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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

#841

Post by fugalfervor »

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #713
mulmen wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physically more difficult. Purging voter rolls. Moving polling locations. Voter ID requirements. Restrictions on mail in ballots. Etc.

I willing to give you moving polling locations, but with that minor concession. Can you explain to me like I am 5 why those are bad things? For a simple person like myself, one would think, data accuracy, voting system integrity, and verifiability would be of use and value to everyone.

Voter ID laws disproportionately affect a very specific subset of the population, one that reliably skews in one direction on the political spectrum.

However, there is no evidence that voter ID laws reduce fraud, nor is there evidence that the absence of such laws introduces fraud.

Something like 90% of voter fraud is people making mistakes on their ballot, or not realizing they were not allowed to vote. Also, voter fraud is rare and elections are already very secure.

Introducing laws that don't affect the (already low) level of fraud, while making it harder for one party's voter base to vote, is not of use and value to everyone -- it is of use and value to the side that benefits from a reduction in the other side's votes.

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

#842

Post by zahlman »

teddyh wrote: post #814
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting how so many people are answering that they've had trouble! How about I look at some of those cases? Especially if it's relatively recent, I can take a look. Leave me a message here, or at my email address (see my HN info) , or on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kim_Bruning I'm not very active anymore, but I'll check in the next couple of days and see what I can do. Really to be able to help I gene…

> How about I look at some of those cases? Please note that, although there are scores of anecdotes in this thread, precisely none of them link to any examples or give enough details to find them. It’s always like this with Wikipedia detractors; I don’t know why, but it is. Complaints and horror stories galore, but nobody will link to any of it, preventing anybody from investigating what actually happened.

>although there are scores of anecdotes in this thread, precisely none of them link to any examples or give enough details to find them

In the past, when I've tried to keep receipts on this sort of thing (which requires an extraordinary amount of effort, and is often only possible if you've anticipated that there would be a need to do so - since content is often deleted or archived without warning, and nobody ever enters an argument on the Internet with the expectation of talking about that specific argument years later) and actually presented evidence, I've been accused being "creepy" or various other forms of misconduct, and the argument is still not taken any more seriously. I've given up on presenting evidence of this sort of thing because the people who ask for it are not being intellectually honest, in my extensive experience. They don't care if you can actually prove what you're saying; they will ignore you anyway.

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

#843

Post by shakna »

eastbound wrote: post #717
shakna wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

The p-value is useless, where the t-value does not hold substance. One depends upon the other. If there's too much of a degree of freedom, it doesn't matter if the p-value looks accurate. The data is probably no longer normally distributed, requiring non-parametric testing.

You've leapt to me being a researcher acting in bad faith, accusing me for a whole industry. As to defunding an entire field of research, it sounds like you'd like statistics or mathematics defunded? I'm afraid they will persist regardless. Too many industries depend upon them.

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

#844

Post by standardUser »

zahlman wrote: post #838
standardUser wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried using sources that aren't explicitly "conservative papers"? And if so, have you considered the lack of evidence found outside of overtly biased sources might indicate the position you are defending is not defensible outside of a strictly partisan perspective and worldview, and is buoyed only by other strictly partisan sources?

On many occasions, right-wing Internet acquaintances have given me a link to a story in a conservative news source; I would try to look up other coverage with a search engine, and I would find exclusively conservative sources discussing what happened, even though it was clearly verifiable fact that the the thing in question had in fact happened. During the Rittenhouse trial, I watched trial coverage live, then evalua…

You actually highlight the problem very well. Any group of people can make their own websites, publish their own papers, produce their own films, cross-refencing each other all along the way, thereby creating the illusion their their alternate reality, though largely fabricated, is as true as the real world we all live in. But it isn't. The "facts" within that sphere are only supported by other "facts" within that same sphere, and they fail to connect to the larger, long-standing and global web of data, research and opinion that are far more diverse, well-documented and debated. And by failing to connect, or only tenuously connecting, to the larger conversation they are rendered irrelevant, except for their use as a weapon towards personal or political ends.

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

#845

Post by krisoft »

kurtreed2 wrote: post #706
krisoft wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a survivorship bias in play here as we don't have a good other sample or more to compare to. It is not survivorship bias to point out that the survivor survived. > Even Google's Knol project, which was intended to be a Wikipedia competitor, faltered after a few years. Not “faltering after a few years” is part of “succesfully navigating that minefield”. If you fall out of the “race” no matter how good your p…

It is indeed a survivorship bias since we have no good other sample in the form of competitor to compare to, like how Pepsi is to Coca-Cola. Which part of my statement you find difficult to understand?

> Which part of my statement you find difficult to understand?

I understand your whole statement perfectly. It is just wrong. My understanding is not the problem here.

We are not comparing them to other samples. We say that out of the currently existing X they are the best.

Imagine a town with 3 bakeries. Lets call them A, B, and C. Bakery A gets shut down by the health deparment and B goes bankrupt. Then we can, rightfully and without survivorship bias, call C the best run bakery of the town. Because if you get shut down by the health department, or you go bankrupt then by definition you are not the best run bakery. (Obviously it is not a high praise with that kind of competitions, but they still are the best run bakery.)

Staying in the business is not some incidental part of “being the best run bakery”. It is a core component of it.

Imagine a marathon with 100 runners. Henry runs the fastest time, and 25 others do not finish. Some got lost, some had medical issues during the race. Is it survivorship bias to call Henry the fastest competitor in that race? Of course not. You need to finish the race to be even considered to be the fastest. Just because there are others who didn’t make it, doesn’t make him somehow not the fastest. Definietly doesn’t make calling him the fastest “survivorship bias”.

Finishing the race is a core component of “being the fastest finisher”.

Similarly in the case of wikipedia. If other similar sites stopped operating then they by definition did not “successfully navigated that minefield”. Their bakery is shut and they did not finish their marathon. That is the very definition of “not succesfully navigating that minefield”.

This is how rationalwiki defines survivorship bias: “Survivorship bias is a cognitive bias that occurs when focusing on entities that made it past a selection process, while overlooking those that didn't.”

We are not overlooking the failed attempts here. We are considering them.

Bakery A and B is worse run than C. And we know that because they got shut down.

The runners who did not finish the marathon are not faster than Henry. And we know that because they haven’t finished the marathon.

The abandoned community edited websites are worse at “successfully navigating that minefield” than the ones which are still operating. We know that because they are no longer operating. They were not overlooked.

What you are missing is that the “selection process” here is not some independent, and unrelated thing. The selection process is, at least in part, is what we are talking about. You cannot be considered the best run bakery unless you are running a bakery. You cannot be considered the fastest racer unless you finished the race. And your community edited website cannot be the one who most succesfully navigates a minefield unless you are navigating the minefield at all.

Please let me know if any of the above is unclear. Happy to go into details.

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

#846

Post by zahlman »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #788
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…

Interesting how so many people are answering that they've had trouble! How about I look at some of those cases? Especially if it's relatively recent, I can take a look. Leave me a message here, or at my email address (see my HN info) , or on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kim_Bruning I'm not very active anymore, but I'll check in the next couple of days and see what I can do. Really to be able to help I gene…

There are multiple entire websites out there criticizing Wikipedia and what they have to say tends to revolve around the editing process, specifically the social/cultural aspects. Have you attempted to research this yourself?

Are you familiar with what Larry Sanger himself had to say about the bias that has emerged in Wikipedia (https://unherd.com/newsroom/wikipedia-co-founder-i-no-longer...)?

e: another comment elsewhere on this post brought up another source: https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik... . I've read a bit of it and can generally endorse what's being said there. In particular, some specific usernames are cited and I recognize most of them, which in itself is telling. Other comments here suggested that Sanger's personal views are less than scientific, to say the least. I have not looked into this personally, but I don't think this in any way negates the argument about bias. (Nor is any political camp immune to pseudoscience.)

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

#847

Post by sokoloff »

klntsky wrote: post #408
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…

I don't want to contribute to this giant propaganda machine by making it more valuable. Structural problems must be fixed first. "If your solution consists of 'everyone should just X', you don't have a solution"

{{Citation needed}}

/s

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

#848

Post by zahlman »

standardUser wrote: post #844
zahlman wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On many occasions, right-wing Internet acquaintances have given me a link to a story in a conservative news source; I would try to look up other coverage with a search engine, and I would find exclusively conservative sources discussing what happened, even though it was clearly verifiable fact that the the thing in question had in fact happened. During the Rittenhouse trial, I watched trial coverage live, then evalua…

You actually highlight the problem very well. Any group of people can make their own websites, publish their own papers, produce their own films, cross-refencing each other all along the way, thereby creating the illusion their their alternate reality, though largely fabricated, is as true as the real world we all live in. But it isn't. The "facts" within that sphere are only supported by other "facts" within that sa…

The problem is that you tried to attribute this behaviour to conservative sources specifically, in order to rebuke someone else here, but in reality this is not a specific trait of conservative sources.

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

#849

Post by joshuamorton »

kurtreed2 wrote: post #128
jay_kyburz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really like to read some concrete examples.

As a start you can look at the following page. https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchWikipediaDie/wiki/scandals

I read through like half of those, and they generally paint a picture of Wikipedia acting well in regards to external controversy, or (mostly robustly) responding to manipulation attempts.

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

#850

Post by zahlman »

frob wrote: post #614
tomhow wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hi Tom. You're burning your credibility here fast as the new moderator. dang derived his respect as an admin from not getting into fights in the threads. It additonaly tarnishes your credibility as you're doing this in defense of your employer. You look like a rage-poster who has the same response copied and ready to go from thread to thread. Please take a moment to step back and examine if this is the image you want…

It is not "getting into fights", and does not "look like rage-posting", to politely correct a falsehood.
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