Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation • Hacker News Board

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#241

Post by jjk166 » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 6:28 PM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #231

jjk166 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the article for John Wilkes Booth describes him as an "American stage actor" even though that's not what he's known for. If you keep reading the article, however, it's almost completely about what he is known for (a statement true for both cases). That's just standard wikipedia formatting.

"Standard wikipedia formatting" being burying the lead is not a compelling defense. It's damn near misleading. I find "an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln" to be a ridiculous introduction; it should read "an American assassin who killed President Abraham Lincoln" -- the man's profession is completely irrelevant; he is notable for this one act. It isn't even consistently applied: Ted Kac…

Ted Kaczynski hasn't been anything other than a domestic terrorist since 1969 when he dropped out of academia at the ripe old age of 27. Sirhan Sirhan didn't have a profession, as far as I can tell he was working at a health food store when he assasinated RFK, and has spent the past 53 years incarcerated for it.

Charles Guiteau had a long career prior to assassinating Garfield, as did Booth before assassinating Lincoln. While both committed assassinations, there was no point in time where you could have hired either to assassinate someone for you, it wasn't either of their professions.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#242

Post by jerry1979 » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 7:43 PM UTC

nickpp wrote: post #80

Wikipedia may have been an amazing idea in the beginning. Then it got taken over by a bunch of entrenched editors more interested in their own power than the accuracy of the pages' information. Today I can see mistakes and inaccurate info in every niche I am familiar with. Because of that, I cannot trust it on subjects I know nothing about. I tried contributing and fixing but nothing got through. Even worse, the leve…

I have heard people voice concerns similar to yours. Could you please provide some examples of mistakes and inaccurate info?

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#243

Post by jerry1979 » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 7:52 PM UTC

Macha wrote: post #156

throwaways885 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political content is a landmine, articles are often locked because vandals are often indistinguishable from those with better information but still controversial.

One example: Britishfinance/"Ireland as a tax haven"[1] Summary: A user, Britishfinance (believed to be Paddy Cosgrave, disgruntled founder of the web summit, a major EU tech event that moved from Ireland to Lisbon as the Irish government wouldn't give him what he wanted) spent about a year primarily editing articles related to Ireland to make a link of claims about the country being a tax haven the most prominent fe…

Should I believe that the Republic of Ireland's wikipedia entry had an issue with how it talked about taxes, but now wikipedia has corrected that issue?

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#244

Post by justin66 » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #231

jjk166 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the article for John Wilkes Booth describes him as an "American stage actor" even though that's not what he's known for. If you keep reading the article, however, it's almost completely about what he is known for (a statement true for both cases). That's just standard wikipedia formatting.

"Standard wikipedia formatting" being burying the lead is not a compelling defense. It's damn near misleading. I find "an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln" to be a ridiculous introduction; it should read "an American assassin who killed President Abraham Lincoln" -- the man's profession is completely irrelevant; he is notable for this one act. It isn't even consistently applied: Ted Kac…

> I find "an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln" to be a ridiculous introduction; it should read "an American assassin who killed President Abraham Lincoln"

One sentence fragment conveys that Lincoln was assassinated, the assassin's nationality, and the assassin's profession in 67 characters. The other conveys that Lincoln was assassinated and the assassin's nationality in 58 characters.

You like the wrong sentence. It's stylistically kooky, too: you need to point out that an assassin killed someone? That doesn't feel a little redundant to you?

> the man's profession is completely irrelevant

Hardly. But mostly it's strange that you'd want wikipedia to make that determination for you. It's not necessary.

> "Standard wikipedia formatting" being burying the lead is not a compelling defense.

Burying the lede would involve putting the information you're burying somewhere other than the middle of the first sentence of the first paragraph.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#245

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 10:03 PM UTC

Igelau wrote: post #50

iso8859-1 wrote: post #2

I didn't know my Wikipedia donations funded parties in Accra, Berlin and Chandigarh. I think that should be been in the fundraising statement.

I mean, if you really want to see the schedule for WikiIndaba 2017 that took place in Accra, here you go. http://2017.wikiindaba.net/index.php/Programme Try not to tear the armrests off your chair in rattles of indignation.

[deleted]

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#246

Post by stonogo » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

justin66 wrote: post #244

stonogo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Standard wikipedia formatting" being burying the lead is not a compelling defense. It's damn near misleading. I find "an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln" to be a ridiculous introduction; it should read "an American assassin who killed President Abraham Lincoln" -- the man's profession is completely irrelevant; he is notable for this one act. It isn't even consistently applied: Ted Kac…

> I find "an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln" to be a ridiculous introduction; it should read "an American assassin who killed President Abraham Lincoln" One sentence fragment conveys that Lincoln was assassinated, the assassin's nationality, and the assassin's profession in 67 characters. The other conveys that Lincoln was assassinated and the assassin's nationality in 58 characters.…

Maybe you missed the part where I wrote about their notability rules. Boothe was notable because of an assassination. At no point was his stage career even worth mentioning.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#247

Post by stonogo » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 10:25 PM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #241

stonogo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Standard wikipedia formatting" being burying the lead is not a compelling defense. It's damn near misleading. I find "an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln" to be a ridiculous introduction; it should read "an American assassin who killed President Abraham Lincoln" -- the man's profession is completely irrelevant; he is notable for this one act. It isn't even consistently applied: Ted Kac…

Ted Kaczynski hasn't been anything other than a domestic terrorist since 1969 when he dropped out of academia at the ripe old age of 27. Sirhan Sirhan didn't have a profession, as far as I can tell he was working at a health food store when he assasinated RFK, and has spent the past 53 years incarcerated for it. Charles Guiteau had a long career prior to assassinating Garfield, as did Booth before assassinating Linco…

My whole point here is that their professions are not noteworthy, relevant, or interesting, but Wikipedian bureaucracy causes them to be mentioned, and I think it's dumb.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#248

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

stonogo wrote: post #246

justin66 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find "an American stage actor who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln" to be a ridiculous introduction; it should read "an American assassin who killed President Abraham Lincoln" One sentence fragment conveys that Lincoln was assassinated, the assassin's nationality, and the assassin's profession in 67 characters. The other conveys that Lincoln was assassinated and the assassin's nationality in 58 characters.…

Maybe you missed the part where I wrote about their notability rules. Boothe was notable because of an assassination. At no point was his stage career even worth mentioning.

[deleted]

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#249

Post by wpietri » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 1:14 AM UTC

oldev wrote: post #234

wpietri wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at the last year or so of edits and didn't see anything obviously problematic. What edits specifically concern you?

OK, digging through recent history, the 12:23, 22 October 2020‎ deletion removed tools like Advanced Installer, InstallAware and RayPack. These are tools that actual deployment engineers, repackagers and Windows software developers use every day to do our job. They are also recommended by Microsoft for MSIX. [1] I have no idea why they don't meet Wikipedia's "notability" criteria or why such a 10 or 20 years old tool…

Got it. The edit somewhat cryptically refers to WP:WTAF, which is an essay titled "Write the Article First"; its point is basically that one shouldn't litter articles with references to things that aren't actual pages.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Write_the_article_fi...

That you don't care about core Wikipedia values means that your attempts to edit it will always be frustrating for you. I get that they can be mysterious to outsiders, but unfortunately they're necessary. In particular Wikipedia isn't a place for people with expertise to come write things. It's a place where people with no particular expertise use expert material elsewhere to create an encyclopedia. That means every item must be traceable to reliable sources (which they call verifiable) and articles must have enough sourced material that you can write a basic article from it (which is what they call notable).

If you are an expert on this, then I'd suggest you write a signed article in some publication with a reasonable editorial apparatus, or in some other way that qualifies as a Wikipedia reliable source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources

Then you can mention the article on the talk page and a Wikipedia editor can look at incorporating the material. Or if you think a reliable source already exists, try mentioning that. But no, you can't just put in things you think are true on Wikipedia if you don't have sources. Because however much it might help for this specific case, allowing that generally would quickly make Wikipedia a garbage heap.

Re: Stepping Down as CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation

#250

Post by glenda » Sun, Feb 07, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #178

nickpp wrote: post #80

Wikipedia may have been an amazing idea in the beginning. Then it got taken over by a bunch of entrenched editors more interested in their own power than the accuracy of the pages' information. Today I can see mistakes and inaccurate info in every niche I am familiar with. Because of that, I cannot trust it on subjects I know nothing about. I tried contributing and fixing but nothing got through. Even worse, the leve…

Every time the post title contains "wikipedia" out come the same complaints. I say what I always say: can you please point out a specific incident where you saw wrong information, tried to correct it, and were overturned?

https://thenextweb.com/tech/2019/07/31/wikipedia-bios-for-wo...