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25 Years of Wikipedia

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Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#321

Post by cptskippy »

hallole wrote: post #283
an_ko wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's context. Hank Green talked about it in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zi0ogvPfCA , but in short, paraphrasing, and adding my own thoughts: Jimmy Wales has been poked at with the question of whether he should call himself a founder or specifically co-founder for a long time, by right-wingers who think Wikipedia is too woke, and want to irritate and discredit him as much as possible, and instead raise up his…

> Jimmy Wales has been poked at with the question of whether he should call himself a founder or specifically co-founder Not surprising! Are we setting aside how deceitful his answer his? Claiming all credit for a collaborative accomplishment -- which he does by adopting the "founder" title -- would rightfully provoke "poking" by interviewers. I can't imagine an interview not addressing a question that is so pertinen…

> Not surprising! Are we setting aside how deceitful his answer his? Claiming all credit for a collaborative accomplishment -- which he does by adopting the "founder" title -- would rightfully provoke "poking" by interviewers.

I went down the rabbit hole on this a while back and came away with the impression that it's complicated. And whether or not Wales is being deceitful hinges on pedantic arguments and mincing of words. Should Wales be referred to as "a founder", "co-founder", or "one of the founders"? It's not as if he's titling himself "sole founder". And Sanger is still list on his Wiki page and the Wikipedia pages as a Founder.

It should also be noted that Sanger was hired by Wales to manage Nupedia, and that Wikipedia was created as a side-project of Nupedia for the purpose to generating content for Nupedia. Does the fact that Sanger was an employee of Wales, and that Wikipedia only exists because Sanger was tasked with generating content for Nupedia impact his status as a founder? Would Sanger or Wales have gone on to create a wiki without the other?

Can Steve Jobs claim to be the creator of the iPhone since he was CEO at the time it was created at Apple?

At the end of the day Sanger was present at the ground breaking of Wikipedia but was laid off and stopped participating in the project entirely after a year. He didn't spend 25 years fostering and growing the foundation. He did however try to sabotage or subvert the project 5 years later when it was clear that it was a success. Interestingly he tried to fork it to a project that had strong editorial oversight from experts like Nupedia which flies in the face of the ethos of Wikipedia.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#322

Post by wesselbindt »

gwbas1c wrote: post #123
mr_mitm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a very touchy subject for Wales. It caused him to walk out of an interview after 48 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uswRbWyt_pg

Without context, it looks like the interviewer was a jerk and ambushed him. I've seen plenty of stalling like that on major news programs, and the interviewer always knows to move on (and possibly edit something in to provide context.) --- That being said, "who started what" and "who had what idea" are silly topics to obsesses about. It always come down to who put the long-term work in. I think Wales was "in the righ…

I really hate gotcha questions like "who are you".

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#323

Post by [deleted] »

f1shy wrote: post #300
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find math topics to be insufferable. They are written to be as theoretical as possible and borderline useless if you do not already know the topic at hand.

Absolutely. I do not know the current status, so don’t kill me if now is much better, because is just an example from many. But take fourier series. I remember going into the article, and instead of starting with something lime “helps to decompose functions in sums of sin and cos”, started with “the forier transform is defined as (PUM the integral for with Euler formula) continues: is easy to show the integral conver…

[deleted]

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#324

Post by surgical_fire »

weslleyskah wrote: post #316
wwweston wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wikipedia is a corporation, just like Work or University “Work” and “University” are so wildly different as institutions that to use them this way makes it perfectly clear how little merit your point has. It’s an empty character attack - possibly a reflection of your own - meant to appeal only to the worst despairing suspicions of others. It does nothing to illuminate specific dynamics of group knowledge negotiatio…

> "Work” and “University” are so wildly different as institutions that to use them this way makes it perfectly clear how little merit your point has. I disagree. Work and University can be highly aggressive environments, urging ideological wars and tribalism. > It’s an empty character attack - possibly a reflection of your own - Well, this got personal very quickly.

Ideological wars are everywhere, especially if you are willing to make them up.

Any collaborative effort will involve politics, and by politics I mean the actual definition. Per Wikipedia:

> set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources.

It's important to recognize this, because the option is becoming an hermit or just accepting fully what others decide for you.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#325

Post by surgical_fire »

themafia wrote: post #292
gwbas1c wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without context, it looks like the interviewer was a jerk and ambushed him. I've seen plenty of stalling like that on major news programs, and the interviewer always knows to move on (and possibly edit something in to provide context.) --- That being said, "who started what" and "who had what idea" are silly topics to obsesses about. It always come down to who put the long-term work in. I think Wales was "in the righ…

Journalism can't be deferential to it's subjects. Jimmy is a CEO of a company with lots of money and tons of access to the media. If he can't successfully prepare himself for the obvious then I can't feel bad for him.

Agreed.

In fact, journalists should be less deferential to every CEO. Those should be treated with the highest degree of scrutiny.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#326

Post by weslleyskah »

surgical_fire wrote: post #324
weslleyskah wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Work” and “University” are so wildly different as institutions that to use them this way makes it perfectly clear how little merit your point has. I disagree. Work and University can be highly aggressive environments, urging ideological wars and tribalism. > It’s an empty character attack - possibly a reflection of your own - Well, this got personal very quickly.

Ideological wars are everywhere, especially if you are willing to make them up. Any collaborative effort will involve politics, and by politics I mean the actual definition. Per Wikipedia: > set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources. It's important to recognize this, because the option is…

I know this, I've experienced this. There is not a concrete source for what I'm saying here.

I remember reading the article about a nudist family photographer. The English Wikipedia article was highlighting the controversy about child pornography that came with it, almost trying to demonize the guy, while the German article was actually trying to go beyond and develop the article. There are enormous discrepancies on that website.

Wikipedia has some bizarre articles and rules. I can only provide some pieces and bits of anecdotes.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#327

Post by sophacles »

wwweston wrote: post #305
duozerk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something that goes beyond our daily vices of politics and religion Religion maybe, and Wikipedia is indeed pretty awesome for many topics, but politics is THE bad example here. Much of the political - especially geopolitical - content on Wikipedia has a tremendous atlanticist bias.

“atlanticist” - the culture of the enlightenment and the good that’s come from it. Wikipedia does hold ideals, that access to knowledge is a net good, that people can cooperate both in contribution and review without a dominating magisterial authority. That rational dialogue and qualification and refinement is possible, and that it’s possible to correct for bias, and see the difference between bias and agenda. Like t…

No. One can beleive in the enlightenment ideals without placing north america, europe, and the relations between them as the most important thing.

For example - one could argue (quite successfully) that the US and Europe propping up dictators in south america and middle east to secure easy access to oil against the wishes and election results of those nations is opposed to many enlightenment ideals, but it is still atlanticism by prioritizing north american and european relations and preservation of values within their little bubble.

Also, just because there was much good resulting from enlightenment thinking, we also got things like the slave trade, the belgian congo, various genocides and so on from it... all of which are pretty bad.

The very notion that the enlightenment had all the answers and that there is nothing more to improve or learn is itself anti-enlightenment.

(I know there were abolitionists in the enlightnement,and examples of people opposed to all the other bad ideas i mentioned, but there are plenty of people who "rationally" argued for them too)

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#328

Post by hamdingers »

GaryBluto wrote: post #41
amiga386 wrote: post #19

https://wikipedia25.org/en/the-first-day > Founder Jimbo Wales on a challenge overcome Aren't you forgetting someone, Jimmy? Your co-founder Larry Sanger, perhaps? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger Let's check one of the citations from the History of Wikipedia page: https://www.mid-day.com/lifestyle/health-and-fitness/article... > It was Larry Sanger who chanced upon the critical concept of combining the thr…

I'd say his lack of acknowledgment of Larry Sanger is actually quite useful, as it is a perfect and irrefutable example that Wikipedia has no qualms with omitting information and twisting the truth to serve a narrative.

In order to find this useful you would have to believe that Jimmy Wales writes the articles on Wikipedia which is a ridiculous notion.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#329

Post by hbn »

defjm wrote: post #274
duozerk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something that goes beyond our daily vices of politics and religion Religion maybe, and Wikipedia is indeed pretty awesome for many topics, but politics is THE bad example here. Much of the political - especially geopolitical - content on Wikipedia has a tremendous atlanticist bias.

Could you provide an example article from Wikipedia for such bias? PS: I had to look up „atlanticist“, did this on Wikipedia. (giggle!)

I know sometime around Trump's first presidency, in Bill Clinton's Wikipedia entry, under the Impeachment section they added in a picture of Trump and Clinton shaking hands, apropos of nothing in the surrounding text.

I just checked and it's still there.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#330

Post by padjo »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #271
advisedwang wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to write completely neutrally. Editorial decisions like what information to include or exclude, what sources to cite, what order to present information in, what illustrations to use cannot be avoided and inherently present some kind of narrative.

It absolutely is possible to write completely neutrally. All it takes is for the writer to be aware/honest of their biases and to have a goal of achieving a neutral perspective. Of course the goal of most writing is explicitly to not be neutral.

Have you ever taken a media class? It really isn’t.
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