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Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#511

Post by boxed »

Spivak wrote: post #365
hackyhacky wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who, specifically, are you referring to; and what have they done or said to make you believe that they support this?

Wealthy people who could be coined liberal-tarians or just your average tech bro political grab bag largely backed Trump out of financial interest and who, imo, deluded themselves that the administration would be unsuccessful at "the bad stuff" much like his 2016 run. No amount of shouting from the rooftops that this time was actually different convinced anyone. I can't really blame us collectively, we resoundingly v…

Who specifically was the question.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#512

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

tsimionescu wrote: post #321
ty6853 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean yes? Democracy is a pretty poor model for governance. IMO peak enlightenment happened circa the 17th or 18th century when classical liberalism decided government should be based on individual liberties and anything outside of that is decided democratically not because it is a good system but because votes are roughly a tally of who would win if we all pull knives on each other because we didn't like the vote.

Ah yes, the wonderful time of enlightenment when all straight white Christian land-owning men's rights became recognized, not just the nobility's. Just a few short centuries from there, the rights of poorer white men, children, women, people of any other skin color, non-Christian, and LGBT people would be recognized too.

You jest, but skin in the game is argument is not irrelevant. It is called a franchise for a reason after all. You want a slice of the pie, you should be able to prove that you know what you are doing. Owning land was a good enough proxy then. We can argue what would be a good proxy now.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#513

Post by swat535 »

crabmusket wrote: post #282
extra88 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't bring them up without including that voting is compulsory there.

See my sibling comment. Getting your name checked off is compulsory but nothing stops you from handing in a blank ballot.

Why would you hand blank ballot at. That point? You might as well vote.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#514

Post by tgv »

yesco wrote: post #134
acdha wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re painting with an awfully broad brush, omitting both the magnitude of the difference and far overstating the homogeneity of one of those sides.

[flagged]

> pandemic authoritarianism

Sacrificing people on the altar of your freedom is better? There was a reason for lock-downs and masks. They were implemented worldwide. It wasn't some fluke of US policy.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#515

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

YZF wrote: post #352
Braxton1980 wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a post that the FBI arrested a judge who helped an illegal immigrant avoid capture during a court proceeding. 900+ upvotes - it has nothing to do with tech - it's about a hot button political issue - it helps the Republican cause. Not flagged

I'm just curious why you think it helps the Republican cause? When I saw this reported in the media my feel was this is something Democrats are going to latch on to demonstrate the government is seeking to intimidate the judicial branch. I guess it can have different interpretation. Either way I'd really prefer not to see this stuff on Hacker News. We have enough things that push people buttons in other places.

HN has degraded a little since I joined some years ago. It is still better than most of the online fora out there, but you can feel the change in the posts.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#516

Post by dustingetz »

jjmarr wrote: post #87

The English Wikipedia is a massive target for influence campaigns. I don't think there are any other communities as resilient as it. Just an example: There's certain individual or group that edited under the name "Icewhiz", was banned, and now operates endless sockpuppet accounts in the topic area to influence Wikipedia's coverage on the Middle East. One of them was an account named "Eostrix", that spent years making…

what does that have to do with tax classification

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#517

Post by card_zero »

rvnx wrote: post #503
atombender wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That list is fascinating. Like the obscure Canadian illustrator [1] who for a decade has been repeatedly trying to put herself into Wikipedia despite being told she's a "non-notable" artist. I'm frankly amazed that enough people have the time to track this nonsense and stamp it out that it ends up being self-correcting. It's not just about time, either; chasing bad edits and prosecuting bad users must be a huge chore…

She tried to add herself to a list called “professional Canadian painter”, and from what I see, she is a professional Canadian painter for 10+ years.

But not notable. Unless notable for long-term Wikipedia abuse. Maybe eventually she gets mentioned on a news site for that, and then she can finally have an article.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#518

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

dewey wrote: post #258
tintor wrote: post #144

Wikipedia needs decentralized hosting infra, away from any single country. It is way too important.

The hosting isn’t important, it’s easy to move or have an offline copy already. The access to fundraising is much more important and more complicated.

I didn't immediately consider this, but I think I agree. In a weird way, the access and reach wikipedia has is a lot more valuable from that perspective. And if there is one thing that the US government can do is restrict that in ways that would effectively neuter it.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#519

Post by krisoft »

lukan wrote: post #440
simonw wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Really, really hard to figure out for someone just having a quick look into the topic." Sometimes things are genuinely complicated. If you want to understand the hardest, most elaborate forms of Wikipedia community management you're going to need to work really hard at figuring out what's going on. Community dynamics at this scale, and with this level of bad actors, are not something that can be explained in a few p…

Oh in general for sure, but my first (attempted?) edit for Wikipedia was 20 years ago so I am not a completely newb. And this is kind of like a court decision. But in a real court, I can see the verdict and the laws that were broken. All in complicated, but readable english. Which makes it clear (usually). But in wikipedia to understand a indefinite ban, I have to understand global wiki community dynamics first? I am…

> But in a real court, I can see the verdict and the laws that were broken. All in complicated, but readable english.

Thats not really true either. There is a lot to unpack to understand court cases. Just the hearsay rule and its exception would fill a book. Jurisdiction, double jeopardy, means rea, “reasonable man”, Brady disclosure, fruit of poisonous tree, presumption of regularity, habeas corpus, SLAP, reasonable doubt, writ of mandamus, motion to dismiss, motion to supress, motion for change of venue, motion in limine, amicus curiae, consideration. Just to unpack the latin terms makes your head spin, and then you will be caught out by some term with some seamingly easy to understand common meaning used in surprising ways.

One can almost say it is a whole profession to understand what is going on in court. We could call them lawyers or something if we want to be fancy about it. And then turns out even those specialist further specialise in narrower areas.

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