Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

25 Years of Wikipedia

wikipedia25.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

481–490 of 498 posts

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#481

Post by jacobolus »

f1shy wrote: post #435
jacobolus wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The articles about Fourier series and Fourier transform currently begin with: > A Fourier series is a series expansion of a periodic function into a sum of trigonometric functions. The Fourier series is an example of a trigonometric series. By expressing a function as a sum of sines and cosines, many problems involving the function become easier to analyze because trigonometric functions are well understood. and > In…

In english is much better now... but: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier-Transformation That is much more as it used to be in english. Anyway I stated clearly, it was a time ago, and now may be better, that it was just an example. In german is still shooting mathematical symbols that anybody who does not already know what FT is, will 99% not even start to understand what is it about.

The only way anything ever changes in a volunteer project is if someone feels motivated and makes the effort. Please contribute changes to German Wikipedia articles (or English ones) when you notice possible improvements. If you are not personally capable of improving an article about a topic you don't know about, please try to contribute to the articles about topics you do know something about. Or you can try to leave a talk page message asking for help.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#482

Post by Gander5739 »

nailer wrote: post #287
cafebabbe wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any particular example you could provide to support this wild claim ?

I don't think it's particularly wild - Jimmy Wales talked about the pages to do with Gaza before he locked them due to his concerns: https://nypost.com/2025/11/03/business/wikipedia-co-founder-... or https://gizmodo.com/wikipedia-gaza-genocide-locked-200068099... . There are many others though. The 'Solana_(blockchain_platform)' page is mainly a hit piece. When I used to edit Wikipedia, an admin told me that the amou…

A nitpick: Jimmy Wales did not lock the page. He is not an administrator on the site, and doed not have the rights necessary to lock any pages.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#483

Post by Gander5739 »

qingcharles wrote: post #471
could-of wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying to create an article is a scam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Scam_warning

It's more nuanced than that. Wikipedia allows payments in some situations as long as they are public: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Connected_contributor... The editor who massaged the article in question has it somewhere on his profile that he accepts payments and has a list of articles he has taken payment for.

Could you provide their username, please? I'd ba interested.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#484

Post by Gander5739 »

xvilka wrote: post #226

The biggest complaint about Wikipedia I have is that they do not allow edits via VPNs, even for the registered users. These days VPN is a necessity in many places, thus it limits a big amount of potential contributors.

If a VPN is necessary, you can ask for an exemption.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#485

Post by andruby »

nephihaha wrote: post #440
andruby wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fondly remember visiting Wikipedia HQ in Jan 2012. It was amazing to see how small their "operation" was :) Back then they had 474M monthly unique visitors, 83,444 active contributors and a staff of less than 100. I'm still blown away by the collaboration. To me, that was the promise of "Web 2.0". On the kitchen door they hung xkcd 903, 906 and another webcomic mentioning that only 13% of updates to Wikipedia are f…

Because they don't pay 99.9% of the people who effectively work for them.

What's your point? I think it's amazing that people are contributing to a shared knowledge base without needing payment.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#486

Post by yreg »

jader201 wrote: post #16
dreslan wrote: post #10

Wikipedia is and continues to be the best thing that happened to the internet. A shining example of an open platform that works.

Except for their unnecessarily incessant fund raising. There’s zero reason it should happen that often, and that intrusively.

I agree, but this has to be one of the least consequential problems an encyclopedia might have.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#487

Post by nephihaha »

andruby wrote: post #485
nephihaha wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they don't pay 99.9% of the people who effectively work for them.

What's your point? I think it's amazing that people are contributing to a shared knowledge base without needing payment.

If no one gets paid, no one can pay for anything. What are they supposed to live off? Thin air, welfare/benefits or inherited money. At least the people who write Britannica get to make a living.

I edited Wikipedia for many years and have seen how it has (d)evolved into an oligarchy. I have absolutely nothing to show for it, and now I see companies using it to build products which they do make money off. They are making money off my work (and others). I am glad that I did get to make sure Wikipedia covered certain subjects, but it was not a rewarding experience otherwise.

I've sold fanzines and published stuff in hard copy, and they made a little money. Not enough to live off but far more rewarding than my Wikipedia interactions.

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#488

Post by baranul »

epx wrote: post #230
FiveOhThree wrote: post #24

I can't be the only one who feels that Wikipedia's quality has really started to go downhill over the past 5 or so years. I've noticed more and more articles which read as ridiculously partisan, usually around subjects with any link to politics or current events. That's probably linked to the increasing polarisation in the US, but I get the impression that the sites neutrality policies have gradually been chipped awa…

In the last 2-3 years, every contribution I made has been reverted by a reviewer or editor, either giving some excuse like lack of references, or none at all. Ceased to contribute to articles, and financially as well.

Wikipedia has a number of notorious and strange editors who have taken it over as if it was their personal kingdom, where they censor and revert at their pleasure. It's their Wikipedia versus for the public. MrOllie is among the most infamous (somehow has over 258,000 edits - WTH) of this type of editor (or sadistic censor), with a number of articles and posts elsewhere on the Internet about him[1][2].

Complaints about him seem to do nothing, as he appears to have support and students of his brand of sadism and censorship. For instance, Remsense (over 97,000 edits). The group that they are part of, backs each other up and gangs up on others, to make sure they'll get their way.

[1] https://thomashgreco.medium.com/artificial-intelligence-bots...

[2] https://x.com/docmilanfar/status/1928609721835045047

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#489

Post by thiht »

BoingBoomTschak wrote: post #424
thiht wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know, is the "Wikipedia is left biased but I can’t produce a single piece of evidence" rhetoric a joke?

BuzzFeed, Salon and PinkNews being used as reliable sources should be everything you need to know about WP. Or read some of the more critical viewpoints against the Wikipedia editor bureaucracy (that shields itself with a laughable "Anybody can edit Wikipedia! We don't exist! Don't look at the man behind the curtain" ) like https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik... Small aside, it's a fun coinci…

Again, can you find articles using some of these "unreliable" sources (I don’t know Salon or PinkNews, and I know that BuzzFeed News actually had pretty good articles back then) to promote biased content?

Just looking at the front page of PinkNews, the content appears sourced and factual. A media being oriented (LGBT in this case) doesn’t necessarily mean it’s biased or lying. Taking this article as an example[1], I see no reason why it shouldn’t be used as a Wikipedia source.

[1]: https://www.thepinknews.com/2026/01/16/trump-eliminates-rape...

Re: 25 Years of Wikipedia

#490

Post by BoingBoomTschak »

thiht wrote: post #489
BoingBoomTschak wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BuzzFeed, Salon and PinkNews being used as reliable sources should be everything you need to know about WP. Or read some of the more critical viewpoints against the Wikipedia editor bureaucracy (that shields itself with a laughable "Anybody can edit Wikipedia! We don't exist! Don't look at the man behind the curtain" ) like https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik... Small aside, it's a fun coinci…

Again, can you find articles using some of these "unreliable" sources (I don’t know Salon or PinkNews, and I know that BuzzFeed News actually had pretty good articles back then) to promote biased content? Just looking at the front page of PinkNews, the content appears sourced and factual. A media being oriented (LGBT in this case) doesn’t necessarily mean it’s biased or lying. Taking this article as an example[1], I…

Completely biased in language, which matters because the bias can and will be added verbatim to Wikipedia articles

The bias is that: how do you handle the fact that any man could claim to be a woman and be housed with women? Especially when the issue is compounded by those numbers on rape they're reporting? Do you build special quarters in every prison? For the 47 individuals in 50~70k detainees? Be realistic and have a more balanced view of the matter.

I think the "bias blindness" of WP is a weapon selectively applied to one side and should be removed in favour of sources that at least pretend neutrality. The problem is obviously that you almost have no source left, then; at least in the political/ideological domain.

Post reply on HN