431–440 of 496 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Had a colleague make the same point on open source, "don't trust code everyone can modify". He was a bottom tier programmer at best.
Is there any modern programming environment / IDE / toolchain / etc that doesn't heavily rely on open source work? Even initially-proprietary solutions like .NET are mostly OSS nowadays.
I remember when teachers in school use to tell us that Wikipedia sucks because there in no scientific peer review. They couldn't wrap their heads around the concept of casual crowdsourcing.
I'm sure they could, most teachers aren't idiots. And they were correct that "casual crowdsourcing" is not a fitting replacement for peer review.
And in fact, the current moderation policies for Wikipedia only work in so far as they use peer-review type processes, such as requiring "notability" and multiple sources, and preferring expertise in a field. Of course, if you're in a relevant field you shouldn't use Wikipedia as a primary source since you would presumably have access to whatever sources the wiki itself cites in the articles.
I can't defend Wiki any further after their politicization How about not calling Peter McCullough or Ryan Cole or Pierre Kory misinformation spreaders about covid when they were right the whole time Larry Sanger was correct Edit: (I know we're not supposed to comment on downvotes but I seriously don't care) Those of you who insta-downvote stuff like this should not enjoy the privileges of the karma system on HN that…
The goal of Wikipedia has always been to summarize what mainstream secondary sources say, not what is "true" or "right" according to your or some other editor's personal opinion. See WP:DUE, WP:VNT and WP:RGW
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars
> Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, an advertising platform, a social network, a vanity press, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, an indiscriminate collection of information, nor a web directory. It is not a dictionary, a newspaper, an instruction manual, nor a collection of source documents or media files, although some of its fellow Wikimedia projects are.
I remember when teachers in school use to tell us that Wikipedia sucks because there in no scientific peer review. They couldn't wrap their heads around the concept of casual crowdsourcing.
>They couldn't wrap their heads around the concept of casual crowdsourcing. I'm sure they could, most teachers aren't idiots. And they were correct that "casual crowdsourcing" is not a fitting replacement for peer review. And in fact, the current moderation policies for Wikipedia only work in so far as they use peer-review type processes, such as requiring "notability" and multiple sources, and preferring expertise i…
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'm not so sure I go there less and less. Wikipedia is very biased and turf guarded against negative factually true information even when it meets all requirements it will often be taken down automatically with no recourse. Many pages are functionally not editable because of turf guarding. Anything vaguely sociopolitical is functionally censored on it and wikipedia does nothing about it even if they don't support it.
Also I find a lot of people’s disagreements usually come down to “ok, I see that the information that I thought was censored is actually available but not in the format that I prefer”
And if you’re looking for objective information about the Israel Palestine conflict you’re hardly going to get it anywhere.
Wikipedia has major issues - there are a lot of topics with coordinated editing from bad actors. The verge article is paywalled so I can't read more than the first page + headline, but I can guess the case it makes. - https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik... - https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-editors-cant-decide-... - https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-wikipedia-s-pro-hamas-edit... It's s…
Almost every book you read about Israel Palestine will probably be biased in some way, certainly the news will be. It feels like perfect being the enemy of good. Like sure it’s a mess like all compendiums of human knowledge, but also seems massively better than the alternative.
Your point about the encyclopedia seems strange, sure it’s likely to be less accurate less complete and more biased, but it’s narratively interesting is like? What are you trying to accomplish than that that’s better?
Annoyance at Wikipedia feels nihilistic. Like “it’s not perfect so why try”. “I’d rather read things where I think I know what the bias is (but probably don’t”
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fact that you can't correctly identify debunked claims about a connection between race and IQ as inherently eugenicist talking points and instead quickly resorted to obfuscation proves my point.
This is a pretty severe leap of logic; respectfully it seems to me like both of you are sort of talking past each other here. Why don’t you just say what you mean? Not everything is about proving points or “winning”, it’s okay to just have honest discussion.
Wikipedia has major issues - there are a lot of topics with coordinated editing from bad actors. The verge article is paywalled so I can't read more than the first page + headline, but I can guess the case it makes. - https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik... - https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-editors-cant-decide-... - https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-wikipedia-s-pro-hamas-edit... It's s…
But what is better? I mean yes, reading 20 sources on a topic and coming to your own conclusions about an issue is the right answer, but the fact that Wikipedia published its edit history and discussions page makes it seem better than then what everything? Almost every book you read about Israel Palestine will probably be biased in some way, certainly the news will be. It feels like perfect being the enemy of good. L…
Wikipedia has major issues - there are a lot of topics with coordinated editing from bad actors. The verge article is paywalled so I can't read more than the first page + headline, but I can guess the case it makes. - https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik... - https://www.piratewires.com/p/wikipedia-editors-cant-decide-... - https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-wikipedia-s-pro-hamas-edit... It's s…
But what is better? I mean yes, reading 20 sources on a topic and coming to your own conclusions about an issue is the right answer, but the fact that Wikipedia published its edit history and discussions page makes it seem better than then what everything? Almost every book you read about Israel Palestine will probably be biased in some way, certainly the news will be. It feels like perfect being the enemy of good. L…
The problem with wikipedia is it pretends to be above the fray and as a result it's deceptive. People think they're getting a neutral topic overview when they're actually getting something that's been designed to persuade based on the editors that control it and the editors are generally bad power hungry reddit mod types with extreme bias. It's particularly insidious because the people reading wikipedia are the least able to detect this deception. It launders their pet ideology through pseudo neutrality.
I think most alternative options are better.
The encyclopedia point is at least it is a static record from a point in time vs. a sort of "we were always at war with Eurasia" kind of fluid that bends to the times.