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

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

#721

Post by pessimizer »

simonw wrote: post #617
bjourne wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Love the use of the "we" word here. :) What is counted as a reliable source is voted on on one of Wikipedia's meta pages. So "reliability" is not based on any factual circumstances, but on whether the vote is won or lost. And you can trivially game that using sock/meat puppetry. Notwithstanding, White's claimed policy heavily favors Western media giants such as The New York Times and The Washington Post which many ed…

> So "reliability" is not based on any factual circumstances, but on whether the vote is won or lost. Those voters (with the exception if bad actors) are working on the basis of "factual circumstances", which they debate extensively before voting.

These debates are done in public, and we see how bad they are. It's wonderful that they're done in public, though.

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

#722

Post by firesteelrain »

crazygringo wrote: post #686
donnachangstein wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is controversies can be embellished. In this case, the controversy focused on a minor detail among hundreds of others in a nearly two hour long film. Is there guidance on what makes a controversy 'notable', or can anything be listed there? E.g. "Nobody blogger and her Twitter army were upset about $thing" - does that qualify? Nearly anything can be controversial, or have fabricated controversies. You see…

I don't know what you mean by "embellished". Are you saying the statements in Wikipedia are false? And yes, obviously controversy will focus on the one controversial detail. There are hundreds of other details that are not controversial, so they aren't mentioned. I don't understand why this bothers you. The world is a controversial place. It's good to document these things.

It’s a post facto embellishment for modern times. When that movie came out, no one was saying that nor is it relevant or correct. We might as well put a controversy template on every Wikipedia page and wait for someone to invent a perceived injustice.

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

#723

Post by kurtreed2 »

deknos wrote: post #690

To be honest, many of the people who critize wikipedia.. just do not want to fork the content. it would be possible. they all like the work people put into it. but as soon as it does not fit the worldview anymore... are there manipulations? sure. then more people should watch it. and wikipedia should have a better process on controversal topics in own areas. but the whining is abysmal.

Justapedia has forked English Wikipedia almost three years ago and is doing good so far, even if they're still ignored by major search engines.

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

#724

Post by donnachangstein »

crazygringo wrote: post #686
donnachangstein wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is controversies can be embellished. In this case, the controversy focused on a minor detail among hundreds of others in a nearly two hour long film. Is there guidance on what makes a controversy 'notable', or can anything be listed there? E.g. "Nobody blogger and her Twitter army were upset about $thing" - does that qualify? Nearly anything can be controversial, or have fabricated controversies. You see…

I don't know what you mean by "embellished". Are you saying the statements in Wikipedia are false? And yes, obviously controversy will focus on the one controversial detail. There are hundreds of other details that are not controversial, so they aren't mentioned. I don't understand why this bothers you. The world is a controversial place. It's good to document these things.

If something is controversial to an insignificantly small number of people, is it by definition a controversy?

Hypothetically speaking, let's say you were a famous or notable person. Your Wikipedia article would probably have a controversy section with a vague statement like, "Some people find crazygringo's feet objectionable."

The citation would be a podcast where a guest told the host in an offhand comment, "I went on a date with crazygringo once and thought he had oddly-shaped feet."

Any attempt to delete this statement, even by you with full knowledge of your own feet, would be reverted as 'vandalism'.

This is Wikipedia in a nutshell.

Articles for celebrities and political figures are full of this garbage, which merely 10 years ago we would consider exclusively tabloid fodder.

I've read articles on complete nobody actresses with a controversy section that listed any and every political opinion she's ever said. It's a lame attempt to extrapolate (or reimagine) someone's entire personality from a few offhand statements made once in her life.

It's low quality content like this that undermines Wikipedia. Unfortunately it's all over the site and growing by the day.

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

#725

Post by IceHegel »

tgv wrote: post #508
Fraterkes wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yarvin putting his intellectual mediocrity on display: the nazis, for example, dismissed relativity as "jewish science".

Quoting a parvenu like Yarvin is a sign of fanaticism. He sounds like a teenager on weed. The only reason he's gotten into the limelight is because some powerful people aligned with Project 2025 agree with him, and needed some philosophical sounding blather to cover their power lust.

Interesting, why do you say quoting Yarvin is a sign of fanaticism?

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

#726

Post by kurtreed2 »

nickserv wrote: post #493

Obviously this would happen with the current administration in the USA. The foundation should be moved to a country where the rule of law and neutrality are respected. Switzerland perhaps?

They'll need to delete those LTA pages first before they can move to Europe due to GDPR.

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

#727

Post by snowwrestler »

vFunct wrote: post #110

I have a question on non-profits in general. What exactly is the advantage of being incorporated as a non-profit, when all you have to do to not be taxed as a for-profit corporation is spend all your money each year and not show any profit? It seems you'd have more privacy as a for-profit corporation, since you don't have to disclose donors.

Nonprofits have privacy too:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Alabama

That said, there are a lot of operational advantages to being a for-profit corporation. Chan-Zuckerberg is organized this way. Other nonprofits try to have it both ways where the for-profit entity operates the business while being owned by a nonprofit. It has not worked out great for OpenAI. Patagonia converted to this model recently.

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

#728

Post by ryandrake »

LightHugger wrote: post #474
jjmarr wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Can you point out any factual errors in the article, with sources that demonstrate the error?

> The pro-gamergate editors were completely shut out of that article eventually and the article doesn't even mention any perspectives from the other side

The "pro-gamergate" perspective is described in the very first sentence under "Purpose and goals":

    The most active Gamergate supporters or "Gamergaters" said that Gamergate was a movement for ethics in games journalism, for protecting the "gamer" identity, and for opposing "political correctness" in video games and that any harassment of women was done by others not affiliated with Gamergate.

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

#729

Post by xyzzyz »

makeitdouble wrote: post #675
rayiner wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words have meaning. Setting qualifications is different than “suppression.” The former determines who are legitimate voters. The latter is an effort to keep legitimate voters from voting. Conflating legitimate qualification rules with “suppression” is fuzzy thinking in service of propaganda. Restricting by birth right is simply an extension of the universal practice of restricting voting by citizenship. Every democra…

> Words have meaning Well, yes. At this point we could as well get back to Wikipedia for at least a common interpretation of the concept: > The disenfranchisement of voters due to age, residence, citizenship, or criminal record are among the more recent examples of ways that elections can be subverted by changing who is allowed to vote. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression > universal practice of restric…

Look, if you insist on using this term like this, it will make conversation and mutual understanding more difficult. If banning toddlers from voting is "voter suppression", then now we must distinguish between "good voter suppression", like banning votes from toddlers, and "bad voter suppression", like for example tactics to mendaciously make it harder to vote for people who are otherwise eligible.

The result is that "voter suppression" is no longer understood to be a bad thing. You lose the ability to drop this phrase and expect people to pick up that the implication is negative. For example, you said above:

> Democracy is not 2 parties doing voter suppression and gerrymandering as a filter to pass the result to an electoral college.

If "voter suppression" as a term now include things that are universally understood as good, like banning toddlers from voting, this sounds incoherent. Democracy very much is about doing voter suppression, and everybody agrees it to be a good thing!

If you don't like how it sounds, you need to stop including good and proper things under the "voter suppression" label. Rayiner tried to help you with that, by distinguishing between mendacious voter suppression, and good and proper setting of voter qualifications, but you rejected that.

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