9 ms·

Wikimedia director on commercial use of Wikipedia

102 points by okket 9y ago

thisisit 9y ago
Couple of years ago I had a colleague who was obsessed over getting his name on Wikipedia. So he had someone add a page for his town. Then he edited the page to include about how he was the star captain of a local league. To play a practical joke on him, we edited the page to remove his name. Soon it devolved into a cat and mouse game of editing and re-editing the page. I don't know if wikipedia now strictly monitors page edits. But, if they don't I hope Youtube also adds a big red warning on the page - Do not believe everything on the internet, even if it is wikipedia.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  Depends on the article but I've seen some moderators take it way too seriously to the point of rolling back an edit simply because you didn't ask them, the person you're somehow supposed to know "owns" the page. Kind of defeats the purpose of a wiki and has turned me off contributing to it. I think what youtube should do is just put a disclaimer on videos saying "This video is related to an unproven conspiracy" or similar. I doubt linking to a wikipedia page is going to change anyones mind.
  - marksomnian 9y ago
    That is grossly against Wikipedia policy and that editor could get sanctioned, including being blocked. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content
    - cooper12 9y ago
      I doubt someone literally said "you have to ask me first". One thing I've noticed in every thread on Wikipedia on HN is that no one has the faintest clue about what admins do [0], and what's going on when they're trying to edit a page. It's more likely that they changed something that was against consensus, and likely had past discussion. They were also probably told something to that effect in the edit summary. And for some reason whenever people share their grievances, they never provide more context like the page it occurred on or their specific edit. Just because it's the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, doesn't mean it's obligated to take each and every edit regardless of content, quality, or conformance to guidelines and consensus. Wikipedia is also extensively documented, [1] so there's even less reason for a forum that prides itself on being programmer/engineer types to stay so ignorant. [0]: Wikipedia doesn't have "moderators". Anyone can revert edits and just because they opposed your edit, it doesn't automatically mean they're an admin, of which there are only around a thousand. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents
      - dawnerd 9y ago
        Granted it was a while ago and things may have changed, trying to do a simple typo correction lead to what I described. I really don't have time to dig through their documentation just to do something as minor as fixing spelling. It was obvious the editor took offense to it. So thats that from me, sorry for helping I guess. Also run into problems where pages on companies are wrong and edits are prevented even though the information is outright inaccurate. Apparently having the info on the company website isn't cite-able? Seems stupid to me.
        cooper12 9y ago
        The fact that it was a "simple typo" makes me sure there was more to it than that because no one would revert that if it were so. It's likely that it was something you saw as a typo such as the spelling of colour vs color. [0] > Apparently having the info on the company website isn't cite-able? Seems stupid to me. Depends what you're trying to cite. Most small pieces information can be cited just fine to primary sources, though secondary sources are preferred. [1] However, more controversial statements or claims of notability require a reliable independent source, [2] or else any company could claim "we're the best" on their page and include it on Wikipedia. Anyway in both these cases, you fall into the trap I listed before, where you're soooooooo certain that you're in the right and the stupid encyclopedia and its editors are power hungry. Have you ever considered maybe there's more reasoning to it then? Again, I almost guarantee there were reasons given in both cases to which you didn't give the least attention. You wouldn't go making a pull request to an open source project full of code that goes against their style guide, introduces a regression, and is suboptimal and then get righteous that it wasn't accepted without question would you? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Nati... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_independent_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_and_usin...
paxys 9y ago
Wikipedia is already notoriously unreliable and has a huge moderation problem. Passing the entire "fake news" problem down to them is the last thing we need.
- realusername 9y ago
  > Wikipedia is already notoriously unreliable It's still more reliable than other encyclopedias and far more reliable than a good part of traditional news websites.
- joering2 9y ago
  Absolutely but its the easiest thing for YouTube to do. One needs to keep in mind - they are NOT interested in building video version of Encyclopedia Britannica; they only interested in as many click on their site as possible (to display as much ads as possible). For all their care with YT business model, all their videos could be fake news, so long as enough people are sitting and watching.
- tysonzni 9y ago
  This is completely wrong. Here's a collection of research on Wikipedia's reliability. In fact, it's been found to be as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica in multiple studies. Its pharmacology entries, for example, are more accurate than textbooks. Other examples are included as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia#Comparative_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia#Compa...
  - yorwba 9y ago
    Quite ironic to link to Wikipedia as your source for Wikipedia's reliability. I do think that Wikipedia is quite reliable, so I don't have a problem with that, but I think the article doesn't quite support your point. While multiple studies comparing several encyclopedias are mentioned, they tend to have small sample sizes (only a few articles) and being on par with other encyclopedias doesn't necessarily make Wikipedia reliable, it could just as well be that the other options are similarly unreliable (it seems like all studies found something to criticize). Additionally, I interpret "Wikipedia's information about pharmacology was 99.7% accurate when compared to a pharmacology textbook" to mean that the pharmacology textbook was taken as the gold standard and Wikipedia got pretty close. But 3 errors per 1000 (whatever their unit of measurement was) might not be reliable enough to be used by pharmacologists.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
olefoo 9y ago
The ethics of this move are quite questionable on Youtubes part. Dumping a large cognitive load on shared volunteer infrastructure without some level of compensation? Not cool. The fact that Youtube is doing this and is not: * paying wikipedia for the service they are demanding of it * offering wikipedia support in developing tooling to cope with the NEW TASKING that youtube is expecting * talking to them about it before announcing it Suggests that Youtube does not understand its own role in the media ecosystem and is exposing itself to systemic legal and moral risks that could have adverse effects on the company itself and possibly on the entire industry. If someone gets to a Flat Earther video via autoplay ( start from watching aircraft videos.. ) are they better served by being directed to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth orby being shown a countervailing video explaing that the earth is in fact round and there's evidence and how to check it? Does Youtube have a responsibility to help society stay within shouting distance of the reality principle? I think it does. Do you?
- rory096 9y ago
  How does forking over cash help with the burden on said volunteer infrastructure? Is there any relationship at all between Wikimedia's monetary expenditures and editor effort expended?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
    That kinda sounds like a failing on Wikipedia's end.
  - rickycook 9y ago
    hiring developers to help develop software to make editing easier. wikimedia has stated this as one of their uses for donations in the past afaik
- wallace_f 9y ago
  I agree with the first part of what you said. As for the second part. Can you convince me of why I should trust Youtube's owners to police what I can see and hear, rather than rely on my own whims and judgements? Let's say we do allow our largest corporations to police thought. In that case, would it be OK for me to question or dissent?
mcast 9y ago
When did conspiracy theories become harmful? This seems like a move straight out of “1984”. If someone wants to believe (insert grandiose and stupid theory), who cares? YouTube started as an entertainment platform, not a learning tool.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  pizzagate comes to mind. That went beyond being harmless conspiracy.
  - throw_away2 9y ago
    also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_shooting#Conspiracy_theories,_disinformation,_and_harassment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_s... http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/06/portland_man_pleads_guilty_to_6.html http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/06/portlan... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/26/las-vegas-shooting-conspiracy-theories-social-media https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/26/las-vegas-sh...
- teraflop 9y ago
  Well there was that one guy who murdered his father last year because he thought his parents were part of the Pizzagate conspiracy: http://www.businessinsider.com/former-milo-yiannopoulos-intern-killed-his-own-father-alt-right-circles-online-trump-2017-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/former-milo-yiannopoulos-inte...
  - verylittlemeat 9y ago
    I have a controversial and maybe stupid question that is probably unanswerable one way or the other. If you're going to murder your parents over a conspiracy theory is there any reason to assume you wouldn't murder them for a dozen other reasons? How justified is censoring a platform for millions of users because of one mentally ill user? Is there any evidence that being exposed to certain ideas "pushes someone over the edge" any more than what they can come up with in their own head or without technological assistance? I've read some stuff about school shootings that suggests media coverage encourages "copycat" attacks. I'm not just trying to be a contrarian or apologist for a murderer but the causation here seems rhetorically appealing but realistically sketchy to me. People have been killing each other over politics since as long as recorded history.
rory096 9y ago
This seems like an example of Wikimedia cancer.[0] They should be crowing about the novel ways in which people are spreading their freely licensed knowledge without a pile of cash, obstacles, and bureaucracy thanks to the wonders of copyleft. Instead they seem to be complaining that someone (albeit a huge multinational corporation, though I don't see why that should matter) dare use their content without ponying up cash as a "donation" to the cause. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-02-27/Op-ed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
- icebraining 9y ago
  The tweets are all about promoting editing, and the dangers of turning Wikimedia into a read-only source of Truth, rather than something that should be seen as a shared resourced to be improved and verified. She barely mentions donations, and only in a list of all the ways people can contribute.
egypturnash 9y ago
I sure hope YouTube gives Wikipedia admins access to a constantly-updated list of which pages they're linking to from conspiracy videos, so that Wikipedia can lock down the editing in much the same way they do for developing news, or recently-deceased celebrities.
- tysonzni 9y ago
  Good idea. I'm also worried about the increased chance of trolling / false editing that results from Youtube links. But I doubt Wikipedia is ready to or wants to be this involved in collaborating with any for-profit.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    If the browser sends the referer, Wikipedia will be able to figure out themselves which pages YouTube points to. Then it won't be such much intentional collaboration, but instead damage control to prevent vandalism. I doubt Wikipedia is going to like doing that, but they don't have many other options.
mesozoic 9y ago
Who's choosing which videos are conspiracy theories? For that matter who's choosing which Wikipedia facts are shown with the videos they label as conspiracy? Are there no two contradictory pages on Wikipedia? Are their demonitization efforts not working well enough to shut down those who disagree with their viewpoints?
comportboy 9y ago
Am I the only one who thinks that nothing should be done about the "fake news" issue? This debate is based on all sorts of fallacies. First, that fake news elected someone. It did not. Second, that this is something new or inherent to the Internet. It is not. Fake rumours and gossip have existed ever since we have existed. People's judgement has been the sole thing holding the whole system together for hundreds of years. Bankers, for example, spread rumours that Nikola Tesla had sex with pigeons. It was fake but it spread like fire in NYC. Did we ban free speech because of such things? No. From most the discussion threads here it seems that censorship is the only way forward, which scares me because people are falling for the trap and they are justifying censorship. Who will decide what videos are "controversial"? If we agree that fake news should be regulated, what is the limit of state regulation? Why not then allow them to censor most other politically incorrect forms of speech? It seems to me like this is headed down a very dangerous path and it's scary how people fall for it. Fake news is absolutely irrelevant and how it's been blown up and is being exagerated in order to justify censorship is a conspiracy in its own right. I'd be more concerned about this particular conspiracy: someone is trying to justify censorship because one particular candidate won an election.
- soft_dev_person 9y ago
  No, you are not the only one. I cringe every time I read pieces about this. Calling out "fake news" is just the newest variant of placing blame on everyone/thing but ourselves.
- thinkingemote 9y ago
  You are not the only one. The thing seemingly appeared out of thin air sometime between the Brexit vote and Trump running for the Whitehouse. That the news organisations are talking about it more and more is tragic. At least Trump twists the terms to make it more relevant to them. Fact: There was a small case of "troll farms" producing totally click bait content. But the effect was minimal. This is what was originally meant by "fake news". Now fake news can literally be anything, and the resulting moves to counteract anything will be bad. What also concerns me is that most of the voices against whatever fake news is, reside on the left hand side of the political spectrum. Okay. Now. lets assume that Fake News is responsible for manipulating and influencing stupid people into voting wrongly. The way to counteract that is by education, by a free press, not by counter propaganda and censorship.
singularity2001 9y ago
can someone explain/translate her diplomatic stance to a 5 year old in one sentence?
- Vinnl 9y ago
  If you see an excerpt of a Wikipedia article, please go to that page on Wikipedia, examine it critically, and correct mistakes if you see them.
  - singularity2001 9y ago
    is there a between-the-lines message towards Google?
    - Vinnl 9y ago
      "When you highlight Wikipedia content, please encourage people to contribute and to read it with a critical eye. Also, please contribute financially or with infrastructure if it helps you make money." But it's best to read the tweets yourself, since it's based on interpretation. There's not that many of them.
      - gowld 9y ago
        Quite an irony to tell someone to read a tweetstorm lecturing them about the importance of in-depth critical analysis.
gowld 9y ago
Is there a non-twitterspasm version of this essay?
bertil 9y ago
I remember that Google offered to support Wikipedia (financially and otherwise) several times over and was denied. It’s possible that the offer came with strings attached, but I can’t imagine Google being that clumsy. I have little doubt that if the foundation needs more money, YouTube will be more than happy to help out. But, so far, Wikipedia has refused because they want to remain as impartial as possible and can’t rely on too large swaths of funding from too few sources. YouTube has tried to implement moderation and failed to address conspiration-wielders. No matter what they do, someone will decry it as “a platform controlled by the rich” [0]. Wikimedia has been addressing similar issues for almost two decades and has proven more effective than YouTube. Or anyone, really: there is a reason they are scraped for truth. Snopes itself shouldn’t be trusted as a direct source anymore than Wikipedia. The difference is that Wikipedia allows a debate. Katherine Maher wants use to “read @Wikipedia with a critical eye” [1] and who is going to do that better than Flat-Earthers? That change is going to be disruptive but will help Wikipedia develop its own critical-thinking. Is it a good move for Wikipedia? No, it’s exposing itself to critics, which is painful, but it is what the foundation explicitly say they need. Should YouTube have made a deal, given Wikipedia money to help with that problem? Probably not, it would hurt more than it helps. Is YouTube exposing Wikipedia’s brand more and given then an opportunity to communicate on their mission? They have. I’m more likely to give to them if they tell me that they need money to face DDOS from the Flat Earth society than if they keep offering a very easy to overlook service. I’m not saying Google is innocent: they should attribute their facts to the proper author list in their snippets, for instance, but I seriously doubt that they would hesitate to respond to any request for support. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16590852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16590852 [1]: https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/973795473113968641 https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/973795473113968641

102 points by okket 9y ago

Couple of years ago I had a colleague who was obsessed over getting his name on Wikipedia. So he had someone add a page for his town. Then he edited the page to include about how he was the star captain of a local league. To play a practical joke on him, we edited the page to remove his name. Soon it devolved into a cat and mouse game of editing and re-editing the page. I don't know if wikipedia now strictly monitors page edits. But, if they don't I hope Youtube also adds a big red warning on the page - Do not believe everything on the internet, even if it is wikipedia.

dawnerd 9y ago
Depends on the article but I've seen some moderators take it way too seriously to the point of rolling back an edit simply because you didn't ask them, the person you're somehow supposed to know "owns" the page. Kind of defeats the purpose of a wiki and has turned me off contributing to it. I think what youtube should do is just put a disclaimer on videos saying "This video is related to an unproven conspiracy" or similar. I doubt linking to a wikipedia page is going to change anyones mind.
- marksomnian 9y ago
  That is grossly against Wikipedia policy and that editor could get sanctioned, including being blocked. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ownership_of_content
  - cooper12 9y ago
    I doubt someone literally said "you have to ask me first". One thing I've noticed in every thread on Wikipedia on HN is that no one has the faintest clue about what admins do [0], and what's going on when they're trying to edit a page. It's more likely that they changed something that was against consensus, and likely had past discussion. They were also probably told something to that effect in the edit summary. And for some reason whenever people share their grievances, they never provide more context like the page it occurred on or their specific edit. Just because it's the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, doesn't mean it's obligated to take each and every edit regardless of content, quality, or conformance to guidelines and consensus. Wikipedia is also extensively documented, [1] so there's even less reason for a forum that prides itself on being programmer/engineer types to stay so ignorant. [0]: Wikipedia doesn't have "moderators". Anyone can revert edits and just because they opposed your edit, it doesn't automatically mean they're an admin, of which there are only around a thousand. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Contents
    - dawnerd 9y ago
      Granted it was a while ago and things may have changed, trying to do a simple typo correction lead to what I described. I really don't have time to dig through their documentation just to do something as minor as fixing spelling. It was obvious the editor took offense to it. So thats that from me, sorry for helping I guess. Also run into problems where pages on companies are wrong and edits are prevented even though the information is outright inaccurate. Apparently having the info on the company website isn't cite-able? Seems stupid to me.
      - cooper12 9y ago
        The fact that it was a "simple typo" makes me sure there was more to it than that because no one would revert that if it were so. It's likely that it was something you saw as a typo such as the spelling of colour vs color. [0] > Apparently having the info on the company website isn't cite-able? Seems stupid to me. Depends what you're trying to cite. Most small pieces information can be cited just fine to primary sources, though secondary sources are preferred. [1] However, more controversial statements or claims of notability require a reliable independent source, [2] or else any company could claim "we're the best" on their page and include it on Wikipedia. Anyway in both these cases, you fall into the trap I listed before, where you're soooooooo certain that you're in the right and the stupid encyclopedia and its editors are power hungry. Have you ever considered maybe there's more reasoning to it then? Again, I almost guarantee there were reasons given in both cases to which you didn't give the least attention. You wouldn't go making a pull request to an open source project full of code that goes against their style guide, introduces a regression, and is suboptimal and then get righteous that it wasn't accepted without question would you? [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Nati... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_independent_sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_and_usin...

paxys 9y ago

Wikipedia is already notoriously unreliable and has a huge moderation problem. Passing the entire "fake news" problem down to them is the last thing we need.

realusername 9y ago
> Wikipedia is already notoriously unreliable It's still more reliable than other encyclopedias and far more reliable than a good part of traditional news websites.
joering2 9y ago
Absolutely but its the easiest thing for YouTube to do. One needs to keep in mind - they are NOT interested in building video version of Encyclopedia Britannica; they only interested in as many click on their site as possible (to display as much ads as possible). For all their care with YT business model, all their videos could be fake news, so long as enough people are sitting and watching.
tysonzni 9y ago
This is completely wrong. Here's a collection of research on Wikipedia's reliability. In fact, it's been found to be as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica in multiple studies. Its pharmacology entries, for example, are more accurate than textbooks. Other examples are included as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia#Comparative_studies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia#Compa...
- yorwba 9y ago
  Quite ironic to link to Wikipedia as your source for Wikipedia's reliability. I do think that Wikipedia is quite reliable, so I don't have a problem with that, but I think the article doesn't quite support your point. While multiple studies comparing several encyclopedias are mentioned, they tend to have small sample sizes (only a few articles) and being on par with other encyclopedias doesn't necessarily make Wikipedia reliable, it could just as well be that the other options are similarly unreliable (it seems like all studies found something to criticize). Additionally, I interpret "Wikipedia's information about pharmacology was 99.7% accurate when compared to a pharmacology textbook" to mean that the pharmacology textbook was taken as the gold standard and Wikipedia got pretty close. But 3 errors per 1000 (whatever their unit of measurement was) might not be reliable enough to be used by pharmacologists.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

olefoo 9y ago

The ethics of this move are quite questionable on Youtubes part. Dumping a large cognitive load on shared volunteer infrastructure without some level of compensation? Not cool. The fact that Youtube is doing this and is not: * paying wikipedia for the service they are demanding of it * offering wikipedia support in developing tooling to cope with the NEW TASKING that youtube is expecting * talking to them about it before announcing it Suggests that Youtube does not understand its own role in the media ecosystem and is exposing itself to systemic legal and moral risks that could have adverse effects on the company itself and possibly on the entire industry. If someone gets to a Flat Earther video via autoplay ( start from watching aircraft videos.. ) are they better served by being directed to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth orby being shown a countervailing video explaing that the earth is in fact round and there's evidence and how to check it? Does Youtube have a responsibility to help society stay within shouting distance of the reality principle? I think it does. Do you?

rory096 9y ago
How does forking over cash help with the burden on said volunteer infrastructure? Is there any relationship at all between Wikimedia's monetary expenditures and editor effort expended?
- yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
  That kinda sounds like a failing on Wikipedia's end.
- rickycook 9y ago
  hiring developers to help develop software to make editing easier. wikimedia has stated this as one of their uses for donations in the past afaik
wallace_f 9y ago
I agree with the first part of what you said. As for the second part. Can you convince me of why I should trust Youtube's owners to police what I can see and hear, rather than rely on my own whims and judgements? Let's say we do allow our largest corporations to police thought. In that case, would it be OK for me to question or dissent?

mcast 9y ago

When did conspiracy theories become harmful? This seems like a move straight out of “1984”. If someone wants to believe (insert grandiose and stupid theory), who cares? YouTube started as an entertainment platform, not a learning tool.

dawnerd 9y ago
pizzagate comes to mind. That went beyond being harmless conspiracy.
- throw_away2 9y ago
  also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_shooting#Conspiracy_theories,_disinformation,_and_harassment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_s... http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/06/portland_man_pleads_guilty_to_6.html http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/06/portlan... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/26/las-vegas-shooting-conspiracy-theories-social-media https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/26/las-vegas-sh...
teraflop 9y ago
Well there was that one guy who murdered his father last year because he thought his parents were part of the Pizzagate conspiracy: http://www.businessinsider.com/former-milo-yiannopoulos-intern-killed-his-own-father-alt-right-circles-online-trump-2017-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/former-milo-yiannopoulos-inte...
- verylittlemeat 9y ago
  I have a controversial and maybe stupid question that is probably unanswerable one way or the other. If you're going to murder your parents over a conspiracy theory is there any reason to assume you wouldn't murder them for a dozen other reasons? How justified is censoring a platform for millions of users because of one mentally ill user? Is there any evidence that being exposed to certain ideas "pushes someone over the edge" any more than what they can come up with in their own head or without technological assistance? I've read some stuff about school shootings that suggests media coverage encourages "copycat" attacks. I'm not just trying to be a contrarian or apologist for a murderer but the causation here seems rhetorically appealing but realistically sketchy to me. People have been killing each other over politics since as long as recorded history.

rory096 9y ago

This seems like an example of Wikimedia cancer.[0] They should be crowing about the novel ways in which people are spreading their freely licensed knowledge without a pile of cash, obstacles, and bureaucracy thanks to the wonders of copyleft. Instead they seem to be complaining that someone (albeit a huge multinational corporation, though I don't see why that should matter) dare use their content without ponying up cash as a "donation" to the cause. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2017-02-27/Op-ed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...

icebraining 9y ago
The tweets are all about promoting editing, and the dangers of turning Wikimedia into a read-only source of Truth, rather than something that should be seen as a shared resourced to be improved and verified. She barely mentions donations, and only in a list of all the ways people can contribute.

egypturnash 9y ago

I sure hope YouTube gives Wikipedia admins access to a constantly-updated list of which pages they're linking to from conspiracy videos, so that Wikipedia can lock down the editing in much the same way they do for developing news, or recently-deceased celebrities.

tysonzni 9y ago
Good idea. I'm also worried about the increased chance of trolling / false editing that results from Youtube links. But I doubt Wikipedia is ready to or wants to be this involved in collaborating with any for-profit.
- yorwba 9y ago
  If the browser sends the referer, Wikipedia will be able to figure out themselves which pages YouTube points to. Then it won't be such much intentional collaboration, but instead damage control to prevent vandalism. I doubt Wikipedia is going to like doing that, but they don't have many other options.

mesozoic 9y ago

Who's choosing which videos are conspiracy theories? For that matter who's choosing which Wikipedia facts are shown with the videos they label as conspiracy? Are there no two contradictory pages on Wikipedia? Are their demonitization efforts not working well enough to shut down those who disagree with their viewpoints?

comportboy 9y ago

Am I the only one who thinks that nothing should be done about the "fake news" issue? This debate is based on all sorts of fallacies. First, that fake news elected someone. It did not. Second, that this is something new or inherent to the Internet. It is not. Fake rumours and gossip have existed ever since we have existed. People's judgement has been the sole thing holding the whole system together for hundreds of years. Bankers, for example, spread rumours that Nikola Tesla had sex with pigeons. It was fake but it spread like fire in NYC. Did we ban free speech because of such things? No. From most the discussion threads here it seems that censorship is the only way forward, which scares me because people are falling for the trap and they are justifying censorship. Who will decide what videos are "controversial"? If we agree that fake news should be regulated, what is the limit of state regulation? Why not then allow them to censor most other politically incorrect forms of speech? It seems to me like this is headed down a very dangerous path and it's scary how people fall for it. Fake news is absolutely irrelevant and how it's been blown up and is being exagerated in order to justify censorship is a conspiracy in its own right. I'd be more concerned about this particular conspiracy: someone is trying to justify censorship because one particular candidate won an election.

soft_dev_person 9y ago
No, you are not the only one. I cringe every time I read pieces about this. Calling out "fake news" is just the newest variant of placing blame on everyone/thing but ourselves.
thinkingemote 9y ago
You are not the only one. The thing seemingly appeared out of thin air sometime between the Brexit vote and Trump running for the Whitehouse. That the news organisations are talking about it more and more is tragic. At least Trump twists the terms to make it more relevant to them. Fact: There was a small case of "troll farms" producing totally click bait content. But the effect was minimal. This is what was originally meant by "fake news". Now fake news can literally be anything, and the resulting moves to counteract anything will be bad. What also concerns me is that most of the voices against whatever fake news is, reside on the left hand side of the political spectrum. Okay. Now. lets assume that Fake News is responsible for manipulating and influencing stupid people into voting wrongly. The way to counteract that is by education, by a free press, not by counter propaganda and censorship.

singularity2001 9y ago

can someone explain/translate her diplomatic stance to a 5 year old in one sentence?

Vinnl 9y ago
If you see an excerpt of a Wikipedia article, please go to that page on Wikipedia, examine it critically, and correct mistakes if you see them.
- singularity2001 9y ago
  is there a between-the-lines message towards Google?
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    "When you highlight Wikipedia content, please encourage people to contribute and to read it with a critical eye. Also, please contribute financially or with infrastructure if it helps you make money." But it's best to read the tweets yourself, since it's based on interpretation. There's not that many of them.
    - gowld 9y ago
      Quite an irony to tell someone to read a tweetstorm lecturing them about the importance of in-depth critical analysis.

gowld 9y ago

Is there a non-twitterspasm version of this essay?

bertil 9y ago

I remember that Google offered to support Wikipedia (financially and otherwise) several times over and was denied. It’s possible that the offer came with strings attached, but I can’t imagine Google being that clumsy. I have little doubt that if the foundation needs more money, YouTube will be more than happy to help out. But, so far, Wikipedia has refused because they want to remain as impartial as possible and can’t rely on too large swaths of funding from too few sources. YouTube has tried to implement moderation and failed to address conspiration-wielders. No matter what they do, someone will decry it as “a platform controlled by the rich” [0]. Wikimedia has been addressing similar issues for almost two decades and has proven more effective than YouTube. Or anyone, really: there is a reason they are scraped for truth. Snopes itself shouldn’t be trusted as a direct source anymore than Wikipedia. The difference is that Wikipedia allows a debate. Katherine Maher wants use to “read @Wikipedia with a critical eye” [1] and who is going to do that better than Flat-Earthers? That change is going to be disruptive but will help Wikipedia develop its own critical-thinking. Is it a good move for Wikipedia? No, it’s exposing itself to critics, which is painful, but it is what the foundation explicitly say they need. Should YouTube have made a deal, given Wikipedia money to help with that problem? Probably not, it would hurt more than it helps. Is YouTube exposing Wikipedia’s brand more and given then an opportunity to communicate on their mission? They have. I’m more likely to give to them if they tell me that they need money to face DDOS from the Flat Earth society than if they keep offering a very easy to overlook service. I’m not saying Google is innocent: they should attribute their facts to the proper author list in their snippets, for instance, but I seriously doubt that they would hesitate to respond to any request for support. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16590852 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16590852 [1]: https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/973795473113968641 https://twitter.com/krmaher/status/973795473113968641