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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

#41

Post by altcognito »

mothballed wrote: post #32
ars wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed this exact same thing. And I too just gave up. People have their pet causes and they force the article to match, and normal, non-obsessed people give up. Any controversial topic should never be read on Wikipedia, it will not be accurate.

I noticed this during the election. As soon as Kamala become the contender, it was edited out that her father was described as a "marxist scholar" by a college newspaper. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_J._Harris&...

Did you look into why? They always list the reasons. How long had it been on the page?

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#42

Post by mmphosis »

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…

Wikipedia is my default search engine.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#43

Post by mothballed »

altcognito wrote: post #41
mothballed wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed this during the election. As soon as Kamala become the contender, it was edited out that her father was described as a "marxist scholar" by a college newspaper. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_J._Harris&...

Did you look into why? They always list the reasons. How long had it been on the page?

It had been at least 2 years. [] Never became much of a contentious issue until Kamala was looking at the presidential nomination, from what I can tell, then suddenly there was a vicious fight to remove it based on reasoning that mysteriously didn't exist for years and years before that.

[] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_J._Harris&...

Edit: at least ~4 years

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Donald_J._Harris&...

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#44

Post by IAmBroom »

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…

To say "It isn't perfect" is simply to admit it's a human endeavor.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#45

Post by lenerdenator »

This is because of the lack of a profit motive and sane expectations on salary from the people running the Wikimedia project.

I think that starting in the 1980s, people started to expect anything involving information technology created immediately-accountable monetary value on a massive scale after seeing the fortunes of people like Gates, Wozniak, Jobs, et al. This was further boosted by the Dotcom bubble.

The fact is, a significant fraction of IT is indeed profitable, but applying the model of perpetual growth is not appropriate for all of that significant fraction, and there's the other fraction of the IT world that isn't directly profitable. More people need to realize that their work falls in the latter two fractions instead of the first.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#46

Post by pessimizer »

I've started to think that the fact that Wikipedia will change its descriptions of reality based on whoever is willing to spend the time and money to subvert it is a feature when it comes to survival. When the final sci-fi authoritarian dictatorship comes down, Wikipedia will happily explain that it was always here, and that Eastasia was always the enemy.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#47

Post by IAmBroom »

e3bc54b2 wrote: post #39
mdp2021 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a miracle that the model of voluntary contribution from random agents and imperfect overview partially worked. The science that could emerge by studying the phenomenon could constitute a milestone.

The zeroeth law of Wikipedia – The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work.

Clever. I had to read that repeatedly to get it.

Cf: The difference between theory and practice is: "Practice works, in theory."

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#48

Post by visarga »

xorvoid wrote: post #31
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 would say this is all we really should reasonably expect from our knowledge consensus systems. In fact it’s the same values that “science” stands on: do our best everyday and continue to try improving. It’s a bit hard for me to imagine something better (in practice). It’s easy to want more or feel like reality doesn’t live up to one’s idealism. But we live here and now in the messiness of the present. Viva la Wikip…

> In fact it’s the same values that “science” stands on: do our best everyday and continue to try improving.

Scientists realized there is no "Truth", only a series of better and better models approximating it. But philosophers still talk about Truth, they didn't get the message. As long as we are using leaky abstractions - which means all the time - we can't capture Truth. There is no view from nowhere.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#49

Post by pessimizer »

ars wrote: post #27
Aurornis wrote: post #24

In the past few years I've noticed more and more issues on Wikipedia. It has never been perfect, but in the past it seemed like anything without sufficient sources would quickly get flagged as "citation needed" or questionable statements would get a warning label slapped on them. Now, I can visit pages for certain medical conditions that contain completely unsourced claims with no "citation needed" nor any warnings.…

I've noticed this exact same thing. And I too just gave up. People have their pet causes and they force the article to match, and normal, non-obsessed people give up. Any controversial topic should never be read on Wikipedia, it will not be accurate.

> People have their pet causes

People are paid whole-ass salaries to edit Wikipedia (and to become mods on Reddit.) They masquerade as (a dozen different) obsessed weirdos, but they are just normal middle-class people who are being paid to lie.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#50

Post by IAmBroom »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #26
mdp2021 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a miracle that the model of voluntary contribution from random agents and imperfect overview partially worked. The science that could emerge by studying the phenomenon could constitute a milestone.

To me the key highlight of the article is the finding that editors generally start fairly radical and neutralize over time. Only really passionate people are willing to put the effort into Wikipedia articles which correlates well with radical opinions. But over time working as Wikipedia editors tends to de-radicalize people's work. Contrast that with the rest of the internet, which mostly rewards radicalization and n…

That's some of it, but certainly Wikipedia's editorial discussions differ from most forums in that its objective remains neutral, with worldwide access.

If the number of editors were limited, it could easily develop bias (see your own Facebook page for examples).

If the subject matters were limited, it could develop bias (WikiSolarEnergy wouldn't tend to attract anti-solar-energy types).

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