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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

#51

The article criticizes doxxing but well-known Wikipedia editors doxx each other all the time... There's a site called Wikipediocracy that's been around for 20 years and an Arbitrator (Wiki's Supreme Court) was suspended for leaking secret deliberations to the "private" section of the forum—just make an account and you can see it too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... According to that Ar…

Hi. I was an arbitrator who voted to suspend that arbitrator. There was no doxxing involved, which anyone can verify. Barely anything else in your comment is correct either. Doxxing is an issue but from where I sit it's much worse from people outside Wikipedia.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#52

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.

Its (relatively short) history suggests otherwise, so far.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?tit…

Or, it wasn't important enough to merit editorial discussion prior to that.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#54

Honestly Wikipedia+Archive.org remaining online have national security implications (not just USA, but any democracy). Though I'd wager the current administration would take a different view.

I can see the national security implications for countries like Russia and China, that are widely known for pushing false histories backed up with state punishment, but in high-functioning democracies the state does not control public speech.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#55
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…

[flagged]

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#56

The article criticizes doxxing but well-known Wikipedia editors doxx each other all the time... There's a site called Wikipediocracy that's been around for 20 years and an Arbitrator (Wiki's Supreme Court) was suspended for leaking secret deliberations to the "private" section of the forum—just make an account and you can see it too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... According to that Ar…

Hi. I was an arbitrator who voted to suspend that arbitrator. There was no doxxing involved, which anyone can verify. Barely anything else in your comment is correct either. Doxxing is an issue but from where I sit it's much worse from people outside Wikipedia.

Also, the poster "Wikipedianon" makes Tu Quoque fallacies. The fact that some Wikipedia editors have engaged in doxxing of others doesn't make it less of a problem for the government to do so.

Unsurprisingly, "Wikipedianon" is a hit-and-run profile created just for this post, AFAICT.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#57
post #28
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.

I think “random agents” was only at start. I don’t think you as a random person can edit much there anymore. Which is good in ways. Though random phase is song of the past.

I routinely edit articles on Wikipedia without even logging in. The controversial articles, where you are likely to run into problems, are a small minority of what's there.

Re: Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

#58
post #48
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Scientists realized there is no "Truth", only a series of better and better models approximating it.

> it

What is "it", if not truth?

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