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Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

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Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#311

Post by andrepd »

ForOldHack wrote: post #295
chris_wot wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think that's bad? I got permanently banned and I started many important things on Wikipedia - like the admins noticeboard, a number of Australia communities, and the [citation needed]. I wrote dozens of articles about Australian women - none of them gave a shit and so I'm not able to write about them any more. They are, by and large, a bunch of horrible bullies and losers - many Wikipedians don't actually care ab…

I disagree. She did not almost destroy the place, she successfully turned Wikipedia into an intellectual black hole encompassing the entire human history. There are only unprintable words to describe her vileness.

I'm gonna need you to elaborate on that.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#312

Post by user_7832 »

NathanKP wrote: post #134
voxl wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? Share an example. This reads like conspiratorial thinking without any evidence.

I've seen this regularly on fringe articles that are clearly being manipulated. I don't have direct links right now, but things I have seen in the past: * A sketchy online university that was clearly manipulating their Wikipedia page with lots of positive information about themselves to suppress info about their active lawsuits and controversies * On medical topics: non scientific, baseless claims about the efficacy…

I agree, to add on: a significant number of wikipedia pages about companies. Look up any large company that's not google-sized or super big, and you'll surprisingly often find a banner saying the article may be biased and relies heavily from one source... yeah, no surprise companies don't like having their bad things publicized.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#313

Post by david-james-2 »

Reading the article made me think about other examples of Commons-Based Peer Production (CBPP). The Wikipedia page on CBBP lists examples like Linux and OpenStreetMap.

Although CBPP shares a lot with general User-generated content (UGC) and the open source model, maybe mechanisms that make it work is a little different.

The article points out system-side elements like "Talk page" and human-side elements like policies and guidelines.

I wonder if there are any studies on this subject.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#314

Post by kurtreed2 »

Wikipedianon wrote: post #30

The article criticizes doxxing but well-known Wikipedia editors doxx each other all the time... There's a site called Wikipediocracy that's been around for 20 years and an Arbitrator (Wiki's Supreme Court) was suspended for leaking secret deliberations to the "private" section of the forum—just make an account and you can see it too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... According to that Ar…

I think I've agree with you on this one. Even on Wikipedia there's a ton of pages like SPI pages which can be indistinguishable from actual malicious doxxings.

Not to mention that there a whole load of #MeToo scandals which would doom Wikipedia if exposed to the media.

https://www.reddit.com/r/JustWikipediaThings/wiki/scandals

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#315

Post by macintux »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #248
manquer wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi does not count bangs as part of monthly usage - for wiki that would be !w search term https://help.kagi.com/kagi/plans/plan-types.html#how-searche...

I'm still puzzled after all these years : why would anyone use search engine bangs instead of directly configuring custom searches from their browser's URL bar ?

Because I know how to use search engine bangs, and I have no idea what a “custom search” would look like.

After probably 15 years of using DDG the bangs are just part of my muscle memory. Why bother changing things?

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#316

Post by AdventureMouse »

jl6 wrote: post #233

Wikipedia is fabulous. I wish educators would stop telling people that it’s not reliable, and start using it to teach media literacy - which, for wiki purposes, is essentially to read the talk page to see what viewpoints have been included and excluded and why.

Compared to an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is unreliable. That doesn’t mean that Wikipedia isn’t useful. But there is a hidden danger with Wikipedia being mostly reliable - people lower their guard and end up consuming misinformation without realizing.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#317

Post by danhor »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #248
manquer wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kagi does not count bangs as part of monthly usage - for wiki that would be !w search term https://help.kagi.com/kagi/plans/plan-types.html#how-searche...

I'm still puzzled after all these years : why would anyone use search engine bangs instead of directly configuring custom searches from their browser's URL bar ?

It takes a bit of effort to add all you would want and, for me personally, bangs can be anywhere instead of having to be at the start of a search query as is needed for custom search keywords.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#318

Post by Pikamander2 »

lucideer wrote: post #287
lucideer wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to contribute semi-regularly to Wikipedia in the past, but tried contributing recently & found the experience to be off-putting (to put it mildly). I also have long been frustrated with certain areas of Wikipedia that I feel struggle so significantly with NPV that they're rendered beyond useless, likely net harmful. (These are not the topics I've attempted contributing to recently, I wouldn't dare). I'm contin…

To add a thought on tackling the listed faults: 1. I suspect the NPV problem may be a fundamentally unsolvable problem (or at least one that would literally take a global paradigm shift in how all societies are structured to do so). This seems outside of Wikipedia's control. Attempting any draconian measures to tackle it might have negative knock-on effects on many of the other assets that give Wikipedia it's value.…

It's staggering how many articles get deleted despite having a dozen citations and at least some level of notability.

Even more concerning is that the deletion "consensus" is often formed by just half a dozen people who almost always cast a deletion vote.

I pop into AFD discussions occasionally and try to put my thumb on the scale but always end up disappointed with the results.

Someone should make a "Deleted From Wikipedia" website composed of nothing but Wikipedia articles that were deleted due to supposedly insufficient coverage/notability.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#319

Post by kortilla »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #200
bawolff wrote: post #12

There has been this trend recently of calling Wikipedia the last good thing on the internet. And i agree its great, i spend an inordinate amount of my time on Wikimedia related things. But i think there is a danger here with all these articles putting Wikipedia too much on a pedestal. It isn't perfect. It isn't perfectly neutral or perfectly reliable. It has flaws. The true best part of Wikipedia is that its a work i…

I used to edit for wikipedia. I saw a "problem" where a specific troll factory was pushing a particular narrative which is factually contrary to international law. I held out for as long as I could but it was emotionally draining

What does that mean? Laws don’t define truth.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#320

Post by MSFT_Edging »

voxl wrote: post #90
glitchc wrote: post #79

Wikipedia has plenty of propaganda. It's often at the fringes of knowledge, in niche subjects where there isn't yet an established group of proponents and detractors. It can be quite subtle too, will fool most laypeople, even those who are otherwise intellectually savvy. It's only when a subject becomes popular that the propaganda gets recognized and rectified.

And? Share an example. This reads like conspiratorial thinking without any evidence.

Many historical atrocities with death counts is a common one I'll run into.

You'll see "xy atrocity had caused the deaths of this many people*", where the additional note will say something like "The numbers reported in this study have been challenged by many scholars on the subject and has been accused of invalid methods".

It's super common with history around Communist countries, because for a lot of folks in the west, the black book of communism is taken as fact when it's far from it, and you have groups like the Victims of Communism memorial foundation that have huge coffers for pushing the black book line.

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