Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 1001 posts

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

#351

Post by clipsy »

nailer wrote: post #251
clipsy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you bothered to do any sort of comparison as to how similar attacks are reported? At a quick glance, I see nothing on George W Bush's wiki page[0] about the 2002 consulate attack in Kolkata[1], for example. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_attack_on_American_cultur...

How is that remotely similar? There was not a scandal implicating George Bush regarding the Kolkhata attack.

What scandal implicated Obama in the Benghazi attack? Be precise.

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

#352

Post by YZF »

Braxton1980 wrote: post #305
addandsubtract wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In before this thread is also flagged for being "political".

There's a post that the FBI arrested a judge who helped an illegal immigrant avoid capture during a court proceeding. 900+ upvotes - it has nothing to do with tech - it's about a hot button political issue - it helps the Republican cause. Not flagged

I'm just curious why you think it helps the Republican cause? When I saw this reported in the media my feel was this is something Democrats are going to latch on to demonstrate the government is seeking to intimidate the judicial branch.

I guess it can have different interpretation.

Either way I'd really prefer not to see this stuff on Hacker News. We have enough things that push people buttons in other places.

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

#353

Post by thaumasiotes »

sedev wrote: 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…

> please edit Wikipedia. It is easier to do than you probably think!

Last time I tried to do that, I flagged a citation that went to a book saying the opposite of what wikipedia was citing it in support of as "failed verification".

This attracted the attention of an editor, who showed up to revert my flag, explaining that as long as the book exists, that's good enough.

Wikipedia could improve noticeably by just preventing the existing editors from making edits.

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

#354

Post by nailer »

clipsy wrote: post #351
nailer wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that remotely similar? There was not a scandal implicating George Bush regarding the Kolkhata attack.

What scandal implicated Obama in the Benghazi attack? Be precise.

I have trouble believing anyone with the remotest knowledge of US politics is unaware of the scandal, but https://www.britannica.com/event/2012-Benghazi-attacks . 'Reactions and investigation' has the information you apparently missed all these years.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204712904578090... - "What we now know—and still don't—about President Obama's 9/11." is pretty good too.

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

#355

Post by eVeechu7 »

alephnan wrote: post #336
foogazi wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One time sure, 150+ on the Russia propaganda network ? I’m drawing my own adult conclusions about it: “The friend of my enemy is my enemy”

That’s not how foreign policy and international politics work. Every country would be enemies with every other country in that case. All the pro-Palestinian anti-Israel country would be enemies of the US then, including Japan. You’d be supporting Trump’s tariffs and anti-China us or them stance then towards every country that has friendly business relations with China, which is everybody at this point. Heck, even Tai…

Comparing the choices of individuals with foreign diplomacy is specious. It is much harder for countries to have principles than individuals.

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

#356

Post by bawolff »

YZF wrote: post #350
flask_manager wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 recen…

> 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.

In fairness, this does mean the system is working.

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

#357

Post by bawolff »

strogonoff wrote: post #345
moritonal wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I suppose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creatio... is the closest equivalent but not really the same thing.

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

#358

Post by sedev »

strogonoff wrote: post #345
moritonal wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You can create a page as an anonymous user. The content and subject is much, more more important than the fact of being created as an anonymous user. If that's the process you want to avoid, there's also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creatio... but that one is more geared towards people who are already engaged with Wikipedia. An outsider saying "well, someone, but not me, should do something about this problem," is just as welcome on Wikipedia as it is anywhere else.

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

#359

Post by alephnan »

eVeechu7 wrote: post #355
alephnan wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how foreign policy and international politics work. Every country would be enemies with every other country in that case. All the pro-Palestinian anti-Israel country would be enemies of the US then, including Japan. You’d be supporting Trump’s tariffs and anti-China us or them stance then towards every country that has friendly business relations with China, which is everybody at this point. Heck, even Tai…

Comparing the choices of individuals with foreign diplomacy is specious. It is much harder for countries to have principles than individuals.

The same can be said of boardroom politics and board of directors. Or investment circles such as tech venture capital

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

#360

Post by hayst4ck »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #343
hayst4ck wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OK, I can't argue with that. Timothy Snyder might make a similar correction, "markets can't be free, only people participating in the market can be free" is something he says frequently.

If only people can have commitments to truth, which organization, institution, or media do you think has a leader that seems to have a commitment to truth, especially truth in their institution? Who is our gold standard of "as good as it gets"?

Post reply on HN