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Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

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Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#171

Post by hamdingers »

mmooss wrote: post #110
matthewkayin wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone made a similar argument to me recently about AI, talking about how programmers used to have stacks of reference books at their desks and how many of the old guard had to have trainings convincing them to use google as a reference. I guess this argument was supposed to convince me to stop being such a luddite and accept the inevitable future, but really, in an increasingly post-truth world, it made me want to…

I prefer the reference books myself - life is too short for anything but the highest quality information. But that's not how the world has worked out recently ...

Life is too short to waste it leafing through printed documentation.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#172

Post by dzink »

codethief wrote: post #168

So far the story with Wikipedia has always been that the number of contributors is declining, and I believe this will only get worse when fewer people read it (directly from the source). As much as I hate the idea, are people (in particular, Wikimedia) experimenting yet with using LLMs to contribute to/improve/check Wikipedia? Will page discussions and edit wars in the future get replaced with an arena of partially c…

The system is off. Contributor would write a new piece. Spammers would go in and remove legitimate articles it links to and replace with spam links. Wikipedia bots go through and purge the new contributions. Contributors stop caring.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#173

Post by hamdingers »

consumer451 wrote: post #60
mmooss wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many said (some still say) that Wikipedia is not a replacement for traditional encyclopedias with articles written by domain experts, such as Britannica. Many more scoffed at that, saying those people were just stuck in their old ways and unable to adjust to the obviously superior new thing. Is that you? AI applications are different than Wikipedia and are better in some ways: Coverage is much greater - you can get a…

> post-truth era. I know it’s completely normalized and the official name, but this has to be the most dangerous euphemism of our time. It’s the era of lies.

While we are in an era of lies, it's only because so much of the public no longer finds truth compelling. Hence, post-truth.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#174

Post by hamdingers »

hackyhacky wrote: post #21
RickJWagner wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not for me. Wikipedia had its day, in between print encyclopedias and quick query AI. Its place in history is now set. Something else will come along soon enough.

Without Wikipedia, where will AIs get their (factual) training data? Reddit?

Backups of wikipedia.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#175

Post by mminer237 »

skeaker wrote: post #159
Liquix wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a very eye-opening read on their financials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

The easy counters to this article are: 1. I think their spending is a good thing. Charitable scholarships for kids and initiatives to have a more educated populous in general are things that I am happy to donate to. 2. As stated in the article, hosting is still a relatively simple expenditure compared to the rest of their operation. If Wikipedia really eats a huge loss, falling back to just hosting wouldn't be unreal…

AFAIK, they don't do any scholarships or really do any educational activities. By far their biggest spending item is just $105 million for salaries, mainly for all of its leadership, which is a majority of its expenses.

The second biggest line item is grants at $25 million, primarily for users to travel to meet up.

Then $10 million for legal fees, $7 million for Wikipedia-hosted travel.

I think it's pretty unethical to say you have to donate to keep Wikipedia running when you're practically paying for C-suite raises and politically-aligned contributors' vacations.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#176

Post by tokai »

aeternum wrote: post #39
irjustin wrote: post #3

I'll go out on a limb and say we _need_ Wikipedia and it's okay that traffic falls. Physical print encyclopedias got replaced by Wikipedia, but AI isn't a replacement (can't ever see how either). While AI is a method of easier access for the end user, the purpose of Wikipedia stands on its own. I've always scoffed at the Wikimedia Foundation's warchest and continuously increasing annual spending. I say now is the tim…

I think we need Wikipedia competitors. Wikipedia is a victim of it's own success, it was excellent at avoiding bias for quite awhile and the vast majority of articles are extremely well written. However it's massive popularity and dominance have also led to, well this guy put it best: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_...

Just fork it, the license is permissive :^)

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#177

Post by dghlsakjg »

NewsaHackO wrote: post #118
Okx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't seem interested in this. Their revenue is more than enough be able to invest and sustain the site forever, but they just increase expenses on non-core outgoings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CANCER

Am I misssing something or is Wikipedia net positive 200M? If this is true, that's eye opening. Weird given how much they beg for money on every article.

They have that much in assets. I'm not sure what that actually looks like in terms of cash vs. non-liquid assets vs. assets with strings attached.

If you look at revenue vs spend they are net positive by about 7mm last year.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#178

Post by crazygringo »

arbol wrote: post #164
crazygringo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know -- as I said in another comment, my Wikipedia usage has gone down 90% thanks to LLMs. But that means I'm still using it. Especially for more reference stuff like lists of episodes, filmographies, etc. As well as equations, math techniques, etc. If you're the kind of person who donates to Wikipedia, you're probably still using it some even if less, and continue to recognize its importance. Possibly even m…

But were you originally convinced to donate by one of those giant Jimmy Wales banners that come up once a year? People won't see them anymore if they're using AI summaries.

My point is, using Wikipedia 10% as much is still using Wikipedia.

Does it matter if you see the banner 10 times or 100 times in a month?

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#179

Post by janalsncm »

Here is a list of their most popular pages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Top_25_Report

Most of them are trending public figures and media, which lines up with what I remembered from my prior Wikipedia analysis. So LLMs are likely replacing a lot of this.

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