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I've noticed there seems to be a constant war over the main image on the Wikipedia page about the Sun. In 2013 there's no image[1]. In 2014 the Sun is yellow-o

• mncharity 6y ago
  Ha, interesting. I wonder if someone's done a site where one can easily scroll back and forth in time, watching WP articles change. Hmm, one might make a simple MVP radial gradient from a slice of that Sun_white[1] image. > constant war Well, there's varied esthetics. And misconception avoidance awareness (spotty) and prioritization (varied - some astronomy outreach knowingly does aphysical art thinking it more engaging). Wikipedia has Talk for memory - no permalinks, no "writers notebook". So content crafted with care and carelessness has similar editability. There's no "if you're going to change the Sun image, of course read the extensive easily-found backstory discussion of that" (maybe - I didn't check). When a misconception is widespread in books, editors come with book in hand. When misconceptions create confusion, errors are overlooked, and yet more misconceptions are created as people try to fill gaps, to reconcile incompatible conceptions. The Sun article's current "(its light is closer to white than yellow)" for example. So things roil. Misleadingly colored H-R diagrams providing cover for a simply broken Stellar_classification table. Errors engendering confusion, providing niches for more error. A Darwinian ecology of misconceptions, creating endless forms most wonderful. Or... well, a toxic sludge, and a tragedy of crippled human lives and potential... but that perspective can be demotivating. Science education content is really quite awesomely bad. [1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Sun_white.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Sun_whit...
  • efreak 6y ago
    Forget scrolling, I'd like to see it change as an animation. What I'd really like from Wikipedia is a git-blame (separated by periods in addition to line breaks) for identifying the time of unnoticed vandalism so I can see what else was modified at the same time and should thus be ignored.