Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming • Hacker News Board

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#381

Post by Gander5739 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:22 PM UTC

Rochus wrote: post #380

Gander5739 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to whom? As far as I can tell, the purpose of Wikipedia, since inception, has been to make an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. That doesn't necessitate there being limits on what articles can persist without being deleted, but neither does it preclude it. If you're looking for a wiki site that doesn't limit the articles that appear on it, you can have a look at EvedybodyWiki.

> According to whom? It's very founder (Wales).

Citation needed. But I don't suggest putting too much stock in what he says. For instance, he calls himself, as you call him, founder, yet by any reasonable measure he co-founded it with Larry Sanger. But neither holds much more than a historical role in Wikipedia now; Wales lost the elevated rights he had in the backlash to him mass-deleting images, and Sanger was banned quite recently after canvassing on twitter.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#382

Post by Rochus » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:34 PM UTC

Gander5739 wrote: post #381

Rochus wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to whom? It's very founder (Wales).

Citation needed. But I don't suggest putting too much stock in what he says. For instance, he calls himself, as you call him, founder, yet by any reasonable measure he co-founded it with Larry Sanger. But neither holds much more than a historical role in Wikipedia now; Wales lost the elevated rights he had in the backlash to him mass-deleting images, and Sanger was banned quite recently after canvassing on twitter.

> Citation needed

Various, e.g. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/05/radio-davos-jimmy-wa.... It's almost ridiculous to even question these general facts.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#383

Post by torginus » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:34 PM UTC

de_nied wrote: post #288

skotobaza wrote: post #159

The article was alright (with a weird tangent about gingers at the beginning), but then quickly devolved into personal attacks towards Odin's developer and Casey Muratori. Why? Just because they both wrote something on Twitter? And then I read this: > Steering a language and its context will naturally reflect the author's world view > There are two ways one can "figure out a person" who rarely states their beliefs ex…

Well we now know the author's true intentions. It was never about any real criticism, and simply an attack on a person they politically dislike.

Weird how things tends to devolve into culture war stuff. I don't really know anything about the article's author, but he claims he advocates for low-level programming as well, so in theory they should be on the same side.

Also this is the only post on the blog, with no further clues as to who the author is. So this post is some sort of hitnrun attack as well?

Does this guy have beef with Bill making Odin?

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#384

Post by Rochus » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC

Gander5739 wrote: post #378

Rochus wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then by all means, flag them for deletion Why should I? Who am I to decide for other people what's interesting for them? Having those articles in place doesn't bother anyone (as long as they don't violate laws) and essentially don't cost a dime.

In broad strokes, the reason is because the line has to be drawn somewhere. If you want, you can read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Existence_%E2%89%A0_... and the links there to gain some idea of the reasoning behind it.

Which brings us back to the beginning of the conversation.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#385

Post by pillmillipedes » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:52 PM UTC

I know of odin, it seems alright, but it feels like every post or comment I see about what odin is like was written by its creator ginger bill.

my $0.02: if they think odin is notable enough for wikipedia and all they need is for someone to actually note it, now is the time to hire a pr firm. seriously. that's what they're there for.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#386

Post by Gander5739 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:00 PM UTC

Rochus wrote: post #382

Gander5739 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation needed. But I don't suggest putting too much stock in what he says. For instance, he calls himself, as you call him, founder, yet by any reasonable measure he co-founded it with Larry Sanger. But neither holds much more than a historical role in Wikipedia now; Wales lost the elevated rights he had in the backlash to him mass-deleting images, and Sanger was banned quite recently after canvassing on twitter.

> Citation needed Various, e.g. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2021/05/radio-davos-jimmy-wa... . It's almost ridiculous to even question these general facts.

I couldn't see anything supporting your claim in the text, and to see the actual interview I apparently need to accept some cookies. Oh well, I'll take your word for it. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to provide sources for their claims when asked.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#387

Post by youarenaive343 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 11:01 PM UTC

thunderfork wrote: post #337

SanjayMehta wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Cited sources are as-close-to-truthful-as-one-can-manage. This is how one avoids having the truthiness of the editors matter.

It's just shifting the problem from one dimension to another, not actually solving it.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#388

Post by pillmillipedes » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 12:28 AM UTC

on mobile firefox, I'm seeing tons of numbered footnotes that don't link back to anything. is this a styling issue or what?

[4] like this

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#389

Post by pibaker » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 12:41 AM UTC

mike_hock wrote: post #295

lvoudour wrote: post #127

I have never been a wikipedia contributor (let alone a mod), but their points seem fair. Maybe not fair for the particular case, but fair for the general case. People who ridicule wikipedia policies should at least acknowledge that the modern internet is a very low trust society with millions of bad actors trying to push their agenda at the expense of others. And now with AI bots running amok the headache increases t…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck Apparently that one is "notable" but Odin is not. "The rules" are on the hook to justify their existence by providing reasonable and desirable outcomes, they're not a purpose unto themselves. If your rules are shown to be buggy, fix your rules.

If you conduct a poll of all software engineers, I bet at least a third have heard of brainfuck. It is very widely used as an example of a minimal but Turing complete language and the name itself gathers interest.

Now do Odin. I bet not even one in ten knows what Odin is.

Re: Odin, Wikipedia and engagement farming

#390

Post by shash » Sun, Jul 05, 2026, 12:51 AM UTC

lerno wrote: post #333

shash wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, "Don't trust anything on Wikipedia" was always just stuck up posturing. Plenty of badly sourced, badly edited and biased articles in regular encyclopedias too, but because Wikipedia is contributed to by the unwashed masses, don't trust it. "Don't use Wiki as a primary source" is much more to the point - it's not meant to be. Use it to find the primaries. Also, I don't see this as "reducing breadth" so much as at…

Early days of Wikipedia was the wild west. Surely you must agree to that.

Of course. But,

1. So are most other encyclopaedias, and most don’t even give you references or citations for an article 2. We are literally decades from that point now. Surely you must agree that times have changed.