" is in place in part to try to limit the amount of pages that need curating. Whether or not that's a good thing is debatable - but the allocation of volunteer curation resources are often stretched quite thin on sites that crowdsource the…

But his son already did the work to add his school! I don't see why adding one random middle school requires that all 13,000 be added and kept up to date. Wikipedia has all sorts of inconsistencies in what is covered, because it is so driven by volunteers and what they want to invest time into. I don't see how people adding public institutions that they are interested in adding goes against the spirit or practical realities of Wikipedia.

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

#197

Post by dang »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #184
harimau777 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give it time. As Wikipedia has become more and more obsessed with being "encyclopedic", I've noticed that they are increasingly ending up with articles that are stripped of any useful information.

[flagged]

Please don't cross into personal attack when posting to HN. You can make your substantive points without that.

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

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

#198

Post by Ensorceled »

Levitz wrote: post #96
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.

Toxic in this context means rude, disrespectful and unreasonable. Insulting and offensive are just as subjective as rude or disrespectful.

We just have a culture of "sticks and stones" and people who leave toxic conversations are called "snowflakes" and told to "grow thicker skin".

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

#199

Post by EGreg »

tivert wrote: post #60

Here's how they define toxicity (only clearly described in their "Supplementary material"): https://oup.silverchair-cdn.com/oup/backfile/Content_public/... Honestly, that's probably the most "measurable" kind of toxicity, but Wikipedia has a much bigger problem with toxicity than that. The whole place is infused with passive-aggression (by policy) and toxic double-standards. IMHO, you have to be deeply weird to be a…

So basically, worse than StackOverflow? :-P

Seems the nastier people are to contributors, the better the end product is for the 10000x more people reading it.

You know all those cruel piano teachers in Russia? But the audience actually wanted to hear the pianists later in life! It's like that... but collaborating on content, with NO CELEBRITIES :)

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

#200

Post by jl6 »

rurp wrote: post #196
shagie wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are roughly 13,000 middle schools in the United States. Creating a page for each one and curating it represents a significant amount of volunteer work. The "not notable enough" is in place in part to try to limit the amount of pages that need curating. Whether or not that's a good thing is debatable - but the allocation of volunteer curation resources are often stretched quite thin on sites that crowdsource the…

But his son already did the work to add his school! I don't see why adding one random middle school requires that all 13,000 be added and kept up to date. Wikipedia has all sorts of inconsistencies in what is covered, because it is so driven by volunteers and what they want to invest time into. I don't see how people adding public institutions that they are interested in adding goes against the spirit or practical re…

They have to draw a line somewhere or the project gets spammed with self-promotional articles. Requiring notability does a decent job of keeping the spam out.
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