Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney • Hacker News Board

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

#741

Post by eezing » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 4:58 PM UTC

donnachangstein wrote: post #671

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…

Wikipedia has been captured by special interests. I recently watched The Silence of the Lambs, an Academy Award winning movie from the early 90s. Afterward, I skimmed the Wikipedia article to see if I missed any plot details. There is a whole section on how the movie is considered transphobic by some nobodies, how the director defends that it isn't, blah blah blah. Having just watched the film, the thought didn't eve…

Have you actually tried to tag, edit, or leave comments when you come across questionable content?

I’ve found that the system works pretty well. It’s not perfect, but I can’t think of a better solution.

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

#742

Post by eezing » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 5:01 PM UTC

donnachangstein wrote: post #724

crazygringo wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So don’t use Wikipedia then. Problem solved.

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

#743

Post by elcapitan » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 5:01 PM UTC

lxgr wrote: post #590

TomK32 wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a contrast to the early days: 22 years ago I was simply appointed admin on the German language Wikipedia when there was simply a lack of hands doing deletions and stuff. No voting, just a show of hand a lots of trust put into people only know by what they write and discuss on this new website. A few years of work (10k edits) and a few years of dwindling participation on my side someone noticed that quite a few o…

In my experience (of also roughly 20 years ago), the German Wikipedia is as dysfunctional as it gets. The primary goal of the admins seemed to be to gatekeep, in particular to keep “unencyclopedic” content out at all cost, e.g. by contesting the very existence of articles on individual episodes of TV shows, software, or video games, which are all completely uncontroversial on the English one. “Just because it’s relev…

The German Wikipedia is the main reason I keep my country setting on DDG off. That way I get en.wikipedia.org results first.

> Last time I checked, they only just accepted the redesign (the one that greatly improves legibility), after vetoing it for years. What a psychotic way to run an encyclopedia

I once asked on (then) Twitter why they kept that crappy design, and got the most depressing NIMBY answers on even making the new design optional. That really killed any rest of hope I had for the German Wikipedia. Glad to hear that at least that tiny improvement made it.

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

#744

Post by tasty_freeze » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 5:05 PM UTC

andybak wrote: post #550

PeterStuer wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keri Smith, a former hardcore SJW activist, has documented how she and others daily targeted people through Wikipedia edits for preparing a cancel. It's quite fascinating the extend of organization and process they used. For instance, they would not directly edit the target's page, but start working 2 links removed from it, compromise the "friend of a friend of a friend", and then work towards the actual target and f…

Skimming this: https://www.kerismith.net/ and seeing some of the people she proudly mentions - it seems like she's just switched cults.

It reminds me a bit of campus preachers. They would go to great lengths to describe just how fallen they were before they found Jesus. By inflating how fallen they were, it made for a more dramatic, and to some people, more affirming message of the power of the Gospel. I don't doubt the people felt transformed, but they were motivated my narrative purpose as much as by factual history.

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

#745

Post by kranke155 » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 5:08 PM UTC

virgulino wrote: post #738

kranke155 wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Portuguese Wikipedia does not allow the existence of details on corruption allegations against Portuguese or Brazilian politicians. There are moderators who take care of cleaning those up, then starting harassment against users who have posted these things. I've seen one particular page, when a corruption allegation was blown up against a politically connected individual, be set up for permanent deletion (the onl…

I agree. The pages on Brazilian politics are often grotesque propaganda. There was even a famous case in which a slanderous and fraudulent edit on two journalists' pages was traced back to an IP address in Dilma's Presidential Palace (Dilma was Lula's hand-picked successor).

I saw horrendous violations to related to Bolsonaro related politicians. Seems like everybody does it then.

In my case I saw that they even invent new rules if needed to remove things. Completely compromised.

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

#746

Post by llm_nerd » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 5:08 PM UTC

93po wrote: post #624

pwarner wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was probably Elon

Can we stop bringing up annoying people in every single comment section when they have nothing to do with the topic at hand?

Elon Musk has been waging a war with Wikipedia[1] for a couple of years now, and has the ear of the president. Of those in the administration, he is the single name that really stands out as a guy with a Wikipedia beef.

Seems like he has lots to do with the topic, and it is absolutely likely that he is the one who elicited this. Recall that Musk also basically appointed his own head of the IRS (though Bessent then ousted that person and installed his own stooge).

1 - https://www.the-independent.com/tech/elon-musk-wikipedia-naz...

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

#747

Post by tgv » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 5:16 PM UTC

IceHegel wrote: post #725

tgv wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

He says nothing of intellectual interest, yet is presented as some secret fountain of wisdom by hard core, US, extreme right-wing cult followers. I say presented, because I have the vague hope they don't believe it, but only use it as yet another layer of deception.

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

#748

Post by guerrilla » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 5:18 PM UTC

grafmax wrote: post #705

guerrilla wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that would work. The US would just attack those countries as they are doing right now, trying to force us to give up DEI and ESG.

It’s questionable whether this bully continues to have as much influence as it thinks it does.

I don't see any signs of succesful resistance yet.

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

#749

Post by bjourne » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 5:19 PM UTC

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.

They sure do, it's still those who amass the most votes who gets to decide. And it leads to clownish ridiculous results. ADL is listed three times as green, yellow, and red. Comment says "There is consensus that the ADL is a generally unreliable source for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, due to significant evidence that the ADL acts as a pro-Israeli advocacy group and has repeatedly published false and misleading statements as fact, un-retracted, regarding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict." So an organization that has "repeatedly" been caught spreading false and misleading statements is still a reliable source. LOL

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

#750

Post by Supermancho » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 5:22 PM UTC

HDThoreaun wrote: post #633

Supermancho wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the US wanted voting to be more popular, there would be a Federal Holiday to promote it. There is no incentive when there are known costs...at least since the wild inflation of the 80s when it got prohibitive to lose a shift and the slow dissolution of union jobs. This is the result of the tyranny of indifference. Those that benefit continue to promote and benefit, those that do not, are disenfranchised. It's a co…

stop. Voting is incredibly easy. Voting by mail is incredibly easy. Theres no reason you cant vote by mail. The reason people arent voting is because they dont want to/cant be assed

> stop

No.

> Voting by mail is incredibly easy.

This missed the point entirely.

This is about changing behavior and making it "easier" isn't the blocker. People often do not behave the way you expect them to due to simple socialization. Regardless of the specifics, making it more of a celebration (because that's how the vast majority of PTO is perceived) will make it seem like it's more important beyond the lipservice that, frankly, has been ineffective.