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Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

ibis.wiki

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Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#141

Post by boxed »

agumonkey wrote: post #95
npteljes wrote: post #88

"There are many problems with Wikipedia. Here is an example from 12 years ago! Did we forget to mention that Wikipedia is now twice as old?" Ridiculous article. Organizing a wiki effort, just to spite the original won't work, because that's not enough, and not the right kind of fuel to last for such an undertaking. I feel like these people have no idea what kind of effort is to run an organization, instead seeing the…

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.

I think it's universal among humans to see the flaw of existing systems and wanting to replace them and then are surprised at the following disaster. Communism, the French Revolution, Franco, the fall of the Roman Empire, every big software rewrite that failed spectacularly...

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#142

Post by sharkjacobs »

> The fact is that we can’t rely on any single website to hold the whole world’s knowledge, because it can be corrupted sooner or later. The only solution is a distributed architecture, with many smaller websites connecting with each other and sharing information.

This article doesn't even try to explain or convincingly make this argument, it just takes it as given.

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#143

Post by edgyquant »

sharkjacobs wrote: post #142

> The fact is that we can’t rely on any single website to hold the whole world’s knowledge, because it can be corrupted sooner or later. The only solution is a distributed architecture, with many smaller websites connecting with each other and sharing information. This article doesn't even try to explain or convincingly make this argument, it just takes it as given.

I mean, it is a given…

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#145

Post by [deleted] »

agumonkey wrote: post #95
npteljes wrote: post #88

"There are many problems with Wikipedia. Here is an example from 12 years ago! Did we forget to mention that Wikipedia is now twice as old?" Ridiculous article. Organizing a wiki effort, just to spite the original won't work, because that's not enough, and not the right kind of fuel to last for such an undertaking. I feel like these people have no idea what kind of effort is to run an organization, instead seeing the…

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.

[deleted]

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#146

Post by lenerdenator »

agumonkey wrote: post #95
npteljes wrote: post #88

"There are many problems with Wikipedia. Here is an example from 12 years ago! Did we forget to mention that Wikipedia is now twice as old?" Ridiculous article. Organizing a wiki effort, just to spite the original won't work, because that's not enough, and not the right kind of fuel to last for such an undertaking. I feel like these people have no idea what kind of effort is to run an organization, instead seeing the…

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.

The "Blackjack and Hookers" reflex, from Futurama when Bender gets thrown out of the amusement park on the Moon and says "I'll start my own theme park... with blackjack!... and hookers!... in fact, forget the park!"

EDIT: Basically that's how these projects turn out. Having a theme park was never the point; blackjack and hookers were the point. Having a federated Wikipedia alternative isn't the point; having an encyclopedia where you can push an insane description of a topic and present it as reality is the point. And really, that makes for a shitty encyclopedia. Shitty enough for it to disappear before doing damage to the shared sense of reality society needs? No, but still shitty.

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#147

Post by kirun »

nequo wrote: post #136
joquarky wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The problem is that if you get hit with hivemind moderation in M1, then you're likely to see it rated as fair in M2. This is encouraged by the "Troll" and "Flamebait" options which can be slapped on any dissenting opinion.

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#148

Post by hnbad »

agumonkey wrote: post #95
npteljes wrote: post #88

"There are many problems with Wikipedia. Here is an example from 12 years ago! Did we forget to mention that Wikipedia is now twice as old?" Ridiculous article. Organizing a wiki effort, just to spite the original won't work, because that's not enough, and not the right kind of fuel to last for such an undertaking. I feel like these people have no idea what kind of effort is to run an organization, instead seeing the…

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect

Beyond the Wikipedia definition, I've heard the term used to describe the phenomenon of people looking at an ugly codebase with tons of special cases and expectations, thinking they can create a leaner version only to end up going nowhere because all those special cases and expectations that made for ugly UML diagrams had reasons to exist and the overconfidence led to feature creep to justify the time investment to stakeholders. I.e. a good explanation for why it's often better to refactor than rewrite.

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#149

Post by michaelcampbell »

justaj wrote: post #93
rajamaka wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not an alternative for you maybe, but a fine alternative for over 99% of the rest of the world running javascript in their browser.

99% of the users you're talking about won't see any benefit in switching to this alternative from Wikipedia anyway, so what's your point?

His point that the javascript-turner-offers are a vocal, but very small minority.

The mobile issue here is big, and the fact that this effort is just another attempt following a long string of previous failures and has a small chance of success, but that's something different.

Re: Ibis, a federated Wikipedia alternative

#150

Post by hnbad »

boxed wrote: post #141
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.

I think it's universal among humans to see the flaw of existing systems and wanting to replace them and then are surprised at the following disaster. Communism, the French Revolution, Franco, the fall of the Roman Empire, every big software rewrite that failed spectacularly...

> Communism

Fun fact: prefiguration, a practice popular with anarchists, is essentially a form of refactoring rather than a rewrite.

Arguably the problem with Soviet/Maoist communism and the French Revolution also was that it merely replaced who's in charge rather than dismantling the system of someone being in charge (i.e. it focused on individuals, not systems). It's worth noting though that the French Revolution did end up creating a representative democracy eventually even if it took a detour of replacing the monarch with a number of different autocrats - much like Cromwell in the UK for that matter.

So I'd say the problem wasn't seeing flaws and wanting to replace the systems but thinking the flaws could be fixed without addressing the system in its entirety or looking at it from an actual systems theory point of view. Another fun fact: a lot of Nazis ended up back in positions of power in post-war Germany (both Germanies actually).

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