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Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

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Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#281

Post by zozbot234 »

xtracto wrote: post #279
bwb wrote: post #11

Sorry, I am not quite sure what the problem is? I think Wikipedia is great from my day to usage. Can you point me to specific examples where the output is bad due to this? I would like to see the problem.

Look at the Serrapeptidase entry. Then do a cursory search on google on the same and then on google scholar. You will see the amount of information missing from the wiki page.(compare with Serrapeptidase entry on say drugs.com). Then look at the Talk page of the entry. You'll see the editorial battle there with some "power editors" squashing any attempt to correct the page.

I've looked at the talk page and there are no proposals for actionable changes to the article. With these controversial or WP:OWN'd articles, you really need to post the equivalent of a pull request: "I want to change text A to B, supported by reliable references X, Y and Z". If nobody at all replies, post also to the related WikiProject talk pages to solicit comments from a broader audience. If no one disagrees even then, then you can be WP:BOLD and make the edit, since you'll be able to point out that you were looking for a proper consensus.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#282

Post by xtracto »

zozbot234 wrote: post #281
xtracto wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the Serrapeptidase entry. Then do a cursory search on google on the same and then on google scholar. You will see the amount of information missing from the wiki page.(compare with Serrapeptidase entry on say drugs.com). Then look at the Talk page of the entry. You'll see the editorial battle there with some "power editors" squashing any attempt to correct the page.

I've looked at the talk page and there are no proposals for actionable changes to the article. With these controversial or WP:OWN'd articles, you really need to post the equivalent of a pull request: "I want to change text A to B, supported by reliable references X, Y and Z". If nobody at all replies, post also to the related WikiProject talk pages to solicit comments from a broader audience. If no one disagrees even…

I've no idea at all about wikipedia inner workings. I'm mostly just an occasional reader. I was just surprised at how little information it had about Serrapeptidase when I saw it and curiously checked the talk page.

It showed me the type of politics and game that can happen behind wikipedia. I really dont care, I just click back and looked at the other better Google results. It's only kind of sad, given wikipedia"s origins/mission (im old enough to remember when wikipedia was created. It's one of the few remnants of the "old" web)

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#283

Post by munch117 »

qiskit wrote: post #152
munch117 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can solve the halting problem, then you can apply it to a solution checker that works by enumerating potential solutions and halting when it finds one. Therefore, if you've solved the halting problem then you've also solved the Entscheidungsproblem, and since the latter is impossible, it follows that the premise of having a solution to the halting problem is false. Yes, that does seems trivial to me. Although…

Using your logic, Alonzo Church should be credited with the Turing machine and the halting problem since he solved Hilbert's Entscheidungsproblem before Turing did. If everything follows trivially from an answer to the same question, then Turing's solution follows trivially from Church. Not sure why you are fixated on the Entscheidungsproblem. Turing's claim to fame isn't the entscheidungsproblem. If it were, nobody…

I did read the paper, 30 years ago.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#284

Post by paulnpace »

We can summarize most comments here as either:

-I agree with how articles are written, so Wikipedia isn't that bad - maybe still a little rough around the edges, but all things considered I trust it.

-I disagree with how articles are written, and the problems are unsolvable within Wikipedia.

Allowing different editors to one article has not resolved this difference. Given that we are approaching 20 years of Wikipedia being widely popular on the 'Net and this problem has persisted, a solution likely requires something on the technical level of the site, itself, (or, more likely, a new site outside of the Wikimedia Foundation) that changes fundamentally how it operates.

To the extent that competition exists for encyclopedic wikis, the ones I have discovered use some version of a preferred view on what articles should be published and what sources are acceptable, so they are essentially using a nearly identical process as Wikipedia, thus suffer from the same problems.

Imagine if GitHub maintained editable standards through a "volunteer" bureaucracy for what software could be published to the site; what a software can do; what language is used for a given software; deciding which libraries are permitted for use in a project; not permitting "duplicate" software, even when they share the same name (users and projects still maintain unique names). To summarize, this version of GitHub would suck and nobody would use it, but this is analogous to how Wikipedia is managed.

Since the problem revolves around how a single article is to be created, edited, and sourced, and given the difficulty just in this concept, the rather obvious solution is to have multiple articles for a given topic where each is created, edited, and sourced however the maintainers of such articles desire.

The next problem of course is this generating an incredible number of articles, each predictably with its maintainer-guard dog. The way to make this usable could be through implementing "universes" of articles. Some universes could operate on some revision of the current Wikipedia and its bureaucracy, others may be purely top-down, hand-curated lists, or could include multiple universes.

This is one sort of way to deal with what is effectively fundamental problems with observing the Universe combined with aspects of the human experience.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#285

Post by calumetregion »

zozbot234 wrote: post #274
calumetregion wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because of a different thread I thought of another subtle, yet similar example. Look at the Wikipedia entry for The Verge. It's a media product, a tech news site, all good. But it's a "left wing" site on the merits. Not a single mention of that in the Wikipedia article. There's a little bit of discussion about tabloid-style content on the Talk page, but it doesn't go anywhere. Even the Vox Media Wikipedia article mak…

You can argue for this change yourself, if you have sources that are not too fringe. Though you'd probably have to phrase it properly. Who exactly has described these sites as left-wing, and where?

You're making my point for me.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#286

Post by calumetregion »

iudqnolq wrote: post #266
calumetregion wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people asking for examples. For an easy one (among millions) just compare The New York Times Wikipedia article to the article for The Epoch Times. "Oh, but The Epoch Times is right wing, so..." How can I compare the Ochs-Sulzberger family to the Falun Gong? Well I just did. They're both made up of humans with opinions.

Well, the New York Times (for all it's numerous flaws) is the most prominent newspaper in the United States. Epoch Times is run by a Chinese dissident cult. Obviously there's going to be different treatment. I'm not even arguing (although I could) that one is more correct. The New York Times prints an order of magnitude more physical newspapers (roughly 300,000 to the Epoch Time's 30,000), and is thus obviously more…

I made no mention of notability, it's such an obvious point that it doesn't need to be made.

The Shen Yun Performing Arts people are pre-Communism traditionalist Chinese. Which is on the outs culturally, I get it. They're just people though, ultimately.

Do you not see the "weirdos vs normal people" problem that permeates media in essentially all cultures? This technique is on its face illegitimate, as it is designed to get you to not dig deeper into contentious issues. I don't care what side or "wing" is doing it.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#287

Post by iudqnolq »

calumetregion wrote: post #286
iudqnolq wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the New York Times (for all it's numerous flaws) is the most prominent newspaper in the United States. Epoch Times is run by a Chinese dissident cult. Obviously there's going to be different treatment. I'm not even arguing (although I could) that one is more correct. The New York Times prints an order of magnitude more physical newspapers (roughly 300,000 to the Epoch Time's 30,000), and is thus obviously more…

I made no mention of notability, it's such an obvious point that it doesn't need to be made. The Shen Yun Performing Arts people are pre-Communism traditionalist Chinese. Which is on the outs culturally, I get it. They're just people though, ultimately. Do you not see the "weirdos vs normal people" problem that permeates media in essentially all cultures? This technique is on its face illegitimate, as it is designed…

Everyone is just people. Not everyone deserves the same level of depth on Wikipedia.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#288

Post by Lascaille »

histriosum wrote: post #267
Lascaille wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What bias do you think CNN has? CNN was openly anti-Trump for the entire administration, as in, instructions were literally passed down that reporting should be slanted in such a way as to taint him. It isn't a case of having to think they have a bias, it's a case of literally being told that bias is part of their policy. It wasn't hard to spot, either. Their reportage during the Trump administration was absurd. You…

> CNN was openly anti-Trump for the entire administration, as in, instructions were literally passed down that reporting should be slanted in such a way as to taint him. Interesting. Do you have a link to the evidence of these instructions? I'd like to read them.

There was an incident with a whistleblower - a CNN reporter - recorded in a restaurant relating how there'd be a narrative line passed down from the top every day. You'll have to dig it up as I can't remember the guy's name. Was relatively widely reported.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#289

Post by calumetregion »

iudqnolq wrote: post #287
calumetregion wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made no mention of notability, it's such an obvious point that it doesn't need to be made. The Shen Yun Performing Arts people are pre-Communism traditionalist Chinese. Which is on the outs culturally, I get it. They're just people though, ultimately. Do you not see the "weirdos vs normal people" problem that permeates media in essentially all cultures? This technique is on its face illegitimate, as it is designed…

Everyone is just people. Not everyone deserves the same level of depth on Wikipedia.

It is not an issue of depth. Wikipedia is a hive of mimetic scapegoating, and it doesn't hold the patent on that problem. And this usually, ultimately, leads to real world violence.

Re: Ask HN: How can we fix Wikipedia?

#290

Post by fortran77 »

noxer wrote: post #215
legitster wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an example, I want to point people to the page I have been spending a lot of time on as of late: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai... Is the information on this page perfect? Obviously not. But this single page probably represents the best up-to-date summary of information you will find on the internet. And I can only imagine the thankless work volunteer editors put into making it cohere…

I didn't read it all but wasn't hard to find "mistakes" in that wiki article For example: "Several countries which are historically neutral, such as Switzerland and Singapore have agreed to sanctions." Clearly a misrepresentation of Swiss neutrality. The news outlets all over the world posted this and various similar claims over the last week and wiki picks it up. Some news articles even straight out tell you that Sw…

Agreed. It could at least say "Switzerland, which considered itself neutral for other conflicts...." instead of declaring it as factually "historically neutral."
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