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How paid Wikipedia editors squeeze you dry

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Re: How paid Wikipedia editors squeeze you dry

#91

Post by lifeisstillgood »

almatabata wrote: post #84
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The technology is different this time. I argue software is a form of literacy, and literacy demands openness. My great hope is the VW emissions scandal where the CTO of the company had to commit lines of code that said “do billion dollar crime”. In a git repo. We can see your crimes now. Wikipedia is this in microcosm - we can see the edits, we can use software to watch for us, everything is in the open and the f…

> My great hope is the VW emissions scandal where the CTO of the company had to commit lines of code that said “do billion dollar crime”. We know that VW did not write the code. It was the supplier Bosch that did it. VW simply activated a feature through configuration.

I understood that the VW CTO committed the config chnage ?

Re: How paid Wikipedia editors squeeze you dry

#92

Post by HeatrayEnjoyer »

gruez wrote: post #83
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The technology is different this time. I argue software is a form of literacy, and literacy demands openness. My great hope is the VW emissions scandal where the CTO of the company had to commit lines of code that said “do billion dollar crime”. In a git repo. We can see your crimes now. Wikipedia is this in microcosm - we can see the edits, we can use software to watch for us, everything is in the open and the f…

>My great hope is the VW emissions scandal where the CTO of the company had to commit lines of code that said “do billion dollar crime”. There's zero chance that the CTO at a company as big as VW is going to be personally committing to code repos.

I thought it was already established that's exactly what happened?

Re: How paid Wikipedia editors squeeze you dry

#93

Post by almatabata »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #91
almatabata wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My great hope is the VW emissions scandal where the CTO of the company had to commit lines of code that said “do billion dollar crime”. We know that VW did not write the code. It was the supplier Bosch that did it. VW simply activated a feature through configuration.

I understood that the VW CTO committed the config chnage ?

Do you remember where you read that information?

Re: How paid Wikipedia editors squeeze you dry

#94

Post by jampekka »

precompute wrote: post #55

I, in my naivete, after reading the title, thought wikipedia had started paying long-term editors for their work. Apparently not. I guess $250MM isn't enough to pay the people that maintain the website.

Getting pay involved tends to ruin volunteer organizations. Greed is not good.

Re: How paid Wikipedia editors squeeze you dry

#95

Post by riffraff »

JimDabell wrote: post #23
riffraff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I share the same feeling (and we likely are not thinking of the same politicians) it's worth noting every age has had people complaining about * The current government/politicians, which are worse then the ones we had * The youth, who have it easy and are not as good as the old generation We have actual texts from ancient civilizations saying this, so _maybe_ it's just a seesaw, or _maybe_ it's just getting old…

I’m not sure that’s true? There are certainly people complaining about politicians from every era, but specifically shameless grifters ? In similar volume to today? For instance, you can find no end of people who utterly despise Margaret Thatcher and think that she’s the worst thing to ever happen to the UK. But as far as I am aware, even the people who hate her tend to think that she genuinely believed in what she w…

I don't know, I was little when Thatcher was around and not British, but I do remember her being criticized for stuff like "Margaret Thatcher had a deal with Rupert Murdoch to get elected in exchange for granting him more media control".

The Bush administration was deeply criticized for the Iraq war which was considered just a big money grab for friends and family.

Or consider JFK, which is now rated as one of the best US presidents and his actual legacy.

I am Italian, and people are now saying "you know Berlusconi was bad, but at least he had some business knowledge and charisma, compared to the idiots today".

Just give it ten years and people will say that Boris Johnson was pretty honest compared to these guys..

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/201...

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/jfk-accomplished-lit...

Re: How paid Wikipedia editors squeeze you dry

#97

Post by lawrenceyan »

idiotsecant wrote: post #7
Smoosh wrote: post #4

Perhaps I’m just getting old and weary and the scales are falling from my eyes, but the number of assholes in the world who are willing to destroy some valuable resource or community for a small benefit to themselves seems to be increasing, and also increasing their efforts and their effectiveness.

No, you and I just had the singular luck to exist at a time where computers were for weirdos, deviants, and dreamers. The internet was full of people who had naive ideas of what it would be used for and built beautiful and horrible things but they were built largely on ideology, not the banal mediocre lukewarm lawful neutral selfish tribal beige tyranny of the rest of the world. The technology is mature enough now th…

You should get into crypto! Seriously, all of them are still here.

Re: How paid Wikipedia editors squeeze you dry

#98

Post by ctrw »

HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #92
gruez wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My great hope is the VW emissions scandal where the CTO of the company had to commit lines of code that said “do billion dollar crime”. There's zero chance that the CTO at a company as big as VW is going to be personally committing to code repos.

I thought it was already established that's exactly what happened?

[flagged]

Re: How paid Wikipedia editors squeeze you dry

#99

Post by idiotsecant »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #97
idiotsecant wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you and I just had the singular luck to exist at a time where computers were for weirdos, deviants, and dreamers. The internet was full of people who had naive ideas of what it would be used for and built beautiful and horrible things but they were built largely on ideology, not the banal mediocre lukewarm lawful neutral selfish tribal beige tyranny of the rest of the world. The technology is mature enough now th…

You should get into crypto! Seriously, all of them are still here.

If there's a space where the creative impulse is more thoroughly commidifed than crypto, I don't know what it is. I say that as an early, often, and continuing crypto enthusiast for the same naive reasons I am an internet technology enthusiast.

I do think, however, that the two movements share a common ancestor in the certain and nearly evangelical belief that technology holds the answers to messy people problems- early internet culture was largely about assuming the best in people, and crypto by it's design is about assuming the absolute worst and harnessing that to make tech.

Of the two, I think crypto is probably more sustainable!

Re: How paid Wikipedia editors squeeze you dry

#100

Post by lawrenceyan »

idiotsecant wrote: post #99
lawrenceyan wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should get into crypto! Seriously, all of them are still here.

If there's a space where the creative impulse is more thoroughly commidifed than crypto, I don't know what it is. I say that as an early, often, and continuing crypto enthusiast for the same naive reasons I am an internet technology enthusiast. I do think, however, that the two movements share a common ancestor in the certain and nearly evangelical belief that technology holds the answers to messy people problems- ea…

I like to take the more optimistic viewpoint for crypto that it’s about creating resilient systems that will thrive regardless of external conditions.
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