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Wikimedia Russia has been dissolved

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Re: Wikimedia Russia has been dissolved

#51

Post by toyg »

keiferski wrote: post #35
duskwuff wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other "validation method" do you have in mind?

I don’t have anything in mind, because I don’t run a Wikipedia competitor. I haven’t spent enough time thinking about it. But certainty anything other than “just trust what the big media companies say” would be an improvement. In general I find Wikipedia articles to be written from a very specific viewpoint that highlights certain facts and hides others. Whether this is from Wikipedia writers themselves or is merely…

The thing is: mainstream validation works. Whenever little-known sources are introduced, the chances of information being false or misleading just skyrockets. Moderator rings are often detected that way - all citing the same obscure publications that turn out to be factually incorrect.

Re: Wikimedia Russia has been dissolved

#52

Post by toyg »

keiferski wrote: post #36
legitster wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to imagine that Wikipedia with a centralized authority to handle "validation" would be remotely the same Wikipedia.

I already find it to be highly centralized and with a very obvious monoculture.

Let me guess - a leftist bias?

Re: Wikimedia Russia has been dissolved

#53

Post by toyg »

foverzar wrote: post #42
Yizahi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they will. They are busy rewriting history under Kremlin directives.

Who are "they"? It's still the same website on the same wikipedia domain, owned and hosted by the same global Wikimedia Foundation, with the same editors, roles and permissions. P.S. Kinda funny how the narrative of "THEY are rewriting history" is now present in both opposing blocks. These are truly the end times of objectivity and pluralism.

There was never any objectivity. As a European, I often find mainstream US media scandalously biased on certain topics. Even just seeing everything as "two opposing blocks" is a terrible simplification of reality that is typical of Anglosphere traditions.

And pluralism is arguably as alive as ever - anyone can start a blog and be as successful as anyone else in pushing opinions, without the capital that used to be required to broadcast one's view of the world. If anything, the current problem is that the spectrum of political debate has widened so much that we struggle to contain it in the old institutions.

Re: Wikimedia Russia has been dissolved

#54

Post by keiferski »

toyg wrote: post #52
keiferski wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already find it to be highly centralized and with a very obvious monoculture.

Let me guess - a leftist bias?

No, not really. More like a broadly Western one. It’s more complicated and specific than that, but I don’t really want to get into it here. All I’ll say is that if you read a variety of different opinions on subjects, the viewpoint of Wikipedia becomes fairly easy to predict and observe.

Re: Wikimedia Russia has been dissolved

#55

Post by Lockal »

brokensegue wrote: post #16
terminous wrote: post #14

Bad headline. What is dissolved is the non profit organization that exists in Russia to host events for Russian Wikipedians and other tasks. ru.wikipedia.org != Wikipedia Russia.

The headline is right. "Wikimedia Russia" dissolved not "Russian Wikipedia"

To be more specific, "Wikimedia RU" was dissolved. I remember when they opened a legal entity, the lawyer said that one should not use the word "Russia" in the name of the company, as this requires permission from the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. Such permission can be obtained by a company that has branches and/or representative offices in more than half of the subjects of the Russian Federation, or belongs to the largest taxpayer, or more than 25% of shares (stakes) of which are owned by the state.

Wikimedia RU does not fall under these categories. In fact, it was a non-profit organization completely independent of Wikimedia, run by individual enthusiasts, sometimes not even interested in editing Wikipedia. However, Wikimedia did recognize the merits of this Russian company to some extent (in particular, it did not hinder fundraising for offline events and did not require reports).

Re: Wikimedia Russia has been dissolved

#56

Post by foverzar »

Clamchop wrote: post #46
foverzar wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There was a far more productive reading you could have taken. As an individual, sure. But it's still a massively "go to" source of facts for billions of people. > Free speech allows Wikipedia to publish unpopular or controversial speech Do you really feel like Wikipedia has unpopular opinions? My impression is kinda opposite. > Wikipedia documents opinions and ideologies It would have been awesome if it was actuall…

I'm _not_ claiming that Wikipedia has or doesn't have unpopular opinions. I'm making a distinction between the legal framework in which Wikipedia exists (they _can_ publish unpopular or controversial speech) and what Wikipedia does (they intend not to express their own opinions at all; whether you believe they succeed is immaterial). OP was conflating the two, but Wikipedia has no obligation or principle to be a plat…

Ah, I get it. I think the OP was referring not to the legal definition of free speech, but rather to the spirit of it.

Re: Wikimedia Russia has been dissolved

#57

Post by duskwuff »

toyg wrote: post #51
keiferski wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have anything in mind, because I don’t run a Wikipedia competitor. I haven’t spent enough time thinking about it. But certainty anything other than “just trust what the big media companies say” would be an improvement. In general I find Wikipedia articles to be written from a very specific viewpoint that highlights certain facts and hides others. Whether this is from Wikipedia writers themselves or is merely…

The thing is: mainstream validation works . Whenever little-known sources are introduced, the chances of information being false or misleading just skyrockets. Moderator rings are often detected that way - all citing the same obscure publications that turn out to be factually incorrect.

The internal essay on "verifiability, not truth" [1] comes to mind. Determining what is Actually True is difficult and often contentious; determining what reliable sources say about the topic is easier and can itself convey important information when those sources disagree.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability,_not_t...

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