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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

#801
post #543
post #495

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The BBC isn’t propaganda. It has its biases for sure, but it doesn’t exist for the purpose of spreading a particular viewpoint. It’s good to be aware of media bias, but it’s reductive and cynical to view all media as propaganda.

> The BBC isn’t propaganda. It has its biases for sure, but it doesn’t exist for the purpose of spreading a particular viewpoint. If it isn't pushing a British viewpoint, wouldn't it be incumbent on the British government to shut it down? Why would they be funding something that was pushing viewpoints that undermined Britain? This is simple incentive analysis stuff, this organisation isn't being funded for billions o…

one step removed from the people who invented espionage

Some temporal and geographic myopia going on here.

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

#802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Heritage Foundation has been open about their desire to strip Wikipedians of anonymity, this is just the government putting that plan into practice: https://slate.com/technology/2025/02/wikipedia-project-2025-...

Their entry on Wikipedia is well worth a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation Kind of explains a lot in the balancing act in Trumps rise to power while trying to look like a marionette for various interests this term. They should remember Hitler's rebellion from his masters.

Trump is dumb and 80 though. But if he had been 40 and intelligent.

Vance is 40, I wonder how intelligent or not is he?

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

#803

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>Basically, almost any time Zionists are mentioned, they're mentioned in a negative light and with genuine disinformation, Your first statement is a sweeping generalization that you can't prove

I don't know if that statement is true or not, but it certainly seems like a specific enough statement that could be proved or disproved given enough effort.

Not an amount of effort in the realm of this discussion and that's all that matters

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

#804
post #576

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"given the scope you decide to choose" By changing the scope, you changed the effect. Unless you did every statistical validation here... Yeah. That reads exactly like data manipulation. t-distribution approaches standard normal distribution, when the degree of freedom increases. That's not something that anyone should ignore and give credit to. It's the same bullshit that Donald has repeatedly tried to do, to prove…

That’s not what the judge argued. He accused me of falsifying the document by doctoring it before printing. Which shows: - How much bad faith you have, assuming I argumented to a judge on a false hypothesis, - Condescension to assume that I’m not a scientist who masters p-values, - And ultimately, you confirm the hypothesis that you lead your research in bad faith, knowing full well the true level of violence from wo…

I'd really appreciate to hear about your research and where I could read about the violence. My Gmail username is the same as my HN username. Thank you!

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

#805
post #352

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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.

HN has degraded a little since I joined some years ago. It is still better than most of the online fora out there, but you can feel the change in the posts.

Let me help degrade it further by asking what the purpose of this comment is and then asking if outside changes, like Trump, would be a more likely explanation for the change in tone

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

#806
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've seen such bad editing lately. Basic grammar rules being missed/capitalization issues, personal opinions and hearsay cited as "fact", lack of references. Seemingly unrelated topics except in whoever made an edits eyes.

So yeah, you don't even have to be an expert. What's weird is that there IS a lot of edits by ideologues of many kind. And it doesn't have to be "foreign agents" and this Trump attack reeks so hard of yet another attempt at authoritarian control and NewSpeak. Biden gave in with the TikTok to Trumps initial games, and now it just feeds the game. We have to resist this sort of thing from below.

I wish people had a good "sniffer" for bullshit. I'm not saying I'm perfect (we all have our blind spots) but after a while you can tell when certain things are trying to put a spin on something... It's especially odious when it comes to national identities trying to put a spin or tie either themselves or their enemies to a particular view point. The worst part is it's not necessarily obvious, to a lot of people if you don't have the knowledge, or the ability to critique and ask questions.

So we need people to keep asking questions for sure, and sniffing out this sort of thing. But it has to not be "IN THE NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY" but rather "IN THE NAME OF OPEN KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL". Otherwise you just become a front or spokesthing for a given state, and that's no better than fucking Pravda.

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

#807

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>If the US wanted voting to be more popular, there would be a Federal Holiday to promote it. I agree but it doesn't actually matter. 97% can vote by mail, early, or another method besides election day according to this article https://www.cbsnews.com/news/map-early-voting-mail-ballot-st... >There is no incentive when there are known costs... is the result of the tyranny of indifference. What is the cause of the Indif…

Who said people are indifferent? They can still actively engage in civil life with a variety of actions that look more relevant and meaningful to them. If people are not given opportunity to actively engage in meaningful way like contributing to the creation of the laws they will have to follow, then sure they sooner than later they won't bother signing the blank check of void promises.

>Who said people are indifferent?

The person I replied to

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

#808

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stop. Voting is incredibly easy. Voting by mail is incredibly easy. Theres no reason you cant vote by mail. The reason people arent voting is because they dont want to/cant be assed

> stop No. > Voting by mail is incredibly easy. This missed the point entirely. This is about changing behavior and making it "easier" isn't the blocker. People often do not behave the way you expect them to due to simple socialization. Regardless of the specifics, making it more of a celebration (because that's how the vast majority of PTO is perceived) will make it seem like it's more important beyond the lipservic…

>making it more of a celebration

Then wouldn't people not want to spend hours waiting to vote if they could party?

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

#809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's a dispute and the person you're having a dispute with never materialises to argue their side of the argument, you're fine to just revert the banner.

How are people supposed to understand these hard to follow and shifting rules?

The base rules are actually not very complicated.

But any time you try to write them down, people will come along and interpret them to their own advantage, sometimes outright in the opposite direction. That's a people problem, to some extent, not purely a Wikipedia problem.

(BRD is my favorite pet-peeve)

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

#810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

stop. Voting is incredibly easy. Voting by mail is incredibly easy. Theres no reason you cant vote by mail. The reason people arent voting is because they dont want to/cant be assed

> stop No. > Voting by mail is incredibly easy. This missed the point entirely. This is about changing behavior and making it "easier" isn't the blocker. People often do not behave the way you expect them to due to simple socialization. Regardless of the specifics, making it more of a celebration (because that's how the vast majority of PTO is perceived) will make it seem like it's more important beyond the lipservic…

Voting for the sake of voting is a horrible idea. Voting as a celebration seems bad too. Voting is a privilege that has a lot of responsibility entwined and it is ok to bow out if you arent sure. Politics these days is fully maximizing for psychological tricks so I dont think theres any shame in feeling overwhelmed.

The issue with complaining about non existent problems is that it leads to everyone ignoring you. My issue with that is that when you hijack my political movement with this non issue now my movement is being ignored because of your dumb non issue. So basically Im ok with you feeling this way but dont hijack the democratic platform

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