Live data from Hacker News

Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

katamari64.se

141–150 of 441 posts

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#141
Get together and fork (or make your own) Wikipedia.

Seriously. Wikipedia seems very good at providing detailed, accurate, concise facts of well-known, non-controversial topics. It’s by far the best in this area. Unfortunately (perhaps as a sacrifice for this competence) it sets a high and inconsistent bar for “well-known” and has a specific bias in controversial topics*.

On the other end of the spectrum, search engines and ChatGPT are basically encyclopedias covering everything, and can give you multiple perspectives, but sometimes at the cost of accuracy and quality. Typing “Odin language” into any search engine that isn’t complete trash yields as the first result Odin’s website, which is a better resource to learn about Odin than any Wikipedia article.

If you want a middle ground, make one. It’s probably hard, evidenced by Grokopedia not being cited or used much to my knowledge (and having embarrassing AI hallucinations at least on launch). But Wikipedia seems to have locked into its current form, for better or worse (IMO better as long as it retains quality articles for well-known, non-controversial topics).

* To be clear, any article on a controversial topic that doesn’t provide multiple perspectives is biased, and those that do are also biased but now in multiple directions. Still, I get the impression that in Wikipedia there’s only one bias direction in all articles

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#142
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not more obscure than Brainfuck.

What? Brainfuck is the single least obscure esoteric programming language. It's the most famous example of a simple Turing complete language and its provocative name gets it a fair amount of media coverage outside its niche.

Could you use it in production?

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#143
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Brainfuck is the single least obscure esoteric programming language. It's the most famous example of a simple Turing complete language and its provocative name gets it a fair amount of media coverage outside its niche.

Could you use it in production?

From Cambridge dictionary:

obscure (adjective)

not known to many people:

- an obscure island in the Pacific

- an obscure 12th-century mystic

Why does its use in production matter? Perhaps the syntax itself is obscure, but we're not discussing syntax but general awareness. Anyway, the most common "real" use of brainfuck is to prove Turing completeness of other things by finding a way to compile them into brainfuck.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#144
>There are two ways one can "figure out a person" who rarely states their beliefs explicitly, specifically a public figure:

>You can infer from their descriptions and prescriptions about things—that's slow, takes times, but it will give you the most accurate image to the extent of the public information. See who they follow on Twitter.

This feels like an appeal to tribalism against Bill.

My politics are left-leaning and I sponsor Bill/Odin. I even cancelled several subscriptions to donate more monthly. I dislike the politicizing in this article as a means of deciding whether Bill's statements on Wikipedia are valid. Let his stated rhetoric be as it is written, and judge that. Bill may seem blunt, especially by his word online, but I have seen too much truly benevolent behavior from the guy in the Odin Discord server over the years not to believe he's a decent man. He's very patient with newcomers, has been inclusive to a diverse group of people in the server, and puts in a ton of work to help people focus on their needs/problems in their pursuit to becoming better programmers. The guy really cares, and has managed to attract a host of very reliable people who are uber helpful and knowledgeable. (Shoutout @Barinzaya)

If you haven't tried Odin, it's worth a close look. I believe it has an insane ratio of shipped, production software to popularity for a reason. The language works. There are a lot of ideas in it which point you toward great productivity. It feels like a "common C." C is hard to collaborate with for rich GUI applications. C invites mess in the absence of very strong principles and habits, but having formed those makes for notoriously opinionated programmers. I see Odin as a language which allows "people who like C" to work together. I happen to like it more than the more popular stuff. A lot more. I'd rather use Rust if lives were at stake, but Zig is too much friction for me to still end up with an unsafe program. Odin feels just right.

Whether Odin belongs on Wikipedia or not; it's inarguably popular for a programming language. You have to understand there are tens of thousands of languages, and hundreds created each year... maybe thousands more. You'd probably be irked by Wikipedia as well if you were in his position. Maybe even provoked to say some things which are highly critical of it. Personally, I think Wikipedia is a decent historical encyclopedia, but it's not at all good at "pop culture" and that's what we're talking about.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#145

Get together and fork (or make your own) Wikipedia. Seriously. Wikipedia seems very good at providing detailed, accurate, concise facts of well-known, non-controversial topics. It’s by far the best in this area. Unfortunately (perhaps as a sacrifice for this competence) it sets a high and inconsistent bar for “well-known” and has a specific bias in controversial topics*. On the other end of the spectrum, search engin…

Its a good reminder that all wikipedia software is GPL, and the article content is CC-BY-SA. Anyone who thinks they can do better has the right to fork.

Most of Wikipedia's rules are there for a reason, and i suspect people who fork would find out why the hard way, but hey, only one way to find out.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#146

Wikipedia seems stuck in an antiquated worldview where things like traditionally-published books with second- or third-hand reports of what happened, and which are frequently incomplete or wholly inaccurate, are nonetheless considered more authoritative than primary sources you can find with a ten-second Google search. So much this. Wikipedia's processes and policies are - in ways - an outdated and archaic relic of a…

I was researching a public company the other day and I open their Wikipedia page: deleted. I get it, probably it had been massaged by their PR department. But deleting the article punishes the readers by removing the very space for critical discussion of a topic with good SEO. Now if you want information on this company you will likely end up on their website, it seems like a reward to me.

Not if the perception of Wikipedia is „truthful“ and „reliable“.

I’m saying neither, but in that case the article on Wikipedia puts weight behind the statements on the webpage.

I do see your argument: „But it would be adjusted to reflect the truth about it“. Honestly I don’t know enough about Wikipedia to agree or deny it. But given the amount of articles on it, i would lean in the direction that the motivation of a single few would win over the curators. Which means applying a vector that cannot be influenced by those few.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#147
post #128
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone considers rust a c competitor. Its literally replacing c in the linux kernel.

I wonder whether the "replacing c in the linux kernel" is not more wishful thinking by Rust enthusiasts. As of know it has less than 1% and less than bash.

Linux kernel project stuck at C89 and refused move to c++ or even a C standard upgrade for decades. Move to C11 (a 15 year old standard) was done just a few years ago.

The fact that rust has been even accepted into the kernel is a resounding endorsement.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#148
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should be persuasive is a simple logical inference from the statements made to my conclusion. From the article: > If you are terminally online on programming circles, you most likely have heard of Odin, it's so obvious that I don't feel like I have to make a case at all. It has been covered by the streamer Primeagen and it's used commercially by JangaFX, that's pretty notable to me. If you are active in discussi…

No it's an indication that notoriety in Discord servers isn't a basis for relevance in an encyclopedia. Which is a good choice. A streamer mentioned a language? Wikipedia isn't Twitter. As a reader thank god not everything that has grabbed the attention of social media gets an article.

Why wouldn't you want to have an article about a programming language that is currently used in production by someone? Are there any downsides to this?

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've almost got it, except: > Wikipedia has a bunch of languages that were used by like one person, because there is published material on them No. It's more like, there are plenty of articles on Wikipedia that don't meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines AT ALL, but when you write an article on Wikipedia and enough time passes without anyone noticing that the article is poorly sourced, then eventually the tendency…

Seems like Wikipedia sucks at enforcing its policy from what I am reading? There has to be a better way to do this at that scale than just "oh we forgot to notice it and now its too awkward to remove it"? Maybe i am missing something idk

[dead]

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#150
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened to me back in college. I authored a couple pages for some bands that I was in to, probably spent weeks pulling together history, lineup, albums, eps, etc. only to have them deleted unceremoniously with no recourse. That was my first and last attempt to contribute to wikipedia.

Same, I understand the editors/admins can't be experts on every topic but just because THEY don't think something is notable doesn't mean most people don't either.

In general, it should be clear from the article if the subject is notable. Admins don't have to be an expert, they just have to read the article.

Notable is not the same as popular.

Post reply on HN