4 ms·

Isn't that literally the point of an encyclopedia? A starting point, it's the abstract on the subject if you will.

seydor 3y ago
it has a good format though and would be nice to have a second level of scholarship (e.g scholarpedia). Modeling itself after encyclopedia would be regressive
tivert 3y ago
> Isn't that literally the point of an encyclopedia? A starting point, it's the abstract on the subject if you will. Yes, but Wikipedia is also frequently conceived and marketed as "the sum of all human knowledge," which that shows is a lie by definition.
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  If we could condemn a thing due to hype alone, we would condemn all that is good in the world.
- humanistbot 3y ago
  > "the sum of all human knowledge," which that shows is a lie by definition. By which definition? In math, the sum of a set necessarily implies a loss of information about that set, for sets larger than 1. But they're using "sum" not in the purely mathematical sense, more like "the summary of all human knowledge". But the same principle applies axiomatically, because summaries are lossy compression: you cannot have a summary that contains all the information of the source it is summarizing.
  - tivert 3y ago
    >> "the sum of all human knowledge," which that shows is a lie by definition. > By which definition? That's pretty easy: definition 2 "the whole amount : aggregate" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sum https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sum). That it's interpreted that way is shown by the frequency of people saying stuff like "I loaded Wikipedia onto this battery powered Raspberry Pi in a Pelican case, now I'm ready to rebuild civilization if it collapses," and seemingly believing it. But you do correctly point to another issue: sum has a meaning of "a summary of the chief points or thoughts," which I feel is a less common usage. So the marketing phrase may not be so much a lie, but rather an extremely misleading statement that invites misinterpretation that usually goes unchallenged. IMHO, those are actually even more pernicious than outright lies.
    - kube-system 3y ago
      > people saying stuff like "I loaded Wikipedia onto this battery powered Raspberry Pi in a Pelican case, now I'm ready to rebuild civilization if it collapses," and seemingly believing it. The least delusional part of this is the sparseness of information contained within Wikipedia. If that scenario came to be, they wouldn't be short on information. They'd be short on time, resources, and skills.
    - humanistbot 3y ago
      > the frequency of people saying stuff like "I loaded Wikipedia onto this battery powered Raspberry Pi in a Pelican case, now I'm ready to rebuild civilization if it collapses," and seemingly believing it. As someone who inched closer into the doomsday prepper scene before swerving far away from it, I assure you that people in that subculture have a lot of unrealistic beliefs about their own capacities and resources. I don't think it's Wikipedia's fault that they (and you) are taking a quote about Wikipedia's never-ending goal and interpreting it as if it is their description of what they are. An even worse example of deceptive marketing would be a compact folding multitool marketed as "the only tool you'll ever need." Even with that, I'd say that if you actually believe that you can rebuild civilization with that tool solely on the basis of that marketing slogan, then that's your fault as much as it is the marketers. And a minor nitpick: the standard prepper info archives also include collections of various survival guides and resources that are specifically written for these kinds of purposes.
- neilk 3y ago
  Jimmy Wales said that phrase in an interview, but it was never meant to say that Wikipedia itself was the only work that needed to be consulted. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Prime_objective https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Prime_objective You seem to have an issue with some person or persons who has been advising others that the only work they need to consult is Wikipedia. Who are they? Specifically.
- karaterobot 3y ago
  It sounds like your issue is with someone describing Wikipedia as the sum of all human knowledge, not with Wikipedia itself, which is what the person to whom you're replying seemed to be saying.
- sdht0 3y ago
  Wikipedia also has numerous sister projects like Wikibooks and Wikiversity (including open access WikiJournal) which aim to fill in the details. All these project taken together can indeed fulfill the *aspirational* goal of noting down all human knowledge. If we ever reach there is of course upto us.
thefifthsetpin 3y ago
I don't think that TillE meant "the problem with wikipedia is that wikipedia is an inch deep." I think TillE meant "the problem with training a chatbot grounded with wikipedia is that wikipedia is only an inch deep."
michaelt 3y ago
In discussions about "deletionism" I've seen people argue that, disk space being cheap, Wikipedia should try to be much more expansive than an encyclopedia. A paper encyclopedia might not have time or space for individual entries about many hundreds of pokemon, episodes of the simpsons, or characters from star wars.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

it has a good format though and would be nice to have a second level of scholarship (e.g scholarpedia). Modeling itself after encyclopedia would be regressive

tivert 3y ago

> Isn't that literally the point of an encyclopedia? A starting point, it's the abstract on the subject if you will. Yes, but Wikipedia is also frequently conceived and marketed as "the sum of all human knowledge," which that shows is a lie by definition.

jjoonathan 3y ago
If we could condemn a thing due to hype alone, we would condemn all that is good in the world.
humanistbot 3y ago
> "the sum of all human knowledge," which that shows is a lie by definition. By which definition? In math, the sum of a set necessarily implies a loss of information about that set, for sets larger than 1. But they're using "sum" not in the purely mathematical sense, more like "the summary of all human knowledge". But the same principle applies axiomatically, because summaries are lossy compression: you cannot have a summary that contains all the information of the source it is summarizing.
- tivert 3y ago
  >> "the sum of all human knowledge," which that shows is a lie by definition. > By which definition? That's pretty easy: definition 2 "the whole amount : aggregate" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sum https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sum). That it's interpreted that way is shown by the frequency of people saying stuff like "I loaded Wikipedia onto this battery powered Raspberry Pi in a Pelican case, now I'm ready to rebuild civilization if it collapses," and seemingly believing it. But you do correctly point to another issue: sum has a meaning of "a summary of the chief points or thoughts," which I feel is a less common usage. So the marketing phrase may not be so much a lie, but rather an extremely misleading statement that invites misinterpretation that usually goes unchallenged. IMHO, those are actually even more pernicious than outright lies.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    > people saying stuff like "I loaded Wikipedia onto this battery powered Raspberry Pi in a Pelican case, now I'm ready to rebuild civilization if it collapses," and seemingly believing it. The least delusional part of this is the sparseness of information contained within Wikipedia. If that scenario came to be, they wouldn't be short on information. They'd be short on time, resources, and skills.
  - humanistbot 3y ago
    > the frequency of people saying stuff like "I loaded Wikipedia onto this battery powered Raspberry Pi in a Pelican case, now I'm ready to rebuild civilization if it collapses," and seemingly believing it. As someone who inched closer into the doomsday prepper scene before swerving far away from it, I assure you that people in that subculture have a lot of unrealistic beliefs about their own capacities and resources. I don't think it's Wikipedia's fault that they (and you) are taking a quote about Wikipedia's never-ending goal and interpreting it as if it is their description of what they are. An even worse example of deceptive marketing would be a compact folding multitool marketed as "the only tool you'll ever need." Even with that, I'd say that if you actually believe that you can rebuild civilization with that tool solely on the basis of that marketing slogan, then that's your fault as much as it is the marketers. And a minor nitpick: the standard prepper info archives also include collections of various survival guides and resources that are specifically written for these kinds of purposes.
neilk 3y ago
Jimmy Wales said that phrase in an interview, but it was never meant to say that Wikipedia itself was the only work that needed to be consulted. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Prime_objective https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Prime_objective You seem to have an issue with some person or persons who has been advising others that the only work they need to consult is Wikipedia. Who are they? Specifically.
karaterobot 3y ago
It sounds like your issue is with someone describing Wikipedia as the sum of all human knowledge, not with Wikipedia itself, which is what the person to whom you're replying seemed to be saying.
sdht0 3y ago
Wikipedia also has numerous sister projects like Wikibooks and Wikiversity (including open access WikiJournal) which aim to fill in the details. All these project taken together can indeed fulfill the *aspirational* goal of noting down all human knowledge. If we ever reach there is of course upto us.

thefifthsetpin 3y ago

I don't think that TillE meant "the problem with wikipedia is that wikipedia is an inch deep." I think TillE meant "the problem with training a chatbot grounded with wikipedia is that wikipedia is only an inch deep."

michaelt 3y ago

In discussions about "deletionism" I've seen people argue that, disk space being cheap, Wikipedia should try to be much more expansive than an encyclopedia. A paper encyclopedia might not have time or space for individual entries about many hundreds of pokemon, episodes of the simpsons, or characters from star wars.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]