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Can people stop with this "disk space is cheap" strawman? This discussion was never about disk space. Having unmaintained articles means a huge amount of conte

Can people stop with this "disk space is cheap" strawman? This discussion was never about disk space. Having unmaintained articles means a huge amount of content not checked by anybody ever so what you get is a mix of self-promo, jokes, intentionally misleading articles, "1054654789764 is a number" articles, political agenda etc.

bell-cot 5y ago
Rightly or wrongly, quite a few people seem to have gotten a bad "Wikipedia is zealous about deleting stuff to [vague emotional speculation] save disk space" vibe. Putting a more-accurate label on the situation would not help their displeasure. Editorial-resource-wise, there is a huge difference between: - "a decent general editor can glance over this article long enough to label it as [1] plausibly legit, [2] obvious drunken rambling, [3] some kid's knock-knock joke collection, [4] ax-grinding extremism, [5] etc." and - "a subject-matter-expert editor can determine whether this Korean-language article about Roman legal practices in (the Roman province of) Hispania Baetica under Emperor Caracalla (198-217) is passably correct and current". I am not a studious follower of things Wiki, but quite a few people seem to feel that Wikipedia is really not handling the situation well at all.
- The_Colonel 5y ago
  It's easy enough to detect blatant vandalism (even then some are not caught). But it's very easy to write an article which superficially looks great - nice structure, polished language, links to other wikipedia articles etc, but at the same time can be completely false and talking about something which doesn't actually exist, or does exist and paints it in a completely incorrect light. Again, not all such articles get caught today, but in general it's a manageable problem with the "Notability" and "Reliable sources" tools. Either there are supporting sources and you can easily verify the information, or there aren't, and you delete the article. Now imagine that you relax these requirements and somebody writes that beautiful article full of details but with no supporting sources. It can be completely false, an elaborate hoax, self promo or part of a smear campaign. What do you do? > but quite a few people seem to feel that Wikipedia is really not handling the situation well at all. Yeah, they mostly have only very cursory information about what are wikipedia's goals and how it works internally.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > Now imagine that you relax these requirements and somebody writes that beautiful article full of details but with no supporting sources. It can be completely false, an elaborate hoax, self promo or part of a smear campaign. What do you do? At least Wikimedia could hire generalist experts for the major areas of science for each major language that have the time to review contested or suspicious articles, based on the cited sources or actual research. Many governments have such a public service for the members of parliament (e.g. the "Wissenschaftlicher Dienst des Bundestags" in Germany, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaftliche_Dienste_des_Deutschen_Bundestages https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaftliche_Dienste_des_...), which every MP can ask to provide guidance on any question they need for their work.
    - akolbe 5y ago
      Wikimedia is a platform, not a publisher, just like YouTube or Twitter. That's a little-understood, but fundamental part of the Wikimedia Foundation's identity. See e.g. https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/10/05/a-victory-for-free-knowledge-florida-judge-rules-section-230-bars-defamation-claim-against-the-wikimedia-foundation/ https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/10/05/a-victory-for-free-kno... where they explicitly say, "the plaintiff argued that the Foundation should be treated like a traditional offline publisher and held responsible as though it were vetting all posts made to the sites it hosts, despite the fact that it does not write or curate any of the content found on the projects." (My emphasis.) (By the way, for an alternative view of that specific case, see – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2021-10-31/Opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... as well as https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgpnq/wikipedia-and-google-identified-wrong-man-as-a-serial-killer-for-years https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgpnq/wikipedia-and-google-... ) Liability is one consideration here. It is not uncommon for people to be libelled on Wikipedia, but the Wikimedia Foundation, as a platform, is protected from liability under Section 230. So they really have no interest in doing something that will result in their being held responsible for Wikipedia content – such as hiring experts to vet and correct said content. It will never happen: they are and want to remain a platform.
  - akolbe 5y ago

bell-cot 5y ago

Rightly or wrongly, quite a few people seem to have gotten a bad "Wikipedia is zealous about deleting stuff to [vague emotional speculation] save disk space" vibe. Putting a more-accurate label on the situation would not help their displeasure. Editorial-resource-wise, there is a huge difference between: - "a decent general editor can glance over this article long enough to label it as [1] plausibly legit, [2] obvious drunken rambling, [3] some kid's knock-knock joke collection, [4] ax-grinding extremism, [5] etc." and - "a subject-matter-expert editor can determine whether this Korean-language article about Roman legal practices in (the Roman province of) Hispania Baetica under Emperor Caracalla (198-217) is passably correct and current". I am not a studious follower of things Wiki, but quite a few people seem to feel that Wikipedia is really not handling the situation well at all.

The_Colonel 5y ago
It's easy enough to detect blatant vandalism (even then some are not caught). But it's very easy to write an article which superficially looks great - nice structure, polished language, links to other wikipedia articles etc, but at the same time can be completely false and talking about something which doesn't actually exist, or does exist and paints it in a completely incorrect light. Again, not all such articles get caught today, but in general it's a manageable problem with the "Notability" and "Reliable sources" tools. Either there are supporting sources and you can easily verify the information, or there aren't, and you delete the article. Now imagine that you relax these requirements and somebody writes that beautiful article full of details but with no supporting sources. It can be completely false, an elaborate hoax, self promo or part of a smear campaign. What do you do? > but quite a few people seem to feel that Wikipedia is really not handling the situation well at all. Yeah, they mostly have only very cursory information about what are wikipedia's goals and how it works internally.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > Now imagine that you relax these requirements and somebody writes that beautiful article full of details but with no supporting sources. It can be completely false, an elaborate hoax, self promo or part of a smear campaign. What do you do? At least Wikimedia could hire generalist experts for the major areas of science for each major language that have the time to review contested or suspicious articles, based on the cited sources or actual research. Many governments have such a public service for the members of parliament (e.g. the "Wissenschaftlicher Dienst des Bundestags" in Germany, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaftliche_Dienste_des_Deutschen_Bundestages https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wissenschaftliche_Dienste_des_...), which every MP can ask to provide guidance on any question they need for their work.
  - akolbe 5y ago
    Wikimedia is a platform, not a publisher, just like YouTube or Twitter. That's a little-understood, but fundamental part of the Wikimedia Foundation's identity. See e.g. https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/10/05/a-victory-for-free-knowledge-florida-judge-rules-section-230-bars-defamation-claim-against-the-wikimedia-foundation/ https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/10/05/a-victory-for-free-kno... where they explicitly say, "the plaintiff argued that the Foundation should be treated like a traditional offline publisher and held responsible as though it were vetting all posts made to the sites it hosts, despite the fact that it does not write or curate any of the content found on the projects." (My emphasis.) (By the way, for an alternative view of that specific case, see – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2021-10-31/Opinion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... as well as https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgpnq/wikipedia-and-google-identified-wrong-man-as-a-serial-killer-for-years https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgpnq/wikipedia-and-google-... ) Liability is one consideration here. It is not uncommon for people to be libelled on Wikipedia, but the Wikimedia Foundation, as a platform, is protected from liability under Section 230. So they really have no interest in doing something that will result in their being held responsible for Wikipedia content – such as hiring experts to vet and correct said content. It will never happen: they are and want to remain a platform.
- akolbe 5y ago