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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

#411

Post by aspenmayer »

bawolff wrote: post #307
aspenmayer wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the inside baseball play-by-play, coach! Much appreciated. > However the ultimate issue was not what the files contained but that he acted alone without agreement to delete outside of proper procedure. Were any changes to Wikipedia policies implemented as a result of this, and if so, do you know which ones? I found the link to the discussion I referred to upthread since the discussion was from a bit ago: h…

> Were any changes to Wikipedia policies implemented as a result of this, and if so, do you know which ones? Not that i'm aware but it was a long time ago so i might just not be aware. Note that the majority of the files he deleted were undeleted and are still present to this day. The list is at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&... and most of the links are blue. > I found the link to the d…

Appreciate the thorough concise reply.

I did hear about the hiding of anonymous users’ IPs in passing as I was looking into the .onion URL for Wikipedia concept. I was looking at stuff like TorBlock and thinking that they’re so close and yet so far from having a Tor accessible view or subsite. It could be a special view like the .m mobile views, or something. It could be made to work, but it would take some doing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Torblock-blocked

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TorBlock

If one can implement that, a read-only mode for Tor users would seem fairly straightforward.

Once while randomly walking around in the Sunset district of SF, near the Internet Archive iirc, I bumped into someone who claimed to be a legal counsel of Wikipedia/Wikimedia with a business card to match. I don’t have many Wikipedia contacts besides, alas, but I am already a user, though I don’t post much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AspenMayer

Found my old account, as it were. Then I tried to edit my user page and discovered I have an IP block due to using iCloud private relay and/or a vpn. And that block prevents me from editing my own user page. That’s where this policy is going too far, imo. It’s my user page! I can see how even that feature could be abused, but come on. I know it’s not your personal policy, it’s just frustrating.

The issue seems one of institutional support and momentum more than a technically difficult problem to solve, especially if the Tor version were read only. I think it is just a shame that the issue has low awareness. Then again, I bet more folks associate Tor with bad actors than good or merely desperate ones, which is an earned reputation when it comes to bad actors on Tor. I don’t know how fair that is, but that’s the way it is currently. If only we could have a profile option to enable Tor access and then folks could get a unique .onion URL that proxies to a backend Tor read only connection to Wikipedia/Wikimedia? I think that could be done, but impetus is lacking, I suppose.

In a lot of ways, Tor can seem like a solution looking for a problem, at least for legitimate use cases that don’t involve law violating and/or antisocial behavior. It’s a shame that a bad reputation can hold Tor back from doing more good. I think Wikipedia is the single most important and impactful site that could benefit the world and all Wikipedia users simply by adding a .onion version, even if it has the same policy on blocking open proxy access and Tor access from edits. Read only is better than the status quo where Tor use is risky but necessary to access the site, as the alternative to that is no access at all.

I’m a working journalist, so I’ll have to make an effort to edit this Wiki user page while maintaining opsec, because I’m not turning off my vpn or private relay, or any other security features on my end of the connection. I respect Wikipedia/Wikimedia, but I have standards, and sources, to protect.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#412

Post by crazygringo »

nearbuy wrote: post #391
crazygringo wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they genuinely mean it's unreliable. Obviously popular articles are great -- they have so many eyeballs and editors that they're not just quite accurate, but often more comprehensive than other sources (in terms of describing competing schools of thought, for example). But when you really drill down into more niche articles, there's a tremendous amount of information that is uncited or not found in the citation,…

> (Also, Wikipedia is a tertiary source, as it is meant to only cite secondary sources, not primary sources.) Wikipedia absolutely cites primary sources (as well as secondary and tertiary sources), and this is in accordance with their policy. Breaking news stories and scientific papers are some commonly used primary sources. You may be thinking of their "no original research" policy or their warnings against editors…

Perhaps I was a bit strict, but Wikipedia is mainly meant to cite secondary sources.

When they explain where primary sources are allowed, they emphasize they "should be used carefully":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_and_usin...

Also "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research...

The general idea is that primary sources have not been judged as notable by anyone. The fact that a secondary source considers it notable to include a primary source is a strong signal that the information has passed a first, minimal bar for inclusion in an encyclopedia.

And when primary sources are cited, Wikipedia is exceptionally clear that they must be cited only for verifiable statements of fact, not interpretations or synthesis. That's what secondary sources are for.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#413

Post by SamBam »

nostromo wrote: post #198
adonovan wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It's funny how only a couple of years ago we all told schoolchildren "stop citing Wikipedia, anyone can edit it, read an actual book!" yet now in this benighted era of AI we urge them to consult Wikipedia for "the truth" because it's not the hallucination of a machine. Yes, it has its flaws, but I plan to keep on editing and donating.

If you choose to donate, know that a small fraction of your donation goes to Wikipedia. Most of your donation goes to unrelated projects. Wikipedia could function forever without another donation if they wanted to.

Source? (Particularly for that last part.)

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#414

Post by tojumpship »

Gareth321 wrote: post #364
ragazzina wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>factually true information [...] meets all requirements [...] it will be taken down Can you make such an example?

I can, but perhaps not with the specificity that you'd like. I should also preface this by saying I was involved in a community which is often stereotyped and denigrated by those on the "online left." When I was younger my parents divorced and my dad was treated very badly by the courts, by friends, and by society. He is a good man and I saw the ways in which he was systematically marginalised and outright discrimina…

Foremost, I personally appreciate the effort you've given for this comment and your fight for your beliefs in general.

Although, handling it purely pragmatically, there is no other concise source of information as vast as Wikipedia's concerning so many facets of life as well as sciences that is far enough from feelings' reach that is pretty well-written as the only possible bias present is also factually incorrect (as opposed to ideological topics).

I understand that supporting and reading articles from a source which you know is blatantly lying or otherwise obstructive or manipulative on other topics is a difficult undertaking but we literally have no other option . There is no war but the war against illiteracy to be won. Education, information and intelligence is man's best friend and until a better alternative arises for the masses (e.g scientific articles do not count as an alternative, Britannica is only in English) the one we have should we stuck with, and its quite well managed too.

Bias in itself is eternal, and holding any entity to a standart so high is illogical at best in my view. If there was no Wiki, would you think the many blog pages filling its space would be absent of the very bias you're talking about, but worse, would they have had any factual backing?

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#415

Post by chermi »

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…

It suffers similar to stackoverflow in terms of making it excessively hard to contribute to something you really do know a lot about. I don't really see a solution for hot topics like isreal-palestine. However, I should be able to improve a page on some physics subject I'm an expert in that has been turned into an obvious ad for some professor's niche work.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#416

Post by LastTrain »

Levitz wrote: post #395
LastTrain wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who edit Wikipedia run the gamut from those that are zealous about neutral point of view up to and including people that do it for their own selfish purposes. But lets take the zealous NPOV type. If I were to try and do that, to try my hardest to produce an article which truly takes an NPOV stance, it would still come off biased to you because you and I can't possibly share the same idea about what is neutral.…

I'm really at a loss on how to make this any more clear. You are looking at a case of a person LITERALLY admitting they are using it for propaganda and your reaction is "I'm sure it's actually not, it's actually neutral and it's just that it differs from your view". I'm sorry but I can only explain it to you, I can't understand it for you.

Do you think anyone here on HN uses this site for propaganda?

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#417

Post by LastTrain »

Gareth321 wrote: post #366
LastTrain wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who edit Wikipedia run the gamut from those that are zealous about neutral point of view up to and including people that do it for their own selfish purposes. But lets take the zealous NPOV type. If I were to try and do that, to try my hardest to produce an article which truly takes an NPOV stance, it would still come off biased to you because you and I can't possibly share the same idea about what is neutral.…

I disagree. Reality is objective and publications all over the world like the BBC do a great job of maintaining journalistic standards. Wikipedia could ensure information is unbiased. You clearly enjoy the bias, and it conforms well to your own. If it didn't, I highly doubt I'd be hearing you defend bias with such a strange postmodernist argument.

You are actually agreeing with me. I'm saying it is biased, because everything is, and it is not offensive (or even avoidable) to have a bias. Ask someone in Afghanistan if the BBC is biased. BBC matches your bias I guess. It pretty well matches mine too, but that doesn't mean I don't recognize it carries one.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#418

Post by LastTrain »

antonymoose wrote: post #339
LastTrain wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are accusing Wikipedia of spreading propaganda? On behalf of who?

Wikipedia isn’t a person. Wikipedia isn’t doing anything. Individuals and groups, be they ad-hoc formations, corporate backed, or nation-state backed routinely astroturf all corners of the internet and Wikipedia is a very big, very common target.

Sure but this thread is in response to a statement starting with "Wikipedia is biased".

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#419

Post by blackbear_ »

47282847 wrote: post #394
blackbear_ wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are confusing what we believe to be the truth at a point in time and how the physical world is. Either atoms exist or they dont. Our idea of atom has evolved over time, but the thing that we call "atom" has always been there (at least on the time scale of human civilization). The probabilistic nature of quantum objects isn't really a problem either. Electrons may be particles, waves, both or neither, but…

> Either atoms exist or they dont Perfect example, since they only exist as a concept to describe an observation. With higher precision of observation, it became “the new truth“ that most of the time even on the observation level do not actually exist in terms of matter; they “flicker“ fast enough to appear existing at all times. When you look often enough or at the wrong times, there is nothing to observe.

> When you look often enough or at the wrong times, there is nothing to observe.

Is this because atoms don't exist, or because we are looking in the wrong way due to partial (mis)understanding?

The "new truth" that you talk about is just a different understanding of the concept of atom, but the actual thing that we call atom and that exists in the real world (whether as matter or in some other form) has not changed.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#420

Post by glenstein »

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…

> It isn't perfect. It isn't perfectly neutral or perfectly reliable. It has flaws.

I don't know that the attackers against Wikipedia are advocating for a modest point like that, which I would think even proponets accept as a truism. I think Wikipedia is just another variation on institutional knowledge, and, as the world descends into misinformation and authoritarianism, it was inevitable it too would be attacked for perceived "bias."

Everything from global warming to vaccines, to newer and newer frontiers we never would have guessed, like hurricane trajectories or drones or air traffic, have fallen one after another to a kind of reactionary skepticism, resentful of the fact that these domains are controlled by real facts, and not merely participatory collective storytelling. There are some things left, that we problaby think could never get politicized, that will be. Pickleball rules? Quantum mechanics? Baseball history? Soon longstanding uncontroversial claims belonging to those are going to fall into the category of essentially contested concepts.

So Wikipedia, with ordinary and lonstanding requirements for reliable sourcing, and decades of policy on what that means in reaction to countlessly many debates, is resilient against the kind of recreational, hedonic skepticism that the masses use to dismantle other knowledge claims.

So "well wikipedia's not perfect" kind of rubs me the wrong way because it seems like it implies we should be more welcoming of this attitude of hedonic skepticism, which has been so destructive. I think it should be celebrated. Authoritative factual validity, and the norms that make it possible, used to be uncontroversial. And thus far, social media misinformation has outcompeted fact checkers, but not (yet) Wikipedia. I feel like that's never been more important.

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