3 ms·

I don't see any particular reason to think that Wikipedia is worse than what existed prior. What exemplar from, say, 1980, do you think was better in terms of i

I don't see any particular reason to think that Wikipedia is worse than what existed prior. What exemplar from, say, 1980, do you think was better in terms of information quality? I'm thinking back to going in to a library, where a given topic would generally have 0-3 books. Books often put together by a single person, a person often chosen because of personal relationships with a publisher, plus that publisher's intent to turn a profit. Or opening up a daily newspaper, where I might get a few paragraphs on a topic, written by one person and edited by a couple more, all paid for by an ad-supported company run by people who often had local political connections. There may be no mechanism for consensus on the web, but Wikipedia certainly has one, one that has worked reasonably well for 20 years at this point.

nkingsy 4y ago
It worked for a time and now it is dying at the hands of bad-faith actors who have worked within their mechanism.
- wpietri 4y ago
  That's an interesting claim. Where's your evidence? I'll also note you must have missed my question, as I don't think you have answered it.
  - nkingsy 4y ago
    disclaimer: Yes the grayzone hires RT reporters and has a strongly anti-us take on pretty much everything. Please don't spout "russian propagandist" takes. They've been heard plenty. This is the lack of truth I'm talking about. These are investigative journalists--a dying breed that western propagandists are attempting to make extinct. https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/10/wikipedia-formally-censors-the-grayzone-as-regime-change-advocates-monopolize-editing/ https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/10/wikipedia-formally-censor...
    - wpietri 4y ago
      That's not evidence, that's a series of disconnected vague complaints from a publisher who is salty that they're not considered a reliable source. They complain about conflicts of interest, but I didn't see them even acknowledging their own. I also couldn't find any financial transparency, so it's not clear to me who is funding this or their other writing. And I'll point out for the last time that you still haven't answered my initial question. If you're just going to keep dodging, I think I'm done here.
      - nkingsy 4y ago
        I thought the article answered your question pretty well and they clearly state on their about page that they are not backed by any government and rely on donations. The entire internet points to wikipedia and its consensus mechanism is inherently vulnerable to editors for hire, as clearly demonstrated with scores of links. So my answer is "pick any publication from 1980 and it is better because its bias can be audited and it is not polluting every search query I make"
        wpietri 4y ago
        They claim they are not backed by any governments, but decline to say who is backing them. Just as an example I came across yesterday, the San Francisco Standard is "not backed by any government and rely on donations", but their funding comes from a billionaire venture capitalist. The same claim could be truthfully made by a site backed by a Russian oligarch just as well. And regardless, there's no evidence. I agree that Wikipedia's mechanism has its challenges; anybody who knows the site does. But it's vastly better than "any publication from 1980" because every edit is tracked, the citations should be available for all to see, and people can object to and/or edit bad content. Just as an example of how a book from the olden tymes could go wrong, consider Trump's "The Art of the Deal". It sold more than a million copies, but its ghostwriter took 20 years to admit that it was a lot of horseshit: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-... Wikipedia is way more auditable than that book or most books from that era. And way more auditable than The Gray Zone that you've chosen to cite.

nkingsy 4y ago

It worked for a time and now it is dying at the hands of bad-faith actors who have worked within their mechanism.

wpietri 4y ago
That's an interesting claim. Where's your evidence? I'll also note you must have missed my question, as I don't think you have answered it.
- nkingsy 4y ago
  disclaimer: Yes the grayzone hires RT reporters and has a strongly anti-us take on pretty much everything. Please don't spout "russian propagandist" takes. They've been heard plenty. This is the lack of truth I'm talking about. These are investigative journalists--a dying breed that western propagandists are attempting to make extinct. https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/10/wikipedia-formally-censors-the-grayzone-as-regime-change-advocates-monopolize-editing/ https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/10/wikipedia-formally-censor...
  - wpietri 4y ago
    That's not evidence, that's a series of disconnected vague complaints from a publisher who is salty that they're not considered a reliable source. They complain about conflicts of interest, but I didn't see them even acknowledging their own. I also couldn't find any financial transparency, so it's not clear to me who is funding this or their other writing. And I'll point out for the last time that you still haven't answered my initial question. If you're just going to keep dodging, I think I'm done here.
    - nkingsy 4y ago
      I thought the article answered your question pretty well and they clearly state on their about page that they are not backed by any government and rely on donations. The entire internet points to wikipedia and its consensus mechanism is inherently vulnerable to editors for hire, as clearly demonstrated with scores of links. So my answer is "pick any publication from 1980 and it is better because its bias can be audited and it is not polluting every search query I make"
      - wpietri 4y ago
        They claim they are not backed by any governments, but decline to say who is backing them. Just as an example I came across yesterday, the San Francisco Standard is "not backed by any government and rely on donations", but their funding comes from a billionaire venture capitalist. The same claim could be truthfully made by a site backed by a Russian oligarch just as well. And regardless, there's no evidence. I agree that Wikipedia's mechanism has its challenges; anybody who knows the site does. But it's vastly better than "any publication from 1980" because every edit is tracked, the citations should be available for all to see, and people can object to and/or edit bad content. Just as an example of how a book from the olden tymes could go wrong, consider Trump's "The Art of the Deal". It sold more than a million copies, but its ghostwriter took 20 years to admit that it was a lot of horseshit: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-... Wikipedia is way more auditable than that book or most books from that era. And way more auditable than The Gray Zone that you've chosen to cite.