Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming • Hacker News Board

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#221

Post by embedding-shape » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:10 AM UTC

stymaar wrote: post #181

lvoudour wrote: post #127

I have never been a wikipedia contributor (let alone a mod), but their points seem fair. Maybe not fair for the particular case, but fair for the general case. People who ridicule wikipedia policies should at least acknowledge that the modern internet is a very low trust society with millions of bad actors trying to push their agenda at the expense of others. And now with AI bots running amok the headache increases t…

Also, how are we supposed to know that JangaFX is a real company, and its CEO a real person? Creating fake companies and persona is not particularly high effort today, if that's all it takes for a pet project to be featured on Wikipedia, it's going to end up full of crap real quick.

How do you YCombinator is a real company unless you met pg? Look at it being well known with real useable products, might be something to try to look for...

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#222

Post by atiedebee » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:14 AM UTC

skotobaza wrote: post #200

vor_ wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the whole article, you'll understand the context and how its relates to Wikipedia. The fact GingerBill accuses Wikipedia of having a political bias against Odin when (spoilers) it was actually a "constitutional conservative" who triggered the deletion is amusing.

I don't see anyone (especially GingerBill) stating that article about Odin was deleted because of "political bias". The only thing I see is a general statement about Wikipedia being an "ideological playground". But I don't see that anyone thinks that people who removed the article were of the opposite views. The author makes the connection because of some Twitter accounts that GingerBill follows (and because of what…

Right before the statement in Wikipedia being an ideological playground:

> Our best hypothesis is quite simple: some of the mods just don't like Odin as a language and don't want it on Wikipedia as any form of "advertisement".

It doesn't directly say "political bias", but it certainly is implied (not as in national politics, more like ideological)

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#223

Post by atiedebee » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:27 AM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #80

I'm sure the Wikipedia mods have many great, valid reasons for deleting articles. Unfortunately for the ignorant masses, this has bad optics, since it looks like it runs counter to their goal of "cataloging all human knowledge".

But the goal isn't to catalogue all human knowledge. Having an article for every living person would be "cataloguing all human knowledge" but it would also be a meaningless endeavour. Some knowledge is worth preserving in an encyclopedia, other knowledge isn't. That is why they have their notability guidelines.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#224

Post by inigyou » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:33 AM UTC

atiedebee wrote: post #223

chaostheory wrote: post #80

I'm sure the Wikipedia mods have many great, valid reasons for deleting articles. Unfortunately for the ignorant masses, this has bad optics, since it looks like it runs counter to their goal of "cataloging all human knowledge".

But the goal isn't to catalogue all human knowledge. Having an article for every living person would be "cataloguing all human knowledge" but it would also be a meaningless endeavour. Some knowledge is worth preserving in an encyclopedia, other knowledge isn't. That is why they have their notability guidelines.

I've found myself running into this sort of trap a lot. When I do something I think about the data that will be created and how to preserve it, and sometimes this prevents me from ever doing the thing, while the reality is that any data generated is worthless anyway.

For example: if I move my email off Gmail, how to archive my YouTube notification emails? I worry about that and I just can't get myself to realize it's a non-problem and I can just delete them. There could be some historical value in an archive of YouTube notification emails over 20 years but (unfortunately for future historians studying YouTube) the weight of carrying those around us not worth the low expected value. Even though the reason I put them in their own folder was to declutter my inbox, not to archive them!

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#225

Post by notarobot123 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:36 AM UTC

amiga386 wrote: post #218

I am a terminally-online person, and I do program. I am not interested in neolanguages. This article is literally the first time I've heard of Odin (the language), and I only clicked it because I thought it was about the Norse god, not some invented language. There are various bounds for notability in Wikipedia, and no matter how much of a fan of the new thing you are, you are encouraged to root around for sources. H…

There is a fair question here (though presented with questionable integrity) about what notability means in programming languages. Especially for more recent and perhaps not widely used programming languages.

I have a particular interest in programming language design and, for what it's worth, I have heard of Odin. For someone like me, understanding different design decisions for languages that depart from mainstream languages is valuable. It isn't what academic journals are interested in and there are no notable publications for hobbyists or language design experts (that I know of).

Notability *is* worth questioning for a field like this since there isn't a clear signal outside of blog posts and user community discussion. There's no clear place where general discussions around program languages is happening to a reasonable level of depth and quality.

On that note - @dang I would love it if https://news.ycombinator.com/showlang continued to update. It was a cool resource for finding discussion on new programming language designs here on HN.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#226

Post by amiga386 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:38 AM UTC

shevy-java wrote: post #110

zarzavat wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed. I also noticed this myself. I understand that Wikipedia does not want corporate propaganda or other forms of propaganda, but whether a company exists or not at the time is an objective yes/no answer. It is probably more work to correct propaganda though, so articles are deleted. Would be better to simplify an article down to the bare bone instead, though, so I agree with you here.

That a company exists at all can be verified in business registries (e.g. Companies House in the UK). But clearly having a wikipedia page at all is a big positive signal for a company, it means that they are "known", the GP admitted they were searching to get that kind of understanding. So you can see why a company would want a wikipedia article, even if all it said was "Blahblahco is a enterprise software company headquartered in Bumfuck Nowhere, Alabama" and nothing else.

Hence why, to even be in wikipedia, the company has to be notable, otherwise every LLC and partnership would want to boost their reputation (while ruining wikipedia's): the barrier to entry is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(organiza...

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#227

Post by selectnull » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:47 AM UTC

amiga386 wrote: post #218

I am a terminally-online person, and I do program. I am not interested in neolanguages. This article is literally the first time I've heard of Odin (the language), and I only clicked it because I thought it was about the Norse god, not some invented language. There are various bounds for notability in Wikipedia, and no matter how much of a fan of the new thing you are, you are encouraged to root around for sources. H…

Well, you're one of today's lucky 10000.

https://xkcd.com/1053/

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#228

Post by cygx » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:02 AM UTC

rq1 wrote: post #219

willdr wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encyclopedias are not designed to report on pop culture. The entire nature of an encyclopedia is to be downstream of good secondary sources, ideally academic, and summarise what those good secondary sources have said about specific topics. Side note, it is very funny that the same people lamenting the state of Wikipedia seem to be desperate to have their topic included on it. If the site sucks, why care about it so m…

Because it’s supposedly open?

When open online spaces gain popularity, the threat of devolving into a cesspool of bigotry and misinformation rears its head. Sadly, moderation isn't optional.

But how do you moderate? Do you establish your own ministry of truth? Only allow contributors with a university email address (shoutout to the arXiv)?

Wikipedia decided to externalize part of the vetting process by placing formal restrictions on the sources you're allowed to collect information from.

Sadly, there currently aren't any such sources for Odin.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#229

Post by myko » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:04 AM UTC

amiga386 wrote: post #218

I am a terminally-online person, and I do program. I am not interested in neolanguages. This article is literally the first time I've heard of Odin (the language), and I only clicked it because I thought it was about the Norse god, not some invented language. There are various bounds for notability in Wikipedia, and no matter how much of a fan of the new thing you are, you are encouraged to root around for sources. H…

Odin isn't exactly obscure to be fair

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#230

Post by womble2 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:05 AM UTC

countWSS wrote: post #162

smitty1e wrote: post #7

Well, there's always https://grokipedia.com/page/Odin_programming_language

Don't know why you get downvoted, but this is how AI-based projects win over time: they don't randomly decide to delete valuable data. Grokipedia might be trash in terms of its quality, but at least it it doesn't have omnipresent moral busybodies loitering in to "purify" it from knowledge.

Of what use is an encyclopedia with "trash quality"?