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Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

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Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#131

Post by The_Colonel »

Loughla wrote: post #117
tux3 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia has a similar problem to Stackoverflow, though nowhere near as bad, where the active community members really care about rules and have a whole established process and tooling for efficiently dealing with new contributions that don't necessarily meet that bar. It all sounds utterly reasonable from the point of view of the community, who is most exposed to very low-quality content, spam, and vandalism. But n…

The problem with this, with Wikipedia specifically is the good faith part. It isn't adherence to strict rules that is the problem. It's the massively toxic little kingdoms that have become established among power users/moderators. Like it or don't. Them is the facts.

> It's the massively toxic little kingdoms that have become established among power users/moderators.

I wonder how a distributed architecture where each king operates its own kingdom is going to help with this problem.

(And yes, it is a problem, but also essentially a part of human nature. You can't fix it, only mitigate it)

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#132

Post by The_Colonel »

account42 wrote: post #111
matt_heimer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think AARoads might be a good example. https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/wikipedia-road-highway-... To me the main argument for decentralized wikis is when a community wants to capture deep subject focused knowledge. It's why I created https://wiki.osdev.org . Wikipedia is great but at it's core it will always be an Encyclopedia with a large breadth of knowledge. Specialization in a field is best handled elsewhe…

Wikipedia's notability requirements in particular are quite arbitrary. It doesn't make sens for an online encyclopedia that isn't limited by physical space restrictions to not document everything . If you must, layer curation of what is notable on top of that.

There are many practical reasons to limit the scope:

* keeping at least minimum quality standards

* avoiding abuse by storing your files disguised as some "knowledge". At some scale the organization is not able to check even for a trivial instance of abuse.

* abuse legal problems by publishing illegal content (again, nobody will be able to do even basic checks if there's no limit)

* if anything goes, you get limited by physical needs like storage

> If you must, layer curation of what is notable on top of that.

Wikipedia is the curation. Store the non-curated data elsewhere.

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#133

Post by tux3 »

account42 wrote: post #111
matt_heimer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think AARoads might be a good example. https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/wikipedia-road-highway-... To me the main argument for decentralized wikis is when a community wants to capture deep subject focused knowledge. It's why I created https://wiki.osdev.org . Wikipedia is great but at it's core it will always be an Encyclopedia with a large breadth of knowledge. Specialization in a field is best handled elsewhe…

Wikipedia's notability requirements in particular are quite arbitrary. It doesn't make sens for an online encyclopedia that isn't limited by physical space restrictions to not document everything . If you must, layer curation of what is notable on top of that.

The main concern Wikipedia has with notability is that if you don't have reputable secondary source writing about the topic, then you won't have references for any claims in the article. People just starting adding things that they know, or that "everyone knows".

When people disagree about content, Wikipedia always falls back to just reflecting what reliable sources says. And if they disagree, people can always collaborate to try to give due weight to both viewpoints.

But if there are no reputable sources that have already written about the subject, articles risk becoming someone's personal blog about their favorite topic. The notability criteria isn't a bar about what's important enough or 'deserves' a Wikipedia page, it's a super practical matter about verifiability, content disputes, and generally just being on solid ground if any claim is challenged.

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#134

Post by the_biot »

chris_wot wrote: post #63
bawolff wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems mentioned aren't even real problems: - jimbo making CoI edits. He got caught, and edits were reviewed for appropriateness. System worked as it was supposed to - college drop out on arbcom (for those not in the know, arbcom is kind of like an internal court to solve user disputes. They are not allowed to solve content disputes or say what an article should say, only user behaviour problems). How is that a…

There are now hundreds, if not thousands, of decent editors who have stopped contributing due to toxic, non-productive people. This could be a way for them to continue contributing in a less toxic environment. The problem with Wikipedia is not consumption of content, but the contribution of content.

> There are now hundreds, if not thousands, of decent editors who have stopped contributing due to toxic, non-productive people.

While this is likely true (though not quantifiable), I would add there is also a pattern I've seen play out where somebody gets really into Wikipedia, starts stablishing turf on some subject, goes a little power mad, then gets knocked back by rules designed to keep such people out of power. Said editor then leaves Wikipedia in a huff, and a prolific contributor is lost -- but it's broadly a good thing.

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#135

Post by bdjsiqoocwk »

account42 wrote: post #125
bdjsiqoocwk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care. As a consumer, I don't care how they do it, what I care is they have an infinite amount of high quality information.

These things are not unrelated.

If the editing being toxic and the quality to the end user being great are not unrelated, then I want the editing to be toxic.

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#136

Post by nequo »

joquarky wrote: post #129
Chris2048 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not moderating the moderators for their moderation is a lack of moderation.

Perhaps Slashdot had the right idea.

I had to look this up. I think you’re referring to metamoderation where users rate the ratings of comments:

https://slashdot.org/faq/mod-metamod.shtml

Sounds like a great idea, I wonder why it hasn’t been adopted by other websites. Do you know if it had downsides for Slashdot?

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#137

Post by tiptup300 »

I've been wanting to do this exact thing for a couple months, not for any of what their talking about.

I ran a wiki for local music artists. I started it on an ancient version of mediawiki for use with an ancient extension that wasn't even used, so overall bad idea. It no longer works on a modern version of php so I'm having a lot of trouble getting it back up.

But on that same note, a federation of local wikis, like for small towns/cities, artists that sort of thing, I think would be very cool.

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#138

Post by observationist »

npteljes wrote: post #116
agumonkey wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if this has a name, it's a common reflex that pops up regularly, and yeah most of the time nothing comes out of it.

Dunning–Kruger effect might have something to do with it. People spotting issue in an established project, having an idea about how to improve it, but no actual experience in running such projects or even knowing the history and context of the established project. And the lack of this knowledge helping to overestimate their ability and perceived chance of success.

If someone has staked a claim over an article, regardless of its factual accuracy, it's almost impossible to fix problems. Look at any politicians, celebrities, topics that are contentious in the public sphere, and you'll find control over the topic has been taken. There is no sane recourse - you can find endless examples of years long discussions as people who know what they're talking about battle it out with empty headed wiki editors who simply want the clout, or don't know the first thing about rational discourse and insist on their weird, distorted views of reality.

Wikipedia could be made much less political, much more open, and given some mechanism by which consensus could be achieved without having to fight with tin pot tyrants in control of a wiki page.

Wikipedia mostly works, but there are parts of the tech and processes that are unnecessary, counterproductive, and fundamentally political.

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#139

Post by pgeorgi »

tiptup300 wrote: post #137

I've been wanting to do this exact thing for a couple months, not for any of what their talking about. I ran a wiki for local music artists. I started it on an ancient version of mediawiki for use with an ancient extension that wasn't even used, so overall bad idea. It no longer works on a modern version of php so I'm having a lot of trouble getting it back up. But on that same note, a federation of local wikis, like…

The idea of federating wikis is pretty old: https://www.dokuwiki.org/interwiki
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