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

Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 389 posts

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#101

Post by setsewerd »

afh1 wrote: post #88

I hope it collapses, the Foundation has long cared more about begging for money while sitting on millions, paying for unrelated events, than for the well being of its site editors - even before recent news, it offered zero protection or aid against constant legal threats, for example. And most editors care more about politics than facts, the political bias on Wikipedia is ever increasing. Or at least was, since I hav…

I haven't formed an opinion yet, but tangentially, since you hope for the collapse of these orgs, what do you propose we do to incentivize higher quality information sources online?

Wikipedia isn't perfect by any means and I don't read it as often as I used to, but it's still a wealth of information for a huge depth of knowledge, and gets updated regularly by people invested in the topic. So if all these info sources start collapsing when people turn to AI, at a certain point our data sources get stale. And as of right now I don't see what system is replacing that.

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#103

Post by amandare »

SkinTaco wrote: post #86
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #74

I spent ~2 years actively editing Wikipedia for multiple hours every day. I remember taking my laptop out at airports for 20 minutes between transfers, just to tweak an article or improve a source. While I originally started because I found some articles lackluster, I quickly realized how vigorous the editing process could be on controversial topics. For what simple HTML you see on the surface, you would be absolutel…

[flagged]

I'm not seeing what's biased about Donald Trump's article?

It's all accurate info citing legal cases where he was literally convicted of things. A president being convicted of the things he's been convicted of is the story. Not mentioning it in the intro and elsewhere would be biased.

Your issue seems to be not with "bias" but with how topicality of Donald Trump's actions require them to be prominent within an encyclopedia entry. Which has nothing to do with bias of the editors.

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#104

Post by stogot »

dgacmu wrote: post #99
SkinTaco wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It is sometimes said that reality has a liberal bias. But it is literally the case that historians rank these two presidents at nearly opposite ends of the spectrum, and the article's tone seems to reflect that. Which isn't really an example of bias in Wikipedia - it is supposed to reflect what reliable sources say.

OP’s chosen example was terrible. I’d agree with the premise, based anecdotoly but what a terrible selection of articles to prove a point. Better to link the discussion articles where the editors actively slant the articles

People become more conservative as they age, so maybe the reality quote is about the young and the young edit Wikipedia more

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#105

Post by snvzz »

SkinTaco wrote: post #86
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #74

I spent ~2 years actively editing Wikipedia for multiple hours every day. I remember taking my laptop out at airports for 20 minutes between transfers, just to tweak an article or improve a source. While I originally started because I found some articles lackluster, I quickly realized how vigorous the editing process could be on controversial topics. For what simple HTML you see on the surface, you would be absolutel…

[flagged]

If you think these are biased, have a load of this one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate

https://grokipedia.com/page/Gamergate

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#106

Post by 20after4 »

SkinTaco wrote: post #86
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote: post #74

I spent ~2 years actively editing Wikipedia for multiple hours every day. I remember taking my laptop out at airports for 20 minutes between transfers, just to tweak an article or improve a source. While I originally started because I found some articles lackluster, I quickly realized how vigorous the editing process could be on controversial topics. For what simple HTML you see on the surface, you would be absolutel…

[flagged]

Reality has a well known liberal bias¹ - Steven Colbert

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Reality_has_a_well_known_lib...

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#107

Post by coldtea »

No donated cent should be going to such "foundations" anymore. Projects like Wikipedia should be run strictly by volunteers and paid contributors with moderate pays. Not Wall Street people, big corporate execs, and lavish offices.

"Bernadette Meehan became CEO on January 20, 2026, recruited from a career that included Wall Street stints at J.P. Morgan and Lehman Brothers, a spokesperson role at the National Security Council, senior leadership at the Obama Foundation, and most recently a posting as U.S. Ambassador to Chile."

Fuck that.

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#108

Post by ryoshu »

SkinTaco wrote: post #92
jfengel wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that's bad, you should compare the pages for Genghis Khan and Mr. Rogers.

You should've checked those pages first, they're actually very neutral lol.

If Ghengis Khan was raping & pillaging in 2026 his Wikipedia article might have a more modern slant.

Re: Big tech's anti-labor playbook has come for Wikipedia

#109

Post by mmooss »

What is decisive is how the public responds, including the core public for this service here on HN:

Lots of people have objected to most Archive Today links because of their behavior. Will people insist on using other links besides Wikipedia? What will they post? (What would it take to fork and serve Wikipedia's content, without all the editing, etc. infrastructure?)

And will other organizations act? For example, search engines that default put Wikipedia results in infoboxes at the top? Will Mozilla and other non-profits say something?

Wikipedia is a public resource, not a private business, and even businesses bow to public pressure (recently, especially pressure from the right, but that's irrelevent here - the point is, it works). If we don't act, nobody will.

Post reply on HN