21–30 of 54 posts
Ironically, the Wikipedia pages about him in French [1] and English [2] are, currently, super short. It will help if Wikipedia (just giving them as an example) could handle the focus on certain people and topics in an smarter way and not after the facts. Wikipedia has a special opportunity about handling this because it is the canonical general reference on Internet. Hallucinated or not I found a better starting poin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wikipedia is premised on being a tertiary source, and pays a price for every "layer" of content they add in volunteer time needed to correct inaccuracies, which are constantly being added. People have all sorts of ideas about things Wikipedia could be besides an encyclopedia, but the project is (wisely) not receptive to any of them. Meanwhile: if you're right about this, you can just fork and track Wikipedia and do y…
Even, beyond that, Wikipedia, again, as an example, has faults on its own merits: I keep reading about Michel Talagrand and find this entry [1] which mentions his work first but there is no link in [2] to [1] (at least now). I will try to restate this, for the sake of an interesting discussion, in a completely different direction but using Wikipedia as an example: in software engineering we create different kind of t…
Ironically, the Wikipedia pages about him in French [1] and English [2] are, currently, super short. It will help if Wikipedia (just giving them as an example) could handle the focus on certain people and topics in an smarter way and not after the facts. Wikipedia has a special opportunity about handling this because it is the canonical general reference on Internet. Hallucinated or not I found a better starting poin…
I also wish there was a mechanism to prune certain Wikipedia pages that carry way too much detail, given the notability of their subject.
I really enjoy this sort of story. Someone persevering in an unpopular arena for the love of it, and then having it become quite essential for the advancement of humanities goals as it is developed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even, beyond that, Wikipedia, again, as an example, has faults on its own merits: I keep reading about Michel Talagrand and find this entry [1] which mentions his work first but there is no link in [2] to [1] (at least now). I will try to restate this, for the sake of an interesting discussion, in a completely different direction but using Wikipedia as an example: in software engineering we create different kind of t…
Wikipedia has more process (and is by most measures, more important and successful) than most software most people work on so I'm not sure tips from software engineering is what they are missing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wikipedia editors delete pages about people not deemed notable enough. Especially women: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/wikipedia-bias-1.6129073 Meanwhile, a list of supplemental roads and rural secondary highways in Kentuck (3000-3499) is encyclopedia-worthy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kentucky_supplemental_...
How is this statistical problem (which I’m prepared to acknowledge) an actual barrier preventing you from improving any given article?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wikipedia has more process (and is by most measures, more important and successful) than most software most people work on so I'm not sure tips from software engineering is what they are missing.
Are you saying that Wikipedia doesn't need to innovate and just leave their organization as it is? I follow Wikipedia since its inception and it seems part of its processes, as in major organizations, amplifies bureaucracy more than process innovation. Any organization is not only their throughput but their processes, including resources as humans.
Wikipedia is probably the single most successful human knowledge project of the last 100 years. It sounds crazy saying that out loud! Maybe it's not true! But that it's even a colorable argument speaks to how little software engineers have to contribute to its fundamental direction. It's not about us.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is this statistical problem (which I’m prepared to acknowledge) an actual barrier preventing you from improving any given article?
Because I'm not going to put in the work just to see it deleted by zealous editors.
Wikipedia editors are not out there to suppress women— The fact that this de facto happens is more likely a reflection of systemic social issues.