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Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

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Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#341
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less than 30% of voter age Americans voted for this

The majority that did vote, voted for this. The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics education, there's no evidence that a higher participation rate would have changed the outcome.

Under fifty percent for what it’s worth. And there was a lot of disenfranchisement

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#342
post #324
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority that did vote, voted for this. The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics education, there's no evidence that a higher participation rate would have changed the outcome.

We regularly have 92% - 93% participation in federal elections here in Australia. Having one next weekend, and already record numbers of pre-poll votes.

Must be the sausages

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to its cofounder, Wikipedia abandoned truth long ago. https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/

What organizations, institutions, or media do you think have a greater commitment to truth, or even just a commitment to truth?

Organizations can't have commitments to truth. Only people can. And there is no mechanism that ensures that editors and admins have a commitment to truth.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>everything out of Russia by anyone is part of some secret global propaganda network. Who has claimed all Russians are part of a large propaganda network. This is about a government news network.

[flagged]

The US government is also framed the same way on HN, though I don't like this metrics gathering method.

Most discussions are of the war in Ukraine which also connects to US politics. It's going to be negative and treated extremely suspect because Putin is ex KGB, lied that he wouldn't invade, the war itself, and their influence in US elections.

This is about the Russian government though. If your argument is that it's wrong in these constraints then I disagree but your generalization is valid. My original comment was about Russia as a whole but I think I wrong to try to shift to that as it doesn't come up

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#345
post #213

I am going to say a thing I say a lot: please edit Wikipedia. It is easier to do than you probably think! Wikipedia's biggest constraint is no longer money or server space, it's editor time (especially since LLM-based garbage is a force multiplier on disruptive editing that does not have a corresponding improvement to good-faith editing). Any topic area you know about and/or care about can benefit from your attention…

I created a page, it got declined because the guy who two films have been made about didn't count as important enough. I kind of get it, but still, did kill the energy slightly.

If you care about a topic and want to edit Wikipedia but do not want to deal with the process, you can simply talk about what you want to change on the discussion page. Is there an equivalent workaround when it comes to creating new pages?

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#346

Remember as you read more and more news like this that many of the owners of Y Combinator supported this.

The only YC figure who espouses any position on U.S. federal politics is Paul Graham, who loudly campaigns against the current administration almost every day on Twitter.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#347
post #69

> Before being named U.S. attorney, Martin appeared on Russia-backed media networks more than 150 times, The Washington Post reported last week. In one appearance on RT in 2022, he said there was no evidence of military buildup on Ukraine’s boarders only nine days before Russia invaded the country. He further criticized U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia security concerns. This is getting ridiculous.…

Yeah, everything about this administration makes perfect sense if we assume that Trump is a Russian asset. Of course billionaires like Thiel and Musk have their say as well.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see America sell weapons to Russia, and provide them military support in the future when they launch their next invasion.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#348
post #324
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority that did vote, voted for this. The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics education, there's no evidence that a higher participation rate would have changed the outcome.

We regularly have 92% - 93% participation in federal elections here in Australia. Having one next weekend, and already record numbers of pre-poll votes.

It’s almost like elections are held on Saturdays and participation is compulsory.

Almost…

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#349
post #87

The English Wikipedia is a massive target for influence campaigns. I don't think there are any other communities as resilient as it. Just an example: There's certain individual or group that edited under the name "Icewhiz", was banned, and now operates endless sockpuppet accounts in the topic area to influence Wikipedia's coverage on the Middle East. One of them was an account named "Eostrix", that spent years making…

Did you read this post? https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik...

[deleted]

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#350
post #213

I am going to say a thing I say a lot: please edit Wikipedia. It is easier to do than you probably think! Wikipedia's biggest constraint is no longer money or server space, it's editor time (especially since LLM-based garbage is a force multiplier on disruptive editing that does not have a corresponding improvement to good-faith editing). Any topic area you know about and/or care about can benefit from your attention…

I have in the past, but three things put me off doing so now; Pages where I can spot inconsistencies are often controversial, with long dense discussion pages, edits here are almost impossible beyond trivial details. I dont mind fixing trivia, but not if the actual improvement I think I can make is rejected. There is a bit of a deletionist crusade to keep some topics small, for example, Ive had interesting trivia abo…

I've also edited random things in the past. Like inaccuracies in Comp.Sci. topics.

I used to like Wikipedia but I'm changing my mind. One thing amongst many others was seeing some company that competed with the startup I worked in basically introduce marketing material into the site. It just feels like it's too big and there are too many interests that want to distort things. I was surprised to see some article recently removed effectively rewriting history and directing to some alternative version. I just checked again and it's been restored but it just seems like the wild west.

I'd need some serious convincing to restore my trust in it. There are still some good technical/science articles I guess. It kind of sucks that instead of getting more reliable information on the Internet we're trending towards not being to trust anything. It's not clear how we fix this since reliability can not be equal to popularity.

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