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25 Years of Wikipedia

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Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#401

Post by fsckboy »

jacobolus wrote: post #314
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.

It's extremely difficult to write math articles for a general audience which are both accessible and accurate, and the number of excellent writers working on Wikipedia math articles is tiny. Please get involved if you want to see improvement. There are some math articles which are excellent: readable, well illustrated, appropriately leveled, comprehensive; but there are many, many others which are dramatically underd…

no.

there are many math teachers teaching math to people who don't know the subject, basically all mathemeticians. and wikipedia has guidelines for how to serve the audience, the math articles ignore it.

I (got into and) went to MIT (and graduated several times) in engineering and also in finance. I am way beyond the average wikipedia reader in math knowledge. the mathematics wiki articles are imho worthless. the challenge is not how to write articles that are explanatory and reasonable, the challenge is all the gatekeeping of the wiki editors who make it the way it is, that is an unreasonable fight. I tried to make a change a couple of weeks ago to correct an error that was in an article. I got reverted by a person who wanted to collaborate on making the article more abstruse as a solution. "but the error" I said. It's still there.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#402

Post by throw10920 »

whynotmaybe wrote: post #95
rvnx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is literally a spin-off of a porn company. From that point on, where it came from or who founded it is not so important. The question is how it acts today. It is a highly-political organization supporting lot of “progressive” ideas, California-style. So if you like reading politically biased media it may be for you. If you are seeking for a global view you better ask different LLMs for arguments and counter…

It is tedious because you must edit with facts, not ideology. But we now live in a world where people agree that ideology should be able to change facts. > or the impact of certain wars Exactly, like China wanting to completely censor anything regarding the Tiananmen Square protests. > for example questioning homosexuality I don't know what you have to question about this. >If you are seeking for a global view you be…

> It is tedious because you must edit with facts, not ideology.

Wikipedia is ideological. Even when the articles stick to the facts (which they often don't), editors will selectively omit inconvenient (but factually true) information to push their ideology.

As a recent, first-hand example of this, witness the highly ideologically motivated Wikipedia editors actively suppressing discussion of Hasan Piker's dog abuse/shock collar scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Hasan_Piker&...

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#403

Post by JKCalhoun »

20k wrote: post #179
thunderbong wrote: post #147

In the 2000s, in the tech world, the open source successes that were being talked about was always Apache and Linux. When Wikipedia started gaining a bit of traction, everyone made fun of it. It was the butt of jokes in all the prime time comedy shows. And I always felt like telling the critics - "Don't you see what is happening? People all over the world are adding their own bits of knowledge and creating this huge…

If I want to look something up, I always check out wikipedia first. Its not always accurate, but its invariably a lot more accurate on most topics than random information across the web. Its also pretty easy to spot bad quality wiki articles once you get the gist of the site Its amazing that wikipedia exists - there've been multiple hardcore attempts to kill it over the years for profit, but its still managing to go

"Its not always accurate"

Nor were encyclopedias which is what student me fell back upon before Wikipedia.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#404

Post by JKCalhoun »

thunderbong wrote: post #147

In the 2000s, in the tech world, the open source successes that were being talked about was always Apache and Linux. When Wikipedia started gaining a bit of traction, everyone made fun of it. It was the butt of jokes in all the prime time comedy shows. And I always felt like telling the critics - "Don't you see what is happening? People all over the world are adding their own bits of knowledge and creating this huge…

"By regular people!"

I'm not sure about that. I think people who are experts in specific areas (and/or are obsessed with those topics) are the ones contributing to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is amazing.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#405

Post by msla »

weslleyskah wrote: post #187
thunderbong wrote: post #147

In the 2000s, in the tech world, the open source successes that were being talked about was always Apache and Linux. When Wikipedia started gaining a bit of traction, everyone made fun of it. It was the butt of jokes in all the prime time comedy shows. And I always felt like telling the critics - "Don't you see what is happening? People all over the world are adding their own bits of knowledge and creating this huge…

Wikipedia is surely a formidable source of knowledge, but > Something that goes beyond our daily vices of politics and religion. You are romanticizing. Wikipedia is a corporation, just like Work or University, and I personally assume anything corporate is being manipulated by the owners or the ruling oligarchy because they are structurally unreliable. This is especially veritable for Wikipedia. Create an account ther…

A "corporation" is any time two or three people gather together in something's name. It's any kind of, well, corporate entity, a single thing comprised of multiple people. A school is a corporation, a town is a corporation (seriously, many municipalities are legally incorporated), a marriage is a very limited corporation, and a business is also a corporation. So, yes, Wikipedia is a corporation, and it should be proud of the fact it can keep so many people working towards a common goal.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#406

Post by msla »

rvnx wrote: post #50
xemoka wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh. Wow. I had no idea Jimmy Wales was like that. Enlightening.

Wikipedia is literally a spin-off of a porn company. From that point on, where it came from or who founded it is not so important. The question is how it acts today. It is a highly-political organization supporting lot of “progressive” ideas, California-style. So if you like reading politically biased media it may be for you. If you are seeking for a global view you better ask different LLMs for arguments and counter…

> Wikipedia is literally a spin-off of a porn company.

Thinking this is relevant is a very revealing position. It shines some very strong light on your ideological biases and, yes, your agenda, which I feel certain you will feel obligated to deny as a defensive measure. You are showing your hand in ways I don't think you realize.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#407

Post by ryan_lane »

amiga386 wrote: post #387
ryan_lane wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your co-founder Larry Sanger, perhaps? Who left extremely early on in the project, went to create a poorly conceived and failed competitor, then spent the next 23ish years shitting on Wikipedia? Why does he deserve any credit?

Because he co-founded it, duh. Even if your father abandons your family on your second birthday, to start another family, he's still your dad, no matter how much you hate him. This website purports to tell us how Wikipedia came to be, 25 years ago. Why not tell it honestly?

> Even if your father abandons your family on your second birthday, to start another family, he's still your dad, no matter how much you hate him.

I think if you asked anyone in that situation, they probably wouldn't call them their dad, so yeah, this is indeed a good example.

Larry Sanger is effectively an abusive parent who did their best to try to ensure Wikipedia didn't survive. Him being there for the birth doesn't mean much.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#408

Post by vee-kay »

thunderbong wrote: post #147

In the 2000s, in the tech world, the open source successes that were being talked about was always Apache and Linux. When Wikipedia started gaining a bit of traction, everyone made fun of it. It was the butt of jokes in all the prime time comedy shows. And I always felt like telling the critics - "Don't you see what is happening? People all over the world are adding their own bits of knowledge and creating this huge…

Wikipedia is extremely biased and has a lot of deliberate misinformation, so I wouldn't trust it for anything except as a basic starting point for information gathering alongside a web search. Wikipedia's founder itself has denounced it for its bias.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#409

Post by ryan_lane »

weslleyskah wrote: post #386
ryan_lane wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this deserves more than a nitpick. WMF also doesn't dictate the actions of the volunteer community, and neither does the board. The content of Wikipedia is fully volunteer created and maintained, and admin actions are also handled by the volunteer community. The foundation is there to provide technical, legal, and community support. In some cases this is funding for community events, in other cases, this incl…

I think I should have used the word 'entity', but commune is better since the body of editors are so diverse. But they sure have oligarchies.

I think it would be hard to say it's an oligarchy. There's 450 or so active admins (and around 900 total), and really, they don't truly have that much power. The vast majority of decisions on Wikipedia are made by editors, and on occasion admins get involved.

This isn't a country with some ruling class. 450 people aren't in cahoots to stop you from editing.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#410

Post by thordenmark »

While Wikipedia is terribly inaccurate and heavily biased, it can be a useful starting point for information on a topic. You have to take advantage of the links to other sources on the page, which often have a different conclusion than what is presented in the article!
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