9 ms·

What says that Wikipedia is successful and not just existing like Twitter and Reddit are likely to continue to?

dragontamer 3y ago
For better or for worse, Wikipedia is devoid of advertising revenue, and therefore seemingly immune to these ups and downs to the ad-tech market like Twitter/Reddit have been this past year.
- randomdata 3y ago
  Meaning that the marker of success is stable revenue? In other words, someone who keeps a minimum wage job their entire life could be the most successful person around?
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    I'd say being in a position where you aren't forced to piss off the moderators to make more advertisement revenue is a major advantage this year. It's not about revenue. I'm talking about trust, so that the crowd is willing to curate data for you.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      If access to moderators is the metric of success, Wikipedia claims to have ~900 moderator accounts currently. Reddit, in 2017, claimed to have ~75,000 moderators. Unfortunately the later figure is severely dated, but has Reddit really lost over 74,000 moderator accounts since? That seems unlikely. Perhaps Wikipedia has never been successful, just something that has managed to continue to exist?
      - dragontamer 3y ago
        If Reddit says X but Wikipedia says Y, do you trust X to be true or do you trust Y to be true? I'm talking about curation and quality of the editor force. Wikipedia's editors are highly respected by everyone. Reddit... not so much.
        randomdata 3y ago
        > If Reddit says X but Wikipedia says Y, do you trust X to be true or do you trust Y to be true? Neither. One – or both – of them might be true, but who cares? It is not advantageous to give it much concern. We have evolved to not rely on truths. "Is that a lion rustling those bushes or just the wind? Let me be absolutely certain it is a lion before I run." said no one who successfully passed on their genes ever. Truths don't matter much, and the reality is that we're not capable of processing full truths anyway, having to rely on simplifications that lose a lot of the important nuance. > Wikipedia's editors are highly respected by everyone. Reddit... not so much. That's like saying librarians garner more respect than comedians. That might be the case when observed through some particular lens, but they're really not comparable. What would that even mean? And if this is the measure of success we want to use, I am struggling to understand why Wikipedia and Reddit were brought together for comparison.
        dragontamer 3y ago
        COVID19 literally killed people I knew because they were too stupid to mask up and/or vaccinate people. Truths matter. And the others who survived it are physically weaker (worse breathing) and have seemingly permanently lost their smell. So yes, truths matter. Those who follow falsehoods will lead themselves (and their kin) into the depths of despair. While cheering and falsely claiming victory because victory/feeling good about their decisions is more important to truths to them. That's... fine. Darwin's law will deal with them over time. But I'll stay on the side of truth thanks very much. -------------- I'm also in the business of programming, which is largely in the business of truths. Is X easier than Y? Do people prefer X or Y? Is X a better design than Y? Etc. etc. You can't fundamentally alter ground truths, no matter how much money you throw into reputation. Eventually, the truth wins out as the money runs out. Seeking truth first leads to being correct over the long term, as the untruthful die out and/or fail in their projects. Don't lose sight of the truth. There's objective truths that people have been failing to accept very recently. Editors who care about the objective truth and seek it (however flawed our seeking of the truth is), is going to over the long term, reach the truth faster. Of course, broken clocks are occasionally correct (possibly more correct) than the truthseekers. But I've got more confidence in some communities than others. I also recognize that truthseekers are _NOT_ as popular as I once thought, and that we have a need to create curated communities where truth-seeking is favored over popularity-machines that Twitter and/or Reddit prefers to generate. (likely due to advertising revenue. Youtube and TikTok seem to be falling into the same trap).

For better or for worse, Wikipedia is devoid of advertising revenue, and therefore seemingly immune to these ups and downs to the ad-tech market like Twitter/Reddit have been this past year.

randomdata 3y ago
Meaning that the marker of success is stable revenue? In other words, someone who keeps a minimum wage job their entire life could be the most successful person around?
- dragontamer 3y ago
  I'd say being in a position where you aren't forced to piss off the moderators to make more advertisement revenue is a major advantage this year. It's not about revenue. I'm talking about trust, so that the crowd is willing to curate data for you.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    If access to moderators is the metric of success, Wikipedia claims to have ~900 moderator accounts currently. Reddit, in 2017, claimed to have ~75,000 moderators. Unfortunately the later figure is severely dated, but has Reddit really lost over 74,000 moderator accounts since? That seems unlikely. Perhaps Wikipedia has never been successful, just something that has managed to continue to exist?
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      If Reddit says X but Wikipedia says Y, do you trust X to be true or do you trust Y to be true? I'm talking about curation and quality of the editor force. Wikipedia's editors are highly respected by everyone. Reddit... not so much.
      - randomdata 3y ago
        > If Reddit says X but Wikipedia says Y, do you trust X to be true or do you trust Y to be true? Neither. One – or both – of them might be true, but who cares? It is not advantageous to give it much concern. We have evolved to not rely on truths. "Is that a lion rustling those bushes or just the wind? Let me be absolutely certain it is a lion before I run." said no one who successfully passed on their genes ever. Truths don't matter much, and the reality is that we're not capable of processing full truths anyway, having to rely on simplifications that lose a lot of the important nuance. > Wikipedia's editors are highly respected by everyone. Reddit... not so much. That's like saying librarians garner more respect than comedians. That might be the case when observed through some particular lens, but they're really not comparable. What would that even mean? And if this is the measure of success we want to use, I am struggling to understand why Wikipedia and Reddit were brought together for comparison.
        dragontamer 3y ago
        COVID19 literally killed people I knew because they were too stupid to mask up and/or vaccinate people. Truths matter. And the others who survived it are physically weaker (worse breathing) and have seemingly permanently lost their smell. So yes, truths matter. Those who follow falsehoods will lead themselves (and their kin) into the depths of despair. While cheering and falsely claiming victory because victory/feeling good about their decisions is more important to truths to them. That's... fine. Darwin's law will deal with them over time. But I'll stay on the side of truth thanks very much. -------------- I'm also in the business of programming, which is largely in the business of truths. Is X easier than Y? Do people prefer X or Y? Is X a better design than Y? Etc. etc. You can't fundamentally alter ground truths, no matter how much money you throw into reputation. Eventually, the truth wins out as the money runs out. Seeking truth first leads to being correct over the long term, as the untruthful die out and/or fail in their projects. Don't lose sight of the truth. There's objective truths that people have been failing to accept very recently. Editors who care about the objective truth and seek it (however flawed our seeking of the truth is), is going to over the long term, reach the truth faster. Of course, broken clocks are occasionally correct (possibly more correct) than the truthseekers. But I've got more confidence in some communities than others. I also recognize that truthseekers are _NOT_ as popular as I once thought, and that we have a need to create curated communities where truth-seeking is favored over popularity-machines that Twitter and/or Reddit prefers to generate. (likely due to advertising revenue. Youtube and TikTok seem to be falling into the same trap).