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25 Years of Wikipedia

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Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#261

Post by mettamage »

jbki wrote: post #203
20k wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I want to look something up, I always check out wikipedia first. Its not always accurate, but its invariably a lot more accurate on most topics than random information across the web. Its also pretty easy to spot bad quality wiki articles once you get the gist of the site Its amazing that wikipedia exists - there've been multiple hardcore attempts to kill it over the years for profit, but its still managing to go

Wikipedia is often the last on my goto resources to consult. The information is huge, but writing quality or style often irks me more than I can stand. I I always check Britannica first. If it's not there, then I move on.

Hmm, I think this is an area where LLMs can be quite useful to make a wikipedia article more approachable.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#262

Post by dlubarov »

reddalo wrote: post #59
amiga386 wrote: post #19

https://wikipedia25.org/en/the-first-day > Founder Jimbo Wales on a challenge overcome Aren't you forgetting someone, Jimmy? Your co-founder Larry Sanger, perhaps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger Let's check one of the citations from the History of Wikipedia page: https://www.mid-day.com/lifestyle/health-and-fitness/article... > It was Larry Sanger who chanced upon the critical concept of combining the thr…

>He may not be with the project now, but don't airbrush him out of history. I don't want to defend Jimbo Wales (he's very touchy about the subject), but to be honest, even if he's a founder, Larry Sanger didn't contribute much to what Wikipedia today is.

Larry Singer was essentially running Wikipedia in the early days though, until he was laid off, so in some sense we could think of him as a co-founder who was ousted. It's true that he didn't contribute much (as an unpaid volunteer) after that though.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#264

Post by dpark »

johnisgood wrote: post #174
tchasnyk wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

looks like interviewer asks question not in a good faith

It is a fair question, IMO. His reaction was childish.

After watching this I kind of disagree. Wales said he didn’t care multiple times. Calling it the “dumbest question” is childish, yes. Walking out of an interview that was going nowhere is not childish.

I personally think writing Sanger out of Wikipedia history (as in this 25 year celebration montage thing) is quite lame. But I also think pressing Wales on this when he says “you can say whatever you want” is also quite lame. No one is obligated to sit with an interviewer while the interviewer tries to pick a fight.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#265

Post by streaming »

observationist wrote: post #46

[flagged]

Grokipedia is impressive. All edits to the original Wikipedia article are shown, along with source links for the edit. All anyone has to do is to look at a wikipedia article and the Grokipedia article side by side to see that Grok is usually able to make significant improvements to articles, adding important context, improving explanations and removing bias. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. If you haven't tried it because of a hatred of Elon Musk... well... who's the biased one?

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#266

Post by dpark »

rvnx wrote: post #50
xemoka wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. Wow. I had no idea Jimmy Wales was like that. Enlightening.

Wikipedia is literally a spin-off of a porn company. From that point on, where it came from or who founded it is not so important. The question is how it acts today. It is a highly-political organization supporting lot of “progressive” ideas, California-style. So if you like reading politically biased media it may be for you. If you are seeking for a global view you better ask different LLMs for arguments and counter…

> Wikipedia is literally a spin-off of a porn company.

What? If Bomis was a porn company then Reddit is a porn company.

Edit: I take it back. It looks like Bomis was more directly pushing soft core porn than I realized.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#267

Post by ljsprague »

gwbas1c wrote: post #123
mr_mitm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very touchy subject for Wales. It caused him to walk out of an interview after 48 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uswRbWyt_pg

Without context, it looks like the interviewer was a jerk and ambushed him. I've seen plenty of stalling like that on major news programs, and the interviewer always knows to move on (and possibly edit something in to provide context.) --- That being said, "who started what" and "who had what idea" are silly topics to obsesses about. It always come down to who put the long-term work in. I think Wales was "in the righ…

I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask "who had what idea".

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#268

Post by layer8 »

johnisgood wrote: post #258
jbki wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

What about https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond ?

The introductory paragraph in Simple English is: 'A diamond (from the ancient Greek αδάμας – adámas "unbreakable") is a re-arrangement of carbon atoms (those are called allotropes).' Seriously?

Compare with the Britannica one: 'diamond, a mineral composed of pure carbon. It is the hardest naturally occurring substance known; it is also the most popular gemstone. Because of their extreme hardness, diamonds have a number of important industrial applications.'

Britannica concisely summarizes the basic knowledge about diamonds in an easy-to-read short paragraph.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#269

Post by FiveOhThree »

beloch wrote: post #260
FiveOhThree wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also not American so I'm not well-versed in this topic, but perhaps to raise the obvious: Does Wikipedia really need a page running for thousands of words on Musk allegedly making a Nazi salute? It's longer than some of the content on major historical figures, yet this is a subject that I'd be surprised to see mentioned again after a few years have passed. Considering that the subject matter is highly sensitive a…

It shows a recency bias, which is probably unavoidable. I'd hope that, as time passes, there are mechanisms to archive (not delete!) pages that seem unimportant. However, while this level of coverage may present a noise problem for average users, it will be a gift to future historians. How much material about the historical figures you mention was simply lost? That being said, there should be absolutely no regard for…

To my view it looks more like an attempt to inflate a minor controversy by excessively documenting it. If this much effort were being put into writing about government policy I'd totally agree with you, but this level of detail is uncharacteristic even for Wikipedia.

> That being said, there should be absolutely no regard for "sensitivity" or the fact that Musk is a living person

Wikipedia always had particularly strong rules about how living persons are supposed to be covered. I wouldn't agree with making exceptions just because I dislike a powerful individual.

In terms of leaving the page up: I don't expect Wikipedia to be censored, but looking at this page the content unavoidably comes across as something that'd only merit a couple of lines on the main article. Instead you have a literal essay just to record "those aligned with the left believe that Musk made a Nazi salute, those aligned with the right say that he didn't".

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#270

Post by frereubu »

lostlogin wrote: post #215
jbki wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is often the last on my goto resources to consult. The information is huge, but writing quality or style often irks me more than I can stand. I I always check Britannica first. If it's not there, then I move on.

Does this relate to a particular domain or field? I find it so good, and on the rare occasion I’ve found something wrong, I’ve fixed it.

While studying a neuroscience-adjacent MSc at UCL in London during the mid-2010s, senior academics would regularly recommend Wikipedia as an excellent primer for neuroanatomy. They wouldn't do it for people on actual neuroscience courses, who needed to know things in more detail, but they were very complimentary about the accuracy of the information on there.
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