27 ms·

Wikipedia is 20

733 points by kylebarron 6y ago

HDMI_Cable 6y ago
One reason Wikipedia was able to grow so quickly was because of its scale. Instead of relying on a few posh journal editors like Britannica, anyone could contribute. And while you have edge cases of people trolling and some misinformation, you also have a much larger labour pool of people dedicated to helping, not for a paycheque, but their own personal reasons.
- ignoranceprior 6y ago
  Wikipedia was originally intended to be a smaller sandbox area for Nupedia, the expert-authored encyclopedia from Bomis (Jimmy Wales's company). Of course, Wikipedia turned out to be much more successful. But there were other collaborative Internet encyclopedia projects that didn't do so well. Benjamin Mako Hill has a paper exploring what made Wikipedia succeed while the rest failed: https://mako.cc/academic/hill-almost_wikipedia-DRAFT.pdf https://mako.cc/academic/hill-almost_wikipedia-DRAFT.pdf
  - HDMI_Cable 6y ago
    Yeah, it seems to be some sort of snowball effect. If you're lucky and have a few initial users, then you can grow faster, acquire more users, and beat the competition.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  > One reason Wikipedia was able to grow so quickly was because of its scale. I've carefully studied all three definitions of "scale" my dictionary offers up, and come to the conclusion that this sentence either means absolutely nothing ("It is big because it is big"), or something really strange ("Wikipedia grew because of its plate-like skin coverings").
  - HDMI_Cable 6y ago
    Sorry, that was a bit unclear on my part. I was alluding to scale as in Wikipedia's massive pool of available editors being able to publish more content than competitors, thereby driving more traffic. (But of course, we all know that Wikipedia is run by the lizard people with the aforementioned plate-like skin coverings.)
    - Kim_Bruning 6y ago
      So how did wikipedia get those editors? But maybe that's a trick question! Rather: What does Wikipedia consider to be its pool of editors?
  - not_knuth 6y ago
    The last millenium called and they want their prescriptivists back.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > you also have a much larger labour pool of people dedicated to helping, not for a paycheque, but their own personal reasons. This is often not true. There's a whole industry of W editors who charge corporations a monthly fee to guard their pages. It's supposed to be against the W ToS, but whenever foreign W editors are interviewed, they readily admit it (to gain more paying clients.) The "no paycheck" trope is almost as bad as saying ebay is about selling beanie babies.
kantbtrue 6y ago
Wikipedia is my primary knowledge destination!
- kubanczyk 6y ago
  It's a primary knowledge source for me, but occasionally a destination as well!
olivermarks 6y ago
2017 - 'Researchers found that 77 percent of Wikipedia articles are written by 1 percent of Wikipedia editors, and they think this is probably for the best.' https://www.vice.com/en/article/7x47bb/wikipedia-editors-elite-diversity-foundation https://www.vice.com/en/article/7x47bb/wikipedia-editors-eli...
- Kim_Bruning 6y ago
  There's a strong long-tail effect. Here's a 2015 essay that sets out to debunk the above 2017 source. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
  - jjcon 6y ago
    I’m confused - that article is from 2006 - how can it be used to debunk a 2017 study?
    - Kim_Bruning 6y ago
      Apologies, It's from 2006 even. I'm clearly getting old. The reason it can be used to debunk the 2017 study is because said study is working with an old idea that already existed in 2006. Aaron Swartz posits that at the very least you should not discount the importance of the long tail.
      - jjcon 6y ago
        > posits that at the very least you should not discount the importance of the long tail. thats not a debunking
- jjice 6y ago
  That's a damn strong Pareto distribution. Makes sense though. Those are an interesting and passionate few.
neilpanchal 6y ago
Take note: The interface hasn't changed much, a good thing.
- eruleman 6y ago
  It's because lots of people are using Wikiwand extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wikiwand-wikipedia-modern/emffkefkbkpkgpdeeooapgaicgmcbolj?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wikiwand-wikipedia...).
  - bawolff 6y ago
    It would actually be interesting to know how common that extension is as a percentage of wikipedia views. I would bet less than 0.1%
- op03 6y ago
  Most importantly it hasnt adopted the Like/Follower count based Reward system that lot of people in the tech world have mindlessly included all over the place. Try running any org with a Like and Follower count based reward system and check what surfaces and who pays a prices.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    StackOverflow was doing good until the Eternal September began. They also forgot to take into account changing “best practices”
- ignoranceprior 6y ago
  The main changes were the switch from UseModWiki to MediaWiki (using the Monobook skin), and from Monobook to Vector. https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/ https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/?useskin=monobook https://en.wikipedia.org/?useskin=monobook
- whym 6y ago
  Not to disagree, but the mobile web site brought a significantly different user experience (for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean), and the mobile readership has been at least as large as the desktop for a long time. [1] [1] https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org/reading/total-page-views/normal|bar|2016-01-01~2021-02-01|access~desktop*mobile-web|monthly https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org/reading/total...
matthewmorgan 6y ago
Plenty of subtle agenda-pushing on Wikipedia if you're paying attention
- notRobot 6y ago
  That's a pretty serious allegation, and you're going to have to elaborate on that.
  - astrange 6y ago
    It is? It seems kind of obvious to me. People who don’t care about a topic are not going to edit the page about it.
    - lovecg 6y ago
      But that’s sort of how the whole thing tends to work. If a topic is niche and one sided, you’ll get your small filter bubble which doesn’t really hurt anyone. If it’s controversial, the writing will tend towards the careful middle. It’s not perfect but works as well as anything its size could.
      - GreenHeuristics 6y ago
        > If it’s controversial, the writing will tend towards the careful middle. No, it will tend towards the side of those who has the most admin rights and most time for reverts. They will have no interest in neutrality
  - tw04 6y ago
    I thought it was pretty well known that Wikipedia has been gamed repeatedly over the years. From companies to individuals. Generally speaking in the LONG TERM, things get corrected. But they are definitely not perfect and their editors have bias whether intentional or not. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikipedia-paid-editing-pr-facebook-nbc-axios_n_5c63321be4b03de942967225?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJQ3COXPAt0y1nXwsDv1a8gL2Z66BEUOPaMolk2-ktIZwz8Ezlwa42ZGeHIjfP-yUEuLdEsv5Ucf9oqhp4Jv8Crz4MQb3XRxm2jioSjiWXhh3ahc62lfjZ6WsdXk5iHs8mNWijrISzoMC-hkTfqrNT1ItKRkcPW-RJrW6WMqi8Ey https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikipedia-paid-editing-pr-fac...
throwawaysea 6y ago
I've been funding Wikipedia for years and use it several times daily. It has indeed grown into an amazing source of knowledge documenting this world. However there are insidious problems building up. For example, I've noticed that they are starting to encode a lot of biases into its articles, particularly on topics that are part of the political sphere. These articles often reflect a US progressive-left worldview rather than a balanced view that reflects differing opinions from multiple sides of the aisle. There is also a distinct Western and English cultural bias in how articles describe and frame other countries, other cultures, and other religions. I'm not sure what the fix is for these issues, but it does mean that I seek out opposing perspectives elsewhere when I read articles that concern such topics. It'll probably always be important for readers to seek multiple perspectives, including ones they disagree with, instead of blindly trusting Wikipedia to be correct. After all, it is written by humans.
- Bud 6y ago
  Could you cite some examples that you feel are especially egregious? Have you tried to remedy this by editing any of those articles and backing up your edits with a solid factual argument?
- helloitsian 6y ago
  What would be a good place to find one of these biases?
- lovecg 6y ago
  Could you share an example of a biased article? I haven’t really noticed that (at least for the visible, high profile articles) - the coverage has been as balanced as anywhere. Where it might get “extreme” is on niche topics that few people care about. For example I remember some articles associated with the whole “audiophile” scene were claiming some silly things without much evidence behind them, but that’s pretty innocuous in my view.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    One example is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th..., which is about a term called "Cultural Marxism" which has been used by some mainstream right-leaning people as well as some right-leaning extremists (particularly in the past). If you look at the article itself, it titles this article as a "conspiracy theory" and specifically features the conspiracy theory version of "Cultural Marxism" in its opening sentences. However, the term as commonly used in modern times, does not refer to that particular conspiracy theory but is more like a shorthand for leftist ideology that features collectivism, particularly when it infiltrates academic institutions (and not the notion of a coordinated mass conspiracy). From a quick Google search, I was able to find other articles that draw this distinction clearly (example https://spectator.us/whats-wrong-cultural-marxism/ https://spectator.us/whats-wrong-cultural-marxism/). However, the Wikipedia article doesn't draw this distinction well, and it seems intent on casting the phrase "Cultural Marxism" as racist, and so it features the worst interpretation of it. It sources articles that are also written primarily to repudiate right-wing political figures or intellectuals like Jordan Peterson. The related debate and edit wars are apparent when you look at the "Talk" page for this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cultural_Marxism_conspira.... Note that the Talk page mentions the article is controversial, is in dispute, that there have been attempts to recruit editors to change the article, there have been circular sources introduced, and so forth. That's just one example, but if you dig deep enough into any topic that has a left- and right- perspective and a Wikipedia article, you'll find the same. Wikipedia is, in my view, developing a US-centric English-centric left-leaning bias. All that said, I still love Wikipedia and will continue to use it everyday. I just worry that like all human-centric institutions, it is itself a target, a theater of battle in the on-going ideological wars.
sharkweek 6y ago
Ah good stuff - I love Wikipedia more than almost any other non-living thing that has been created in my lifetime. If you had told me the idea as a pitch 20 years ago I would have assumed you were capital I insane for thinking it would work. It was pretty fresh when I was in college and I remember my professors all being pretty explicit about not using it as a source. Thought I had figured out the world’s biggest life hack when I started using the sources listed on Wikipedia as my sources for papers.
- Vanit 6y ago
  Same here, Wikipedia sources were a great life hack for uni on easy mode.
- shepherdjerred 6y ago
  Wikipedia is incredible. I find it frustrating when friends say it's unreliable/not to be trusted. Of course it's not perfect, but I've learned plenty enough from it to be well worth the trade-off
  - disown 6y ago
    > Wikipedia is incredible. It's good for surface level stuff. The apolitical superficial knowledge is where wikipedia excels. > I find it frustrating when friends say it's unreliable/not to be trusted. In terms of depth and breadth of knowledge of topics, it is sorely lacking. And it is highly untrustworthy when it comes to anything remotely political/historical/economic/etc - which are ultimately all political. > Of course it's not perfect, but I've learned plenty enough from it to be well worth the trade-off Definitely. It has it's uses like everything. But it is extremely flawed.
    - nsajko 6y ago
      Doesn't even have to be political. Moneyed interests and fanboys and cultists use Wikipedia for PR and similar all the time. See Falun Gong, for example. There are also groups of Wikipedia "editors" who coordinate off-wiki to influence its workings. (Sock-puppeting and meat-puppeting) Even if we disregarded all the malicious actors, harmful incompetence is rampant on Wikipedia. And I was just talking about the English Wikipedia here, there are many "small" Wikipedias which are much much worse.
admiralspoo 6y ago
Its reputation is severely declining, especially on topics relating to current events, figures, or politics. It, however, remains excellent for technical knowledge.
- gchamonlive 6y ago
  Current events are so divisive and many times no one has a clear picture of what's happening that I can't see how someone objectively assesses a current event news outlet as lacking reputation without prior incidents.
  - canofbars 6y ago
    Someone on hacker news commented about how they started watching the news 2 weeks after it was broadcast and mentioned how a massive amount of the breaking news ended up being false when viewed later with the full set of information. It would probably be beneficial if wikipedia simply didn't allow brand new news that couldn't be solidly confirmed.
    - gchamonlive 6y ago
      But without characterizing what exactly "brand new" is, you could implement this prohibition without having the correct effect of maintaining veracity and consistency. And would you treat different events differently? Would you have to wait, for instance, for classified documents to be released so that you could say you have the bigger picture? I question if prohibition is really the right way to go. Wikipedia proved to be effective long term. Let them keep doing what is working. Maybe just warn the reader the subject or event is recent or currently developing and let the reader decide for himself whether to use that information or not.
    - 2sk21 6y ago
      Truly we need a low-pass filter to handle current events.
      - gchamonlive 6y ago
aerosmile 6y ago
I am surprised that the comments haven't mentioned the role of SEO in Wikipedia's growth and defensibility. Wikipedia's habit of deep interlinking helped it rank back in the early aughts when the SEO rules were rather simple. Add to that the subdomain-driven localization strategy and many other moves that were considered SEO best practices back in those years when the on-page factors used to matter. But that was just the start. Wikipedia killed it in SEO when it was easy to do so, but it also did one other thing that most SEO-driven sites (eg: About) didn't do correctly - it cared deeply about the content quality and also resisted to run ads (anyone remember Jason Calacanis' articles on how they are leaving $100m on the table? See [1]). So when Panda came around, Google correctly rewarded Wikipedia with #1 rankings for over 50% of its terms (!!), and Jason Calacanis had to shut down Mahalo which got destroyed by Panda. Wikipedia's dominance continues because it's basically impossible to overcome its lead in inbound links and domain authority. Add to that a surprisingly under-the-radar company culture which has avoided any major blow ups despite its community wielding so much leverage over the world's education and having to make a lot of difficult calls on a daily basis. Well done. [1] https://calacanis.com/2006/10/28/wikipedia-leaves-100m-on-the-table-or-please-jimbo-reconsider/ https://calacanis.com/2006/10/28/wikipedia-leaves-100m-on-th...
- creato 6y ago
  It is somehow sad that "caring about content quality" is considered SEO and not just making a good website. I think more than half the things you mentioned are only good SEO because search engines want to send people to websites they will like reading. I think when that is the case, we should be crediting people for making good websites, not good SEO.
  - jessriedel 6y ago
    Yea, if SEO is to have a useful meaning, it really out to be "changes you make to improve search ranking holding quality fixed".
  - pvorb 6y ago
    Yes, I believe that Wikipedia and its authors never put much thought into SEO. They just think about how to best structure the information and make heavy use of links, which also happens to be a good strategy for SEO. The Google search rank algorithms changed a lot more than the overall structure of a good Wikipedia article in the last 20 years.
mxcrossb 6y ago
I just opened up google maps and zoomed in on a random town: Mt. Pleasant Iowa. If I search it on google, on the top of the page is a snippet from Wikipedia. The top result is a link to Wikipedia. The second is the actual town website. This is what I find fascinating about the project. We’re more interested in reading a secondary source compiled by random people, than the actual primary source! I think it says a lot about the nice interface it has.
- ricardo81 6y ago
  Indeed. As great as wiki is (and it is, I use their data dumps), it's content at scale just like G is search and FB is for social. Scaled content. There has been a few occasions in search where I would've expected the local/primary sources to be favoured. Think if you said to someone 'give me a website where I could read more about X', wiki can be the lazy and probably correct answer.
- canofbars 6y ago
  I took a look at those two pages and they are not equivalent. Wikipedia lists out a bunch of facts, demographics, and important details on the area. The towns own site is not to focused on collecting facts but more on directing people in the area to info they would need like where to pay a parking ticket or what events are on. I couldn't even find most of the info on the wikipedia page on the towns own site.
- mFixman 6y ago
  Wikipedia is the best overall source of human-readable information. The Mt Pleasant site talks about the frequency (but not date) of meetings from the parks and recreation department, while Wikipedia actually has the location and the reasons why the town is notable.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  This is normal. What is exhaust data for the primary source is primary data for the secondary source. For data you always want to go to the guy for whom the data he's giving you is the thing he does.
lilSebastian 6y ago
https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/26/scots_wikipedia_fake/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/26/scots_wikipedia_fake/
de6u99er 6y ago
Strange, that nobody is shutting down WikiPedia. /s Just making fun of the dumb right
wolverine876 6y ago
I was originally enthusiastic about the 'wisdom of the crowds' and its potential. The Internet was a great experiment with unknown possibilities. I edited Wikipedia and talked about its potential. I was skeptical at the same time - it was an experiment, not a revelation. I used to tell people, 'I don't know how Wikipedia could work, but it seems to'. I'd apply 'The Cathedral and the Bizarre' concept to it, and 'with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow' (even though those ideas were intended for open source software). The 'wisdom of the crowds' depends on good faith from the members of the crowd. Otherwise you get the manipulation of the crowds and propaganda of the faux crowds. One serious concern I had was that, if economics predicts human behavior to some extent, Wikipedia could be a victim of its own success: The more readers and influence it had, the more likely people would try to use that power. I first saw it happening in 2006, in the page on the Duke University lacrosse team's sexual assault case. Many editors clearly engaged in rewriting history in order to advocate for the lacrosse players; many had names clearly asserting affinity for Duke U., such as 'bluedevil'. That seizure of power was highly disturbing; has Wikipedia developed better means to prevent it now? Of course, the focus on using the 'wisdom of the crowds' to manipulate has shifted to other platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. I stopped using Wikipedia years ago, other than to lookup basic facts that have little significance to me. I use Britannica (or other expert sources), which IMHO is very good and often very well written. While there is some benefit to 'wisdom of the crowds', I never know if that's what I'm getting at Wikipedia. As for the expert approach, In matters of science, the authority of thousands is not worth the humble reasoning of one single person.
- Kim_Bruning 6y ago
  Interesting question, how did the article end up? In general Wikipedia does have mechanisms to deal with this sort of thing, but admins don't always catch on early enough.
  - arp242 6y ago
    It currently says that "three men's lacrosse team members were falsely accused of rape", and that the prosecutor of the case was "disbarred for "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation". So either there is a massive conspiracy, or those editors were perhaps not as unreasonable as the previous poster makes them out to be.
Uptrenda 6y ago
I really do hate Wikipedia and almost never use it. It's a collection of poorly spun word-salad stolen loosely from third-parties. And the aim isn't on quality but to satisfy the editors compulsive need to contribute to Wikipedia's ever-growing rat's nest of non-sense... just because. In every article there will always be a historical section probably about 3/4ths the articles width that you just skip over (it's useless.) Then, maybe if you're lucky there will be some notes of value. These notes are almost always useless for two reasons: 1. They are never detailed enough to do anything with. 2. They usually assume massive amounts of prior audience knowledge. To the point where said audience wouldn't need the website. So they have the unique distinction of being useless to both beginners and expert audiences (quite the feat if you think about.) In the end after you've realized whatever article you're reading is useless (mostly all of them) you'll leave and do what you should have done in the first place: your own research. I really do wish there was a way to block results in Google. Wikipedia and it's merry band of 13-yo editors would be the first to go.
- yborg 6y ago
  -site:wikipedia.org Now you'll have to find something else to rant about on the Internet.
- elliotec 6y ago
  Wow... really? This is shocking to me. Where do you typically get information about stuff that everyone else goes to Wikipedia for?
- Kim_Bruning 6y ago
  I think it sometimes depends on the area you are looking for information in. In general an encyclopedia helps you solve the search paradox (That is: You can't find anything unless you already know something about it). * If you use it to find information about things you are already very familiar with, you'll be disappointed. * If you use it directly as a source for things you are not familiar with, you will be mislead. However, if you use your encyclopedia (Britannica , Wikipedia, Encarta) as a jumping off point to find search terms and sources, you'll find it to be most useful indeed. In short, an encyclopedia is more like a richer dictionary, rather than a primary source of truth. (it isn't called a tertiary source for nothing!)
neonate 6y ago
https://archive.is/ZJkp6 https://archive.is/ZJkp6
libraryofbabel 6y ago
Three aphorisms in honor of Wikipedia, greatest encyclopedia in world history, and its 20 years of free knowledge uncorrupted by advertising: * Wikipedia works in practice, but not in theory. * Wikipedia is the worst source of information, except for all the others. * Wikipedia: the Internet’s greatest reason to feel a little bit optimistic about human nature.
- jessriedel 6y ago
  Having looked into it a bit, I've been severely disappointed that we have no good theory of why Wikipedia works. There are lots of putative explanations, but they all predict the successful existence of all sorts of collaborative projects that we don't actually see. Wikipedia is such a treasure, and it would be extremely valuable to know more about how it works so we can replicate aspects of it for other projects.
  - Kim_Bruning 6y ago
    http://wiki.c2.com/?WikiHistory http://wiki.c2.com/?WikiHistory Start here. * There's a variant on design patterns which you can call Community Patterns. * Some patterns are software design patterns * Some patterns describe Agile software development. * Some patterns describe how to run a wiki (and why) * Wikipedia originally adopted these patterns and extended them for its own policy. See also: http://wiki.c2.com/?WhyWikiWorks http://wiki.c2.com/?WhyWikiWorks If you want a long thoughtful writeup, check this text by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/wikiroads http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/wikiroads That's some baseline sources off the top of my head. There's a lot more written about this. It seems like there are several concepts working together that a lot of people find un-intuitive. * In the main, human beings are honest. In fact mathematics predicts it must be so. (Game theory) * Humans "automagically" cooperate if their numbers are small (under Dunbar's number), but fail to do so over that number. * If you can keep the number of cooperating people under control, you can take advantage of this. * Conversely, if something needs attention, the ability to rapidly recruit them to the point needing attention is paramount (see eg. smart mobs) Partly by accident, partly by design, wiki engines exploit the above 3 elements. At first approximation, as long as >>51% of users are honest, the wiki will continue to function. The measured value on operational wikis is something like 60-80%.
wintorez 6y ago
I think we can't overstate the deep impact Wikipedia had in the past 20 years. The initial idea was so counter-initiative. I thought it would fail due to vandalism. But despite that, it thrived, and somehow it became a great source of knowledge.
- jayflux 6y ago
  I remember there was definitely a lot more vandalism back then, it just so happened that the number of volunteers started to outweigh the abusers by quite a bit. I think moderation tooling got better over the years: being able to revert edits quickly, tracking users/IPs known for vandalism, locking articles, reporting someone etc.
  - globular-toast 6y ago
    In my experience the vandalism was mainly due to people taken by the novelty of being able to edit the site. The vast majority isn't determined to sabotage the site and therefore it's easily overcome by determined maintainers. The ability to vandalise is actually an essential part of Wikipedia's success, in my opinion. Most users will not continue to vandalise and some will become valuable editors after seeing how easy it is to contribute and that their changes make a real and instant difference.
moron4hire 6y ago
It's funny. We just showed our kids the Pixar movie "Monsters Inc", which I hadn't realized was also 20 years old until the movie ended and the info screen came up. I think of it as a contemporary movie, "not that old". But I think of Wikipedia as having always existed. Funny how memory works. Also, I've lived longer with Wikipedia than without. I guess I'm getting old.
- elliotec 6y ago
  You're not alone. What a strange feeling.
elliotec 6y ago
I believe Wikipedia is not only the greatest and most perfect website to exist, but also one of the greatest accomplishments of humankind. I rarely use such strong, ostensibly hyperbolic language without sarcasm, but I couldn't be more sincere and genuine with that statement. It exemplifies the information age, and the "purpose" of the internet - networked information transfer. The design is simple and usable to an almost miraculous degree. The distributed sourcing of information with mind-blowing moderation is pioneering and of upmost respectability. Its ability to endure through the onslaught of addictive capitalist pressures and sheer ethical reasonableness is something very special, resisting ads for the sake and benefit of humanity, I almost want to cry just writing about it. I could say so much more, but what I want to get to is - Thank you Wikipedia. You have changed countless lives and spread unthinkable knowledge to unfathomable futures. Hard to believe it's only been 20 years, I can't imagine a universe without you. Please donate if you use Wikipedia. The world needs it.
acidburnNSA 6y ago
In grad school back in like 2007 I took a 2-credit class called "The History of Nuclear Enterprise" taught by one of those long white-haired Doc Brown type professors. The final project was for each of us to make Wikipedia pages describing some important topic that wasn't covered yet. I made one on the university's nuclear reactor which had just been shut down. I dug through many linear feet of archived info, scanning photos and collecting various info for the page. It was super rewarding. I was hooked. Variously since then I have gone deep into some fringe but important-to-some topic and found hard-to-find sources. I've found it effective to collect and present this information in Wikipedia pages. Like a few months ago I made the page for the Aircraft Reactor Experiment [1], the world's first molten salt-fueled nuclear reactor, built and operated with intent to make nuclear-powered long-range aircraft. I'm pretty proud of the page, and go back to use it somewhat regularly. Having the platform of Wikipedia inspires me to go the slight extra mile in personal research in a way that can be used by everyone. Thanks Wikipedia, for existing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment
- wodenokoto 6y ago
  How do you handle the notability requirement? Or are your topics too obscure for anyone to care?
  - acidburnNSA 6y ago
    I think I'm a bit special in that in my field (nuclear power), many of the smartest people in the world worked hard with vast funding between 1940 and 1960. Later the field got less popular and most people with knowledge of that stuff died. But today lots of investors and technologists are digging back into it to help fight climate change. So there are all these absolute gems in huge technical reports that were declassified in the 1960s and 70s that people are keenly interested in understanding and cataloging.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    In my experience, notability probably isn't likely to be a big issue for an obscure topic that is well-referenced. (Although it's always a possibility given some of the Wikipedians out there.) It's generally more of a problem with people. In part this is because notability is so context-dependent. Every professor at a college or professional football player or senior executive at a large company is notable at some level. Most restaurants have been reviewed once or twice somewhere. But the amount of publicly available information about many of these things is probably fairly limited, especially from third parties.
ceilingcorner 6y ago
Is there an easy way to browse past versions of Wikipedia? I’m aware of the Wayback Machine, but that only works for a particular article. I ask because it’s become increasingly obvious that articles are changed to fit the contemporary zeitgeist. Writers that died a century ago are recast into different people, depending on the popular ideology of the day. The choice of acceptable sources is also pretty disappointing. This problem is unique to the internet and doesn’t exist with hardback encyclopedias; one can still buy a hardback set of Britannica circa 1900. Once 2050 comes around, I’d like to be able to read the 2010 version of Wikipedia, not the one deemed acceptable by the powers that be.
- nsajko 6y ago
  Every Wikipedia page has its history accessible through "View history".
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    Yes I meant if there’s a way to view the entire site, not only specific pages.
    - bawolff 6y ago
      Not super easily, but the entire site can be downloaded from https://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html https://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html so you can make your own copy and do what you want (technically this is a little involved. File formats are not the most convinent) The full dumps include old versions of articles but there are also old dumps available at https://dumps.wikimedia.org/archive/ https://dumps.wikimedia.org/archive/
tech-historian 6y ago
A visual history of Wikipedia going back to 2001: https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/wikipedia-website https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/wikipedia-website
iamcreasy 6y ago
Do anybody has any hypothesis on why there hasn't been any successful Wikipedia copycat? I know Google attempted their variant called Knol(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knol).
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  Because a clone would have to be significantly better to convince the community and users to switch. There simply was none. And it is a huge amount of work to try and as far as I know, mainly those people try this in seriousnes (and some success), who are not happy with wikipedia because they don't like alternative facts. So I think I have seen alt-right and esoteric wikipedia clones somewhere, but for some reason they have not wide success.
- canofbars 6y ago
  Usually when you build a clone, you base it on fixing the problems of the original? What problems in wikipedia could a clone possibly fix since the main issues with wikipedia is getting people to agree on what should be included and I don't see how that could be solved.
  - kubanczyk 6y ago
    For example, a fork could make all articles into rabbit holes like: - really simple and short article - expanded version of the same article - even more expanded version - ... With an easy (contextual!) navigation up and down the stack. The benefit would be faster learning. The initial levels would be clearly marked that they contain simplifications to the point of being half-truths and the version that is 100% "honest" would be also clearly marked. (For the cases when the truth is so complex that it becomes clearly anti-educational. I don't mean controversial/political topics.)
lord_murdoc 6y ago
great site.
raindropm 6y ago
I used to read book while eating(it's my lifelong habit) now I replace it with Wikipedia. Learn something new here and there everyday(mostly old history stuff) Nothing beats its rabbit hole and its barebone-but-focused interface. It does not replace any in-depth source of any topic you want to learn, of course.
nsajko 6y ago
One interesting thing with interesting implications regarding the (Wikimedia Foundation and its) Wikipedias is that getting to know them/it and how it functions is very involved. This is what I'm getting at: I tried to present some criticism of Wikipedia in this discussion. However, a lot of my comments are kind of vague because I failed to give specific examples. Consider why this is so: Discussing a specific example would require both some (sometimes rare) knowledge of the subject at hand and knowledge of the arcane processes through which a Wikipedia is governed and through which the disputes are resolved. This means that I would need to invest a lot of time explaining everything for someone to be able to understand the example, but, on the other hand, almost nobody (if not perhaps already a Wikipedian and familiar with the subject matter) would be willing to invest enough time to really understand the example and all the connected issues anyway. Thus substantial criticism of Wikipedia and its processes never gets to the public at large. I think that even most of Wikipedia's contributors hold little understanding of how Wikipedia actually works (socially) because the majority are very casual. And don't get me started on the incompetent contributors who meddle with articles and topics that they don't know enough about. Another issue is that Wikipedians probably won't want to associate their Wikipedia identity with their HN identity (and similar).
- bawolff 6y ago
  Wait so your criticism of wikipedia is it is too complicated to understand and you can't effectively criticize wikipedia if you dont understand it? That's certainly a criticism i haven't heard before. I suppose in a way its true - wikipedia has its own culture, norms, etc, both written and unwritten, which can be hard to penetrate for an outsider (i would argue that WMF also struggles with that). But i think any large online community is going to have that. Heck, actual anthropologists have written actual books on the culture of debian, i dont see why wikipedia would be any less complicated. > Another issue is that Wikipedians probably won't want to associate their Wikipedia identity with their HN identity (and similar). And that is an issue because? [For the record my wikipedia username is the same as my HN username, and i know other people for which that is also true]
kristopolous 6y ago
I remember going first in 2002, a lot of pages were just lists like all the popes or cereals by general mills. I thought "yeah right, who's going to write an article on like pope pius x and cheerios. nice project but not happening" It was the second time I had seen a wiki, the first was on vim.org where I changed something in 2001 or so because I just didn't believe the concept was real. I think I get in on the ground of a bunch of things but I'm just incredulous and not enthusiastic about them. Like all those bitcoins I didn't care about... It's a problem I should probably work on. I should be more excited about things. Just have to figure out how to get there.
tannhaeuser 6y ago
Happy birthday, Wikipedia. Agree though that on the rare occasion I skim an article falling within one of my areas of expertise, I'm usually left very disappointed, puzzled about the mindset of editors seeing themselves nevertheless as domain experts going by the authoritative tone of Wikipedia articles. The Gell-Mann amnesia effect makes me then appreciate articles out of my area of expertise again. That, and the fact that most sites when read in EU greet you with annoying cookie dialogs, something I wish search engines would indicate in advance in order for me to spare me visiting it (a turning away effect I wish was studied and quantified somewhere as it vastly changed my browsing habits).
diveanon 6y ago
I would like to see wikipedia move it's database to a decentralized model, something similar to a blockchain ledger. I would definitely consider contributing and donating to an effort that opened up it's content and moderation further.
rayrag 6y ago
I've recently installed Wikipedia app on my tablet and I have to admit it's amazing, I prefer it over the web version. Cleaner look, customisable home page, tabs within app and especially ability to create lists of articles and saving them for offline use is something I've always wanted.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Is there an easy way to download all of Wikipedia? I’m guessing it is one of the first things set up on Mars :)
- OscarCunningham 6y ago
  https://www.kiwix.org/en/ https://www.kiwix.org/en/ It's not very big if you leave out all the pictures. I've got it all on my phone.
- ly 6y ago
  Yes, there is: https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_Wikimedia_project_XML_dumps https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_Wikimedia_projec...
throwawaybutwhy 6y ago
Congratulations to the hive of villainy, embezzlement, and political propaganda on incidentally creating the largest trove of human knowledge on the backs of unpaid and underappreciated editors.
i_love_limes 6y ago
I'll add my own anecdote. I have donated to Wikipedia sporadically over the years, and they asked me to take part in a sort of round table interview / qualitative study. In a room of other Wikipedia donators, maybe 1/3 of the people there didn't know that the information was entirely community driven, and when they learned, a handful of didn't think it was a good idea! It just shows how much Wikipedia is just taken for granted, when in reality so so much effort goes in to keeping it free, ad free, open, and accessible to everyone.
- einpoklum 6y ago
  > maybe 1/3 of the people there didn't know that the information was entirely community driven Maybe because it's not entirely community driven. It is somewhat community driven.
  - i_love_limes 6y ago
    Apologies, the distinction wasn't some Vs all, it was that they hadn't even considered how the information got there. Then when they found out, they were immediately sceptical of the idea. Which was hilarious. But also, unless you have a much better understanding than me, it is community driven. Even those who have some official capacity at Wikipedia only got there through countless hours of being a good community member
    - einpoklum 6y ago
      There is a small group of core "editors". I am not aware of the dynamics within that group, but obviously it is sanctioned and directed by the Wikimedia foundation (certainly through setting policy and allocating budget, but likely also through other forms of direction and interaction). This sets the historical, political and ontological outlook of Wikipedia, in very broad strokes; and decides the actual content on a huge number of articles. Of course, lay "editors" contribute a huge amount of text, but that's not the "driving" part.
2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
Wikipedia is a treasure. Everyone wants free access to information, well here it is. Put your money where your mouth is and donate.
- luxuryballs 6y ago
  Can’t donate in good conscience though because they do somewhat have a general tone and worldview that seems to be pervasive and heavily moderated. Wish there was a forkable version of Wikipedia so all views and angles can be allowed to co-exist, no need for a digital encyclopedia to be so skeuomorphic.
  - iso8859-1 6y ago
    It is forkable, you can download the database dumps and import them into your own instance.
    - luxuryballs 6y ago
      I mean forkability as a first class feature built into the UI so you can easily browse the alternative or competing beliefs.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    You're basically describing Google Knol. What you end up with is a bunch of people publishing often self-promotional, biased, or just plain bad articles.
    - luxuryballs 6y ago
      Sounds like the UX and the concept needs more refinement. Also I wouldn’t let Google anywhere near such a product.
mch82 6y ago
Wikipedia is also amazing because the foundation publishes a lot of detail about engineering and technical operations on Wikitech (https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page). I’ve learned so much about DevOps just reading their docs and publicly released code. They also publish minutes of their Scrum of Scrums and Google Summer of Code projects. And they have historical info about key initiatives & growth. All worth exploring if you’re running a website/startup.
luxuryballs 6y ago
Wikipedia feels so skeuomorphic now with single pages like a real Encyclopedia. Rather than having an “edit battle” over a single page and then having them always being locked down why don’t we have an “Omnipedia” where people can just fork a page if there is a legitimate alternative angle on something? We have the technology, just need a clever UI for visually browsing the various forks and a way of preventing the forks from becoming duplicates of the same alternative.
marcod 6y ago
I'm sorry, but the intro of the article is wrong. Not anyone could edit the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Ford was researching earth for 15 years and an editor cut his submission down to "mostly harmless"... > https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Ford_Prefect#Work_on_the_Guide https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Ford_Prefect#Work_on_the...
- yreg 6y ago
  Well, that could happen to you on Wikipedia as well (WP:Notability)
cabalamat 6y ago
I'm surprised that no-one has built an inclusionist alternative to Wikipedia. Wikipedia's emphasis on notability restricts what can be put there.
bluecloud1 6y ago
I was one of the first administrators on one of the non-English versions and saw it grow from "this cannot possibly compete with Encyclopedia Britannica etc." to "OMG, what would the world do without Wikipedia?". I continue to be blown away by Wikipedia, and the fact that it not only works but continually gets better over time. Hats off to Wikipedia management and the fact they have stayed true to their mission. Please remember to continue to support them, through donations or any other means that you can!
bigpumpkin 6y ago
10-20 years seem to be the right timeframe for long-term thinking. It is long enough that a kernel of an idea can become world changing in that time frame. Yet not so long that present people would have no ability to predict future trends.
foofoo4u 6y ago
Of all the institutions on the web, Wikipedia has remained my #1 most trusted source with the least sense of corruption. Remarkable, really. If we want to know how to restore the web, we may want to learn how Wikipedia has remained so reputable for so long and model it.

733 points by kylebarron 6y ago

One reason Wikipedia was able to grow so quickly was because of its scale. Instead of relying on a few posh journal editors like Britannica, anyone could contribute. And while you have edge cases of people trolling and some misinformation, you also have a much larger labour pool of people dedicated to helping, not for a paycheque, but their own personal reasons.

ignoranceprior 6y ago
Wikipedia was originally intended to be a smaller sandbox area for Nupedia, the expert-authored encyclopedia from Bomis (Jimmy Wales's company). Of course, Wikipedia turned out to be much more successful. But there were other collaborative Internet encyclopedia projects that didn't do so well. Benjamin Mako Hill has a paper exploring what made Wikipedia succeed while the rest failed: https://mako.cc/academic/hill-almost_wikipedia-DRAFT.pdf https://mako.cc/academic/hill-almost_wikipedia-DRAFT.pdf
- HDMI_Cable 6y ago
  Yeah, it seems to be some sort of snowball effect. If you're lucky and have a few initial users, then you can grow faster, acquire more users, and beat the competition.
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
> One reason Wikipedia was able to grow so quickly was because of its scale. I've carefully studied all three definitions of "scale" my dictionary offers up, and come to the conclusion that this sentence either means absolutely nothing ("It is big because it is big"), or something really strange ("Wikipedia grew because of its plate-like skin coverings").
- HDMI_Cable 6y ago
  Sorry, that was a bit unclear on my part. I was alluding to scale as in Wikipedia's massive pool of available editors being able to publish more content than competitors, thereby driving more traffic. (But of course, we all know that Wikipedia is run by the lizard people with the aforementioned plate-like skin coverings.)
  - Kim_Bruning 6y ago
    So how did wikipedia get those editors? But maybe that's a trick question! Rather: What does Wikipedia consider to be its pool of editors?
- not_knuth 6y ago
  The last millenium called and they want their prescriptivists back.
redis_mlc 6y ago
> you also have a much larger labour pool of people dedicated to helping, not for a paycheque, but their own personal reasons. This is often not true. There's a whole industry of W editors who charge corporations a monthly fee to guard their pages. It's supposed to be against the W ToS, but whenever foreign W editors are interviewed, they readily admit it (to gain more paying clients.) The "no paycheck" trope is almost as bad as saying ebay is about selling beanie babies.

kantbtrue 6y ago

Wikipedia is my primary knowledge destination!

kubanczyk 6y ago
It's a primary knowledge source for me, but occasionally a destination as well!

olivermarks 6y ago

2017 - 'Researchers found that 77 percent of Wikipedia articles are written by 1 percent of Wikipedia editors, and they think this is probably for the best.' https://www.vice.com/en/article/7x47bb/wikipedia-editors-elite-diversity-foundation https://www.vice.com/en/article/7x47bb/wikipedia-editors-eli...

Kim_Bruning 6y ago
There's a strong long-tail effect. Here's a 2015 essay that sets out to debunk the above 2017 source. http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
- jjcon 6y ago
  I’m confused - that article is from 2006 - how can it be used to debunk a 2017 study?
  - Kim_Bruning 6y ago
    Apologies, It's from 2006 even. I'm clearly getting old. The reason it can be used to debunk the 2017 study is because said study is working with an old idea that already existed in 2006. Aaron Swartz posits that at the very least you should not discount the importance of the long tail.
    - jjcon 6y ago
      > posits that at the very least you should not discount the importance of the long tail. thats not a debunking
jjice 6y ago
That's a damn strong Pareto distribution. Makes sense though. Those are an interesting and passionate few.

neilpanchal 6y ago

Take note: The interface hasn't changed much, a good thing.

eruleman 6y ago
It's because lots of people are using Wikiwand extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wikiwand-wikipedia-modern/emffkefkbkpkgpdeeooapgaicgmcbolj?hl=en-US https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wikiwand-wikipedia...).
- bawolff 6y ago
  It would actually be interesting to know how common that extension is as a percentage of wikipedia views. I would bet less than 0.1%
op03 6y ago
Most importantly it hasnt adopted the Like/Follower count based Reward system that lot of people in the tech world have mindlessly included all over the place. Try running any org with a Like and Follower count based reward system and check what surfaces and who pays a prices.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  StackOverflow was doing good until the Eternal September began. They also forgot to take into account changing “best practices”
ignoranceprior 6y ago
The main changes were the switch from UseModWiki to MediaWiki (using the Monobook skin), and from Monobook to Vector. https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/ https://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/?useskin=monobook https://en.wikipedia.org/?useskin=monobook
whym 6y ago
Not to disagree, but the mobile web site brought a significantly different user experience (for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean vs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Ocean), and the mobile readership has been at least as large as the desktop for a long time. [1] [1] https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org/reading/total-page-views/normal|bar|2016-01-01~2021-02-01|access~desktop*mobile-web|monthly https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/en.wikipedia.org/reading/total...

matthewmorgan 6y ago

Plenty of subtle agenda-pushing on Wikipedia if you're paying attention

notRobot 6y ago
That's a pretty serious allegation, and you're going to have to elaborate on that.
- astrange 6y ago
  It is? It seems kind of obvious to me. People who don’t care about a topic are not going to edit the page about it.
  - lovecg 6y ago
    But that’s sort of how the whole thing tends to work. If a topic is niche and one sided, you’ll get your small filter bubble which doesn’t really hurt anyone. If it’s controversial, the writing will tend towards the careful middle. It’s not perfect but works as well as anything its size could.
    - GreenHeuristics 6y ago
      > If it’s controversial, the writing will tend towards the careful middle. No, it will tend towards the side of those who has the most admin rights and most time for reverts. They will have no interest in neutrality
- tw04 6y ago
  I thought it was pretty well known that Wikipedia has been gamed repeatedly over the years. From companies to individuals. Generally speaking in the LONG TERM, things get corrected. But they are definitely not perfect and their editors have bias whether intentional or not. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikipedia-paid-editing-pr-facebook-nbc-axios_n_5c63321be4b03de942967225?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAJQ3COXPAt0y1nXwsDv1a8gL2Z66BEUOPaMolk2-ktIZwz8Ezlwa42ZGeHIjfP-yUEuLdEsv5Ucf9oqhp4Jv8Crz4MQb3XRxm2jioSjiWXhh3ahc62lfjZ6WsdXk5iHs8mNWijrISzoMC-hkTfqrNT1ItKRkcPW-RJrW6WMqi8Ey https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wikipedia-paid-editing-pr-fac...

throwawaysea 6y ago

I've been funding Wikipedia for years and use it several times daily. It has indeed grown into an amazing source of knowledge documenting this world. However there are insidious problems building up. For example, I've noticed that they are starting to encode a lot of biases into its articles, particularly on topics that are part of the political sphere. These articles often reflect a US progressive-left worldview rather than a balanced view that reflects differing opinions from multiple sides of the aisle. There is also a distinct Western and English cultural bias in how articles describe and frame other countries, other cultures, and other religions. I'm not sure what the fix is for these issues, but it does mean that I seek out opposing perspectives elsewhere when I read articles that concern such topics. It'll probably always be important for readers to seek multiple perspectives, including ones they disagree with, instead of blindly trusting Wikipedia to be correct. After all, it is written by humans.

Bud 6y ago
Could you cite some examples that you feel are especially egregious? Have you tried to remedy this by editing any of those articles and backing up your edits with a solid factual argument?
helloitsian 6y ago
What would be a good place to find one of these biases?
lovecg 6y ago
Could you share an example of a biased article? I haven’t really noticed that (at least for the visible, high profile articles) - the coverage has been as balanced as anywhere. Where it might get “extreme” is on niche topics that few people care about. For example I remember some articles associated with the whole “audiophile” scene were claiming some silly things without much evidence behind them, but that’s pretty innocuous in my view.
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  One example is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_th..., which is about a term called "Cultural Marxism" which has been used by some mainstream right-leaning people as well as some right-leaning extremists (particularly in the past). If you look at the article itself, it titles this article as a "conspiracy theory" and specifically features the conspiracy theory version of "Cultural Marxism" in its opening sentences. However, the term as commonly used in modern times, does not refer to that particular conspiracy theory but is more like a shorthand for leftist ideology that features collectivism, particularly when it infiltrates academic institutions (and not the notion of a coordinated mass conspiracy). From a quick Google search, I was able to find other articles that draw this distinction clearly (example https://spectator.us/whats-wrong-cultural-marxism/ https://spectator.us/whats-wrong-cultural-marxism/). However, the Wikipedia article doesn't draw this distinction well, and it seems intent on casting the phrase "Cultural Marxism" as racist, and so it features the worst interpretation of it. It sources articles that are also written primarily to repudiate right-wing political figures or intellectuals like Jordan Peterson. The related debate and edit wars are apparent when you look at the "Talk" page for this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cultural_Marxism_conspira.... Note that the Talk page mentions the article is controversial, is in dispute, that there have been attempts to recruit editors to change the article, there have been circular sources introduced, and so forth. That's just one example, but if you dig deep enough into any topic that has a left- and right- perspective and a Wikipedia article, you'll find the same. Wikipedia is, in my view, developing a US-centric English-centric left-leaning bias. All that said, I still love Wikipedia and will continue to use it everyday. I just worry that like all human-centric institutions, it is itself a target, a theater of battle in the on-going ideological wars.

sharkweek 6y ago

Ah good stuff - I love Wikipedia more than almost any other non-living thing that has been created in my lifetime. If you had told me the idea as a pitch 20 years ago I would have assumed you were capital I insane for thinking it would work. It was pretty fresh when I was in college and I remember my professors all being pretty explicit about not using it as a source. Thought I had figured out the world’s biggest life hack when I started using the sources listed on Wikipedia as my sources for papers.

Vanit 6y ago
Same here, Wikipedia sources were a great life hack for uni on easy mode.
shepherdjerred 6y ago
Wikipedia is incredible. I find it frustrating when friends say it's unreliable/not to be trusted. Of course it's not perfect, but I've learned plenty enough from it to be well worth the trade-off
- disown 6y ago
  > Wikipedia is incredible. It's good for surface level stuff. The apolitical superficial knowledge is where wikipedia excels. > I find it frustrating when friends say it's unreliable/not to be trusted. In terms of depth and breadth of knowledge of topics, it is sorely lacking. And it is highly untrustworthy when it comes to anything remotely political/historical/economic/etc - which are ultimately all political. > Of course it's not perfect, but I've learned plenty enough from it to be well worth the trade-off Definitely. It has it's uses like everything. But it is extremely flawed.
  - nsajko 6y ago
    Doesn't even have to be political. Moneyed interests and fanboys and cultists use Wikipedia for PR and similar all the time. See Falun Gong, for example. There are also groups of Wikipedia "editors" who coordinate off-wiki to influence its workings. (Sock-puppeting and meat-puppeting) Even if we disregarded all the malicious actors, harmful incompetence is rampant on Wikipedia. And I was just talking about the English Wikipedia here, there are many "small" Wikipedias which are much much worse.

admiralspoo 6y ago

Its reputation is severely declining, especially on topics relating to current events, figures, or politics. It, however, remains excellent for technical knowledge.

gchamonlive 6y ago
Current events are so divisive and many times no one has a clear picture of what's happening that I can't see how someone objectively assesses a current event news outlet as lacking reputation without prior incidents.
- canofbars 6y ago
  Someone on hacker news commented about how they started watching the news 2 weeks after it was broadcast and mentioned how a massive amount of the breaking news ended up being false when viewed later with the full set of information. It would probably be beneficial if wikipedia simply didn't allow brand new news that couldn't be solidly confirmed.
  - gchamonlive 6y ago
    But without characterizing what exactly "brand new" is, you could implement this prohibition without having the correct effect of maintaining veracity and consistency. And would you treat different events differently? Would you have to wait, for instance, for classified documents to be released so that you could say you have the bigger picture? I question if prohibition is really the right way to go. Wikipedia proved to be effective long term. Let them keep doing what is working. Maybe just warn the reader the subject or event is recent or currently developing and let the reader decide for himself whether to use that information or not.
  - 2sk21 6y ago
    Truly we need a low-pass filter to handle current events.
    - gchamonlive 6y ago

aerosmile 6y ago

I am surprised that the comments haven't mentioned the role of SEO in Wikipedia's growth and defensibility. Wikipedia's habit of deep interlinking helped it rank back in the early aughts when the SEO rules were rather simple. Add to that the subdomain-driven localization strategy and many other moves that were considered SEO best practices back in those years when the on-page factors used to matter. But that was just the start. Wikipedia killed it in SEO when it was easy to do so, but it also did one other thing that most SEO-driven sites (eg: About) didn't do correctly - it cared deeply about the content quality and also resisted to run ads (anyone remember Jason Calacanis' articles on how they are leaving $100m on the table? See [1]). So when Panda came around, Google correctly rewarded Wikipedia with #1 rankings for over 50% of its terms (!!), and Jason Calacanis had to shut down Mahalo which got destroyed by Panda. Wikipedia's dominance continues because it's basically impossible to overcome its lead in inbound links and domain authority. Add to that a surprisingly under-the-radar company culture which has avoided any major blow ups despite its community wielding so much leverage over the world's education and having to make a lot of difficult calls on a daily basis. Well done. [1] https://calacanis.com/2006/10/28/wikipedia-leaves-100m-on-the-table-or-please-jimbo-reconsider/ https://calacanis.com/2006/10/28/wikipedia-leaves-100m-on-th...

creato 6y ago
It is somehow sad that "caring about content quality" is considered SEO and not just making a good website. I think more than half the things you mentioned are only good SEO because search engines want to send people to websites they will like reading. I think when that is the case, we should be crediting people for making good websites, not good SEO.
- jessriedel 6y ago
  Yea, if SEO is to have a useful meaning, it really out to be "changes you make to improve search ranking holding quality fixed".
- pvorb 6y ago
  Yes, I believe that Wikipedia and its authors never put much thought into SEO. They just think about how to best structure the information and make heavy use of links, which also happens to be a good strategy for SEO. The Google search rank algorithms changed a lot more than the overall structure of a good Wikipedia article in the last 20 years.

mxcrossb 6y ago

I just opened up google maps and zoomed in on a random town: Mt. Pleasant Iowa. If I search it on google, on the top of the page is a snippet from Wikipedia. The top result is a link to Wikipedia. The second is the actual town website. This is what I find fascinating about the project. We’re more interested in reading a secondary source compiled by random people, than the actual primary source! I think it says a lot about the nice interface it has.

ricardo81 6y ago
Indeed. As great as wiki is (and it is, I use their data dumps), it's content at scale just like G is search and FB is for social. Scaled content. There has been a few occasions in search where I would've expected the local/primary sources to be favoured. Think if you said to someone 'give me a website where I could read more about X', wiki can be the lazy and probably correct answer.
canofbars 6y ago
I took a look at those two pages and they are not equivalent. Wikipedia lists out a bunch of facts, demographics, and important details on the area. The towns own site is not to focused on collecting facts but more on directing people in the area to info they would need like where to pay a parking ticket or what events are on. I couldn't even find most of the info on the wikipedia page on the towns own site.
mFixman 6y ago
Wikipedia is the best overall source of human-readable information. The Mt Pleasant site talks about the frequency (but not date) of meetings from the parks and recreation department, while Wikipedia actually has the location and the reasons why the town is notable.
renewiltord 6y ago
This is normal. What is exhaust data for the primary source is primary data for the secondary source. For data you always want to go to the guy for whom the data he's giving you is the thing he does.

lilSebastian 6y ago

https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/26/scots_wikipedia_fake/ https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/26/scots_wikipedia_fake/

de6u99er 6y ago

Strange, that nobody is shutting down WikiPedia. /s Just making fun of the dumb right

wolverine876 6y ago

I was originally enthusiastic about the 'wisdom of the crowds' and its potential. The Internet was a great experiment with unknown possibilities. I edited Wikipedia and talked about its potential. I was skeptical at the same time - it was an experiment, not a revelation. I used to tell people, 'I don't know how Wikipedia could work, but it seems to'. I'd apply 'The Cathedral and the Bizarre' concept to it, and 'with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow' (even though those ideas were intended for open source software). The 'wisdom of the crowds' depends on good faith from the members of the crowd. Otherwise you get the manipulation of the crowds and propaganda of the faux crowds. One serious concern I had was that, if economics predicts human behavior to some extent, Wikipedia could be a victim of its own success: The more readers and influence it had, the more likely people would try to use that power. I first saw it happening in 2006, in the page on the Duke University lacrosse team's sexual assault case. Many editors clearly engaged in rewriting history in order to advocate for the lacrosse players; many had names clearly asserting affinity for Duke U., such as 'bluedevil'. That seizure of power was highly disturbing; has Wikipedia developed better means to prevent it now? Of course, the focus on using the 'wisdom of the crowds' to manipulate has shifted to other platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. I stopped using Wikipedia years ago, other than to lookup basic facts that have little significance to me. I use Britannica (or other expert sources), which IMHO is very good and often very well written. While there is some benefit to 'wisdom of the crowds', I never know if that's what I'm getting at Wikipedia. As for the expert approach, In matters of science, the authority of thousands is not worth the humble reasoning of one single person.

Kim_Bruning 6y ago
Interesting question, how did the article end up? In general Wikipedia does have mechanisms to deal with this sort of thing, but admins don't always catch on early enough.
- arp242 6y ago
  It currently says that "three men's lacrosse team members were falsely accused of rape", and that the prosecutor of the case was "disbarred for "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation". So either there is a massive conspiracy, or those editors were perhaps not as unreasonable as the previous poster makes them out to be.

Uptrenda 6y ago

I really do hate Wikipedia and almost never use it. It's a collection of poorly spun word-salad stolen loosely from third-parties. And the aim isn't on quality but to satisfy the editors compulsive need to contribute to Wikipedia's ever-growing rat's nest of non-sense... just because. In every article there will always be a historical section probably about 3/4ths the articles width that you just skip over (it's useless.) Then, maybe if you're lucky there will be some notes of value. These notes are almost always useless for two reasons: 1. They are never detailed enough to do anything with. 2. They usually assume massive amounts of prior audience knowledge. To the point where said audience wouldn't need the website. So they have the unique distinction of being useless to both beginners and expert audiences (quite the feat if you think about.) In the end after you've realized whatever article you're reading is useless (mostly all of them) you'll leave and do what you should have done in the first place: your own research. I really do wish there was a way to block results in Google. Wikipedia and it's merry band of 13-yo editors would be the first to go.

yborg 6y ago
-site:wikipedia.org Now you'll have to find something else to rant about on the Internet.
elliotec 6y ago
Wow... really? This is shocking to me. Where do you typically get information about stuff that everyone else goes to Wikipedia for?
Kim_Bruning 6y ago
I think it sometimes depends on the area you are looking for information in. In general an encyclopedia helps you solve the search paradox (That is: You can't find anything unless you already know something about it). * If you use it to find information about things you are already very familiar with, you'll be disappointed. * If you use it directly as a source for things you are not familiar with, you will be mislead. However, if you use your encyclopedia (Britannica , Wikipedia, Encarta) as a jumping off point to find search terms and sources, you'll find it to be most useful indeed. In short, an encyclopedia is more like a richer dictionary, rather than a primary source of truth. (it isn't called a tertiary source for nothing!)

neonate 6y ago

https://archive.is/ZJkp6 https://archive.is/ZJkp6

libraryofbabel 6y ago

Three aphorisms in honor of Wikipedia, greatest encyclopedia in world history, and its 20 years of free knowledge uncorrupted by advertising: * Wikipedia works in practice, but not in theory. * Wikipedia is the worst source of information, except for all the others. * Wikipedia: the Internet’s greatest reason to feel a little bit optimistic about human nature.

jessriedel 6y ago
Having looked into it a bit, I've been severely disappointed that we have no good theory of why Wikipedia works. There are lots of putative explanations, but they all predict the successful existence of all sorts of collaborative projects that we don't actually see. Wikipedia is such a treasure, and it would be extremely valuable to know more about how it works so we can replicate aspects of it for other projects.
- Kim_Bruning 6y ago
  http://wiki.c2.com/?WikiHistory http://wiki.c2.com/?WikiHistory Start here. * There's a variant on design patterns which you can call Community Patterns. * Some patterns are software design patterns * Some patterns describe Agile software development. * Some patterns describe how to run a wiki (and why) * Wikipedia originally adopted these patterns and extended them for its own policy. See also: http://wiki.c2.com/?WhyWikiWorks http://wiki.c2.com/?WhyWikiWorks If you want a long thoughtful writeup, check this text by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/wikiroads http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/wikiroads That's some baseline sources off the top of my head. There's a lot more written about this. It seems like there are several concepts working together that a lot of people find un-intuitive. * In the main, human beings are honest. In fact mathematics predicts it must be so. (Game theory) * Humans "automagically" cooperate if their numbers are small (under Dunbar's number), but fail to do so over that number. * If you can keep the number of cooperating people under control, you can take advantage of this. * Conversely, if something needs attention, the ability to rapidly recruit them to the point needing attention is paramount (see eg. smart mobs) Partly by accident, partly by design, wiki engines exploit the above 3 elements. At first approximation, as long as >>51% of users are honest, the wiki will continue to function. The measured value on operational wikis is something like 60-80%.

wintorez 6y ago

I think we can't overstate the deep impact Wikipedia had in the past 20 years. The initial idea was so counter-initiative. I thought it would fail due to vandalism. But despite that, it thrived, and somehow it became a great source of knowledge.

jayflux 6y ago
I remember there was definitely a lot more vandalism back then, it just so happened that the number of volunteers started to outweigh the abusers by quite a bit. I think moderation tooling got better over the years: being able to revert edits quickly, tracking users/IPs known for vandalism, locking articles, reporting someone etc.
- globular-toast 6y ago
  In my experience the vandalism was mainly due to people taken by the novelty of being able to edit the site. The vast majority isn't determined to sabotage the site and therefore it's easily overcome by determined maintainers. The ability to vandalise is actually an essential part of Wikipedia's success, in my opinion. Most users will not continue to vandalise and some will become valuable editors after seeing how easy it is to contribute and that their changes make a real and instant difference.

moron4hire 6y ago

It's funny. We just showed our kids the Pixar movie "Monsters Inc", which I hadn't realized was also 20 years old until the movie ended and the info screen came up. I think of it as a contemporary movie, "not that old". But I think of Wikipedia as having always existed. Funny how memory works. Also, I've lived longer with Wikipedia than without. I guess I'm getting old.

elliotec 6y ago
You're not alone. What a strange feeling.

elliotec 6y ago

I believe Wikipedia is not only the greatest and most perfect website to exist, but also one of the greatest accomplishments of humankind. I rarely use such strong, ostensibly hyperbolic language without sarcasm, but I couldn't be more sincere and genuine with that statement. It exemplifies the information age, and the "purpose" of the internet - networked information transfer. The design is simple and usable to an almost miraculous degree. The distributed sourcing of information with mind-blowing moderation is pioneering and of upmost respectability. Its ability to endure through the onslaught of addictive capitalist pressures and sheer ethical reasonableness is something very special, resisting ads for the sake and benefit of humanity, I almost want to cry just writing about it. I could say so much more, but what I want to get to is - Thank you Wikipedia. You have changed countless lives and spread unthinkable knowledge to unfathomable futures. Hard to believe it's only been 20 years, I can't imagine a universe without you. Please donate if you use Wikipedia. The world needs it.

acidburnNSA 6y ago

In grad school back in like 2007 I took a 2-credit class called "The History of Nuclear Enterprise" taught by one of those long white-haired Doc Brown type professors. The final project was for each of us to make Wikipedia pages describing some important topic that wasn't covered yet. I made one on the university's nuclear reactor which had just been shut down. I dug through many linear feet of archived info, scanning photos and collecting various info for the page. It was super rewarding. I was hooked. Variously since then I have gone deep into some fringe but important-to-some topic and found hard-to-find sources. I've found it effective to collect and present this information in Wikipedia pages. Like a few months ago I made the page for the Aircraft Reactor Experiment [1], the world's first molten salt-fueled nuclear reactor, built and operated with intent to make nuclear-powered long-range aircraft. I'm pretty proud of the page, and go back to use it somewhat regularly. Having the platform of Wikipedia inspires me to go the slight extra mile in personal research in a way that can be used by everyone. Thanks Wikipedia, for existing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment

wodenokoto 6y ago
How do you handle the notability requirement? Or are your topics too obscure for anyone to care?
- acidburnNSA 6y ago
  I think I'm a bit special in that in my field (nuclear power), many of the smartest people in the world worked hard with vast funding between 1940 and 1960. Later the field got less popular and most people with knowledge of that stuff died. But today lots of investors and technologists are digging back into it to help fight climate change. So there are all these absolute gems in huge technical reports that were declassified in the 1960s and 70s that people are keenly interested in understanding and cataloging.
- ghaff 6y ago
  In my experience, notability probably isn't likely to be a big issue for an obscure topic that is well-referenced. (Although it's always a possibility given some of the Wikipedians out there.) It's generally more of a problem with people. In part this is because notability is so context-dependent. Every professor at a college or professional football player or senior executive at a large company is notable at some level. Most restaurants have been reviewed once or twice somewhere. But the amount of publicly available information about many of these things is probably fairly limited, especially from third parties.

ceilingcorner 6y ago

Is there an easy way to browse past versions of Wikipedia? I’m aware of the Wayback Machine, but that only works for a particular article. I ask because it’s become increasingly obvious that articles are changed to fit the contemporary zeitgeist. Writers that died a century ago are recast into different people, depending on the popular ideology of the day. The choice of acceptable sources is also pretty disappointing. This problem is unique to the internet and doesn’t exist with hardback encyclopedias; one can still buy a hardback set of Britannica circa 1900. Once 2050 comes around, I’d like to be able to read the 2010 version of Wikipedia, not the one deemed acceptable by the powers that be.

nsajko 6y ago
Every Wikipedia page has its history accessible through "View history".
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Yes I meant if there’s a way to view the entire site, not only specific pages.
  - bawolff 6y ago
    Not super easily, but the entire site can be downloaded from https://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html https://dumps.wikimedia.org/backup-index.html so you can make your own copy and do what you want (technically this is a little involved. File formats are not the most convinent) The full dumps include old versions of articles but there are also old dumps available at https://dumps.wikimedia.org/archive/ https://dumps.wikimedia.org/archive/

tech-historian 6y ago

A visual history of Wikipedia going back to 2001: https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/wikipedia-website https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/wikipedia-website

iamcreasy 6y ago

Do anybody has any hypothesis on why there hasn't been any successful Wikipedia copycat? I know Google attempted their variant called Knol(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knol).

hutzlibu 6y ago
Because a clone would have to be significantly better to convince the community and users to switch. There simply was none. And it is a huge amount of work to try and as far as I know, mainly those people try this in seriousnes (and some success), who are not happy with wikipedia because they don't like alternative facts. So I think I have seen alt-right and esoteric wikipedia clones somewhere, but for some reason they have not wide success.
canofbars 6y ago
Usually when you build a clone, you base it on fixing the problems of the original? What problems in wikipedia could a clone possibly fix since the main issues with wikipedia is getting people to agree on what should be included and I don't see how that could be solved.
- kubanczyk 6y ago
  For example, a fork could make all articles into rabbit holes like: - really simple and short article - expanded version of the same article - even more expanded version - ... With an easy (contextual!) navigation up and down the stack. The benefit would be faster learning. The initial levels would be clearly marked that they contain simplifications to the point of being half-truths and the version that is 100% "honest" would be also clearly marked. (For the cases when the truth is so complex that it becomes clearly anti-educational. I don't mean controversial/political topics.)

lord_murdoc 6y ago

great site.

raindropm 6y ago

I used to read book while eating(it's my lifelong habit) now I replace it with Wikipedia. Learn something new here and there everyday(mostly old history stuff) Nothing beats its rabbit hole and its barebone-but-focused interface. It does not replace any in-depth source of any topic you want to learn, of course.

nsajko 6y ago

One interesting thing with interesting implications regarding the (Wikimedia Foundation and its) Wikipedias is that getting to know them/it and how it functions is very involved. This is what I'm getting at: I tried to present some criticism of Wikipedia in this discussion. However, a lot of my comments are kind of vague because I failed to give specific examples. Consider why this is so: Discussing a specific example would require both some (sometimes rare) knowledge of the subject at hand and knowledge of the arcane processes through which a Wikipedia is governed and through which the disputes are resolved. This means that I would need to invest a lot of time explaining everything for someone to be able to understand the example, but, on the other hand, almost nobody (if not perhaps already a Wikipedian and familiar with the subject matter) would be willing to invest enough time to really understand the example and all the connected issues anyway. Thus substantial criticism of Wikipedia and its processes never gets to the public at large. I think that even most of Wikipedia's contributors hold little understanding of how Wikipedia actually works (socially) because the majority are very casual. And don't get me started on the incompetent contributors who meddle with articles and topics that they don't know enough about. Another issue is that Wikipedians probably won't want to associate their Wikipedia identity with their HN identity (and similar).

bawolff 6y ago
Wait so your criticism of wikipedia is it is too complicated to understand and you can't effectively criticize wikipedia if you dont understand it? That's certainly a criticism i haven't heard before. I suppose in a way its true - wikipedia has its own culture, norms, etc, both written and unwritten, which can be hard to penetrate for an outsider (i would argue that WMF also struggles with that). But i think any large online community is going to have that. Heck, actual anthropologists have written actual books on the culture of debian, i dont see why wikipedia would be any less complicated. > Another issue is that Wikipedians probably won't want to associate their Wikipedia identity with their HN identity (and similar). And that is an issue because? [For the record my wikipedia username is the same as my HN username, and i know other people for which that is also true]

kristopolous 6y ago

I remember going first in 2002, a lot of pages were just lists like all the popes or cereals by general mills. I thought "yeah right, who's going to write an article on like pope pius x and cheerios. nice project but not happening" It was the second time I had seen a wiki, the first was on vim.org where I changed something in 2001 or so because I just didn't believe the concept was real. I think I get in on the ground of a bunch of things but I'm just incredulous and not enthusiastic about them. Like all those bitcoins I didn't care about... It's a problem I should probably work on. I should be more excited about things. Just have to figure out how to get there.

tannhaeuser 6y ago

Happy birthday, Wikipedia. Agree though that on the rare occasion I skim an article falling within one of my areas of expertise, I'm usually left very disappointed, puzzled about the mindset of editors seeing themselves nevertheless as domain experts going by the authoritative tone of Wikipedia articles. The Gell-Mann amnesia effect makes me then appreciate articles out of my area of expertise again. That, and the fact that most sites when read in EU greet you with annoying cookie dialogs, something I wish search engines would indicate in advance in order for me to spare me visiting it (a turning away effect I wish was studied and quantified somewhere as it vastly changed my browsing habits).

diveanon 6y ago

I would like to see wikipedia move it's database to a decentralized model, something similar to a blockchain ledger. I would definitely consider contributing and donating to an effort that opened up it's content and moderation further.

rayrag 6y ago

I've recently installed Wikipedia app on my tablet and I have to admit it's amazing, I prefer it over the web version. Cleaner look, customisable home page, tabs within app and especially ability to create lists of articles and saving them for offline use is something I've always wanted.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Is there an easy way to download all of Wikipedia? I’m guessing it is one of the first things set up on Mars :)

OscarCunningham 6y ago
https://www.kiwix.org/en/ https://www.kiwix.org/en/ It's not very big if you leave out all the pictures. I've got it all on my phone.
ly 6y ago
Yes, there is: https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_Wikimedia_project_XML_dumps https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mirroring_Wikimedia_projec...

throwawaybutwhy 6y ago

Congratulations to the hive of villainy, embezzlement, and political propaganda on incidentally creating the largest trove of human knowledge on the backs of unpaid and underappreciated editors.

i_love_limes 6y ago

I'll add my own anecdote. I have donated to Wikipedia sporadically over the years, and they asked me to take part in a sort of round table interview / qualitative study. In a room of other Wikipedia donators, maybe 1/3 of the people there didn't know that the information was entirely community driven, and when they learned, a handful of didn't think it was a good idea! It just shows how much Wikipedia is just taken for granted, when in reality so so much effort goes in to keeping it free, ad free, open, and accessible to everyone.

einpoklum 6y ago
> maybe 1/3 of the people there didn't know that the information was entirely community driven Maybe because it's not entirely community driven. It is somewhat community driven.
- i_love_limes 6y ago
  Apologies, the distinction wasn't some Vs all, it was that they hadn't even considered how the information got there. Then when they found out, they were immediately sceptical of the idea. Which was hilarious. But also, unless you have a much better understanding than me, it is community driven. Even those who have some official capacity at Wikipedia only got there through countless hours of being a good community member
  - einpoklum 6y ago
    There is a small group of core "editors". I am not aware of the dynamics within that group, but obviously it is sanctioned and directed by the Wikimedia foundation (certainly through setting policy and allocating budget, but likely also through other forms of direction and interaction). This sets the historical, political and ontological outlook of Wikipedia, in very broad strokes; and decides the actual content on a huge number of articles. Of course, lay "editors" contribute a huge amount of text, but that's not the "driving" part.

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago

Wikipedia is a treasure. Everyone wants free access to information, well here it is. Put your money where your mouth is and donate.

luxuryballs 6y ago
Can’t donate in good conscience though because they do somewhat have a general tone and worldview that seems to be pervasive and heavily moderated. Wish there was a forkable version of Wikipedia so all views and angles can be allowed to co-exist, no need for a digital encyclopedia to be so skeuomorphic.
- iso8859-1 6y ago
  It is forkable, you can download the database dumps and import them into your own instance.
  - luxuryballs 6y ago
    I mean forkability as a first class feature built into the UI so you can easily browse the alternative or competing beliefs.
- ghaff 6y ago
  You're basically describing Google Knol. What you end up with is a bunch of people publishing often self-promotional, biased, or just plain bad articles.
  - luxuryballs 6y ago
    Sounds like the UX and the concept needs more refinement. Also I wouldn’t let Google anywhere near such a product.

mch82 6y ago

Wikipedia is also amazing because the foundation publishes a lot of detail about engineering and technical operations on Wikitech (https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page). I’ve learned so much about DevOps just reading their docs and publicly released code. They also publish minutes of their Scrum of Scrums and Google Summer of Code projects. And they have historical info about key initiatives & growth. All worth exploring if you’re running a website/startup.

luxuryballs 6y ago

Wikipedia feels so skeuomorphic now with single pages like a real Encyclopedia. Rather than having an “edit battle” over a single page and then having them always being locked down why don’t we have an “Omnipedia” where people can just fork a page if there is a legitimate alternative angle on something? We have the technology, just need a clever UI for visually browsing the various forks and a way of preventing the forks from becoming duplicates of the same alternative.

marcod 6y ago

I'm sorry, but the intro of the article is wrong. Not anyone could edit the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Ford was researching earth for 15 years and an editor cut his submission down to "mostly harmless"... > https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Ford_Prefect#Work_on_the_Guide https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Ford_Prefect#Work_on_the...

yreg 6y ago
Well, that could happen to you on Wikipedia as well (WP:Notability)

cabalamat 6y ago

I'm surprised that no-one has built an inclusionist alternative to Wikipedia. Wikipedia's emphasis on notability restricts what can be put there.

bluecloud1 6y ago

I was one of the first administrators on one of the non-English versions and saw it grow from "this cannot possibly compete with Encyclopedia Britannica etc." to "OMG, what would the world do without Wikipedia?". I continue to be blown away by Wikipedia, and the fact that it not only works but continually gets better over time. Hats off to Wikipedia management and the fact they have stayed true to their mission. Please remember to continue to support them, through donations or any other means that you can!

bigpumpkin 6y ago

10-20 years seem to be the right timeframe for long-term thinking. It is long enough that a kernel of an idea can become world changing in that time frame. Yet not so long that present people would have no ability to predict future trends.

foofoo4u 6y ago

Of all the institutions on the web, Wikipedia has remained my #1 most trusted source with the least sense of corruption. Remarkable, really. If we want to know how to restore the web, we may want to learn how Wikipedia has remained so reputable for so long and model it.