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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

#971

Post by 20after4 »

Animats wrote: post #789
20after4 wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the "deletionist" tendency is one of the biggest problems with Wikipedia. At least it's the main thing that prevents me from making significant contributions. I say tendency, but maybe it really is more of a crusade. Deletion and rejection definitely seem to be the default "predisposition." I've seen a lot of examples of apparently well meaning contributors being pushed away by the need to establish "notabili…

That's a feature. Each article requires future attention and adds load. Most of the important articles were in the first 100,000.

I think the ongoing hosting cost of any given article is incredibly close to zero with the exception of a very tiny fraction of popular articles. The popular ones obviously deserve to be there as evidenced by their popularity alone. Maybe there is something I'm not taking into account but I have a hard time seeing the meaningful cost of some obscure wiki page merely existing.

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

#972

Post by 20after4 »

LightHugger wrote: post #857
rafram wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia presents consensus as a proxy for the truth. Pretty sure the consensus on GamerGate is that it was a misogynistic harassment campaign.

Then why are other language articles completely different? Have you gone and checked? Are all the other articles just wrong ? Why is the "consensus" for the gamergate article citing direct primary sources that were involved and attacked by gamergate instead of reliable and impartial secondary sources? Nobody has even bothered addressing any of questions or points i brought up yet. Because they break the narrative. Th…

I tried the spanish and japanese articles, translated back to english. Neither article seemed to be drastically different, at least not in the first few paragraphs. I'm just not seeing the bias, other than a bias towards reality.

There is evidence¹ that the whole gamergate thing was an organized harassment campaign pretty much from the start. Further, the "ethics in game journalism" argument was a calculated and intentional misdirection, used as cover to provide plausible deniability to the harassment campaign.

1. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/new-chat-logs-show-ho...

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

#973

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 »

Braxton1980 wrote: post #908
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose is the help understand current state of play. It used to be more purposeful, useful and meaningful for me to be here. If things will continue with its current trajectory, I will simply stop. I am not saying everyone will. We all have different lines after all. I am not sure what Trump has to do with this particular conversation though.

>I am not sure what Trump has to do with this particular conversation though. Your original comment was about the change in tone, I'm giving what I think is the main reason. He spews hateful rhetoric and insults people constantly. Tens of millions voted for him to represent them in the highest position in the world. >. It used to be more purposeful, useful and meaningful for me I think the articles where you'll find…

I thought about what you wrote. I think I agree and I accept your argument.

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

#974

Post by PeterStuer »

PeterStuer wrote: post #532
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…

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…

Interesting how all the comments are about the person, and none about the actual thing exposed.

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

#975

Post by immibis »

dlubarov wrote: post #958
immibis wrote: post #929

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was about antisemitism (hatred of Jews or Semitic people), not about Zionists, and you completely failed to point to a single example of antisemitic bias on Wikipedia, which is what you were asked to do.

The vast majority of Jews are Zionists, and the two topics are inextricably linked. What would expect antisemitic bias on Wikipedia to look like? What would you accept as evidence?

I'm not sure what you're talking about. And I'd expect you to show some of the bias.

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

#976

Post by gigatexal »

gigatexal wrote: post #952
jfengel wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't just happen to win the presidency. He brought with him both houses of Congress on his coattails, and he had previously filled the Supreme Court (already heavily laden with his partisans). He's not the one with no shame. It's tens of millions of Americans who are even now cheering this action on. Many of them on this web site. If we have a megalomaniac idiot, it's because it reflects who we are.

> If we have a megalomaniac idiot, it's because it reflects who we are. s/we/his voters

I don’t claim to have the same issues Trump or his MAGA base or his rich sycophants do. I voted for Kamala. Which was basically a vote to continue Biden’s policies. Had she won the world would have been a far different place.

So I’m unsure why the downvote. Emacs fans don’t like my vim-ism?

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

#977

Post by Trixter »

sedev wrote: post #213

I am going to say a thing I say a lot: please edit Wikipedia. It is easier to do than you probably think! Wikipedia's biggest constraint is no longer money or server space, it's editor time (especially since LLM-based garbage is a force multiplier on disruptive editing that does not have a corresponding improvement to good-faith editing). Any topic area you know about and/or care about can benefit from your attention…

I used to, until entire notable topics within a certain culture were deleted as "not notable" by editors unfamiliar with the topics.

"not notable" is the cancer within wikipedia. You can't claim to be the sum of human knowledge but also arbitrarily remove articles to meet some imaginary criteria.

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

#978

Post by moritonal »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #925
moritonal wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I created a page, it got declined because the guy who two films have been made about didn't count as important enough. I kind of get it, but still, did kill the energy slightly.

What's the issue with naming the person if you think there should be an encyclopedic article about said person? If it's about anonymity / not wanting to publicly link your HN and Wikipedia profiles, well fine, but the fact that there are two films about a person does not say much. People can make films about themselves, too.

Oh, it was just because it didn't matter to the conversation. It was about Bernie Jordan who left his nursing home to attend a D-Day event. I created the article because both films imply the nursing home prevented him, but in actuality they went to great lengths to help him.

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

#979

Post by sedev »

20after4 wrote: post #971
Animats wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a feature. Each article requires future attention and adds load. Most of the important articles were in the first 100,000.

I think the ongoing hosting cost of any given article is incredibly close to zero with the exception of a very tiny fraction of popular articles. The popular ones obviously deserve to be there as evidenced by their popularity alone. Maybe there is something I'm not taking into account but I have a hard time seeing the meaningful cost of some obscure wiki page merely existing.

> Maybe there is something I'm not taking into account but I have a hard time seeing the meaningful cost of some obscure wiki page merely existing.

The thing you're not taking into account is that every article that exists takes up some amount of editor time, which is why it's good when more people participate in Wikipedia. You are correct that the server/bandwidth cost of almost all articles rounds off to zero. That leaves just the cost in "an actual human looked at this and okayed it," which has different scaling characteristics.

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

#980

Post by sedev »

bawolff wrote: post #433
YZF wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah- Maybe it's "eventually working". It's hard to trust when it seems so fluid. Maybe there needs to be some mechanics to make it harder to change. Something like being able to suggest changes/corrections but having those come out on some schedule after a review? (thinking software release process here). Quarterly Wikipedia releases? Creating some "core" of Wikipedia that is subject to tougher editorial standards?…

Its definitely an eventual consistency kind of model. There was some attempts at change review (called "pending changes") that is used on very continous articles, but it never really scaled that well. I think its more popular on german wikipedia. Wikipedia is so dominant that it has kind of smoothered all alternative models. Personally i feel like its kind of like democracy: the worst system except for all the other…

> Personally i feel like its kind of like democracy: the worst system except for all the other systems.

It's exactly this, in large part because Wikipedia happens to also be a large-scale exercise in direct democracy.

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