5 ms·

There are a lot of lessons to learn here 1. The Streisand effect. No-one on HN gave a monkeys about this dodgy news agency till today. Now half of us have read

There are a lot of lessons to learn here 1. The Streisand effect. No-one on HN gave a monkeys about this dodgy news agency till today. Now half of us have read the archive about how they promote propaganda & fake news. Your reputation takes a hit 2. There is no absolute definition of “freedom”. Wikipedia is a fantastic resource for humanity in general and I think should be defended. But as more and more of humanity come to live more and more online, then the legal and cultural norms will shift and shuffle - courts for two hundred years have assumed they can order anyone in their jurisdiction around and often not in their jurisdiction- and that’s kind of the point of courts. So what is freedom? It’s what we the demos and the courts agree … 3. An example is in the order (I mean on the Streisand effect - when the %#}#% hell would I ever read a court order from India ?!) - it says “herein to take down/delete” - this bespeaks a failure to understand the world on the level of “who are the Beatles”. Take down - fine this is part of how we agree norms and limits of courts. Delete. Are you kidding me. Does that imply from everywhere else? Wow.

hshshshshsh 2y ago
[flagged]
_el1s7 2y ago
Wikipedia looks like a fantastic resource, but it's not really a reliable source of information. Everyone can write things there, including people with biases and conflicting interests. Their rules about editing are really annoying and unfair, they don't care about facts. I enjoy reading Wikipedia sometimes, but it's a broken system, a lot of truths missing in it's articles because of crap editors and political propaganda. Also it's admins are toxic and abuse their little power they have over every editor there. Try editing some articles there, and you will see the dark side of Wikipedia.
- jampekka 2y ago
  > Wikipedia looks like a fantastic resource, but it's not really a reliable source of information. It's about as reliable it gets. It cites sources, has whole history available, has little conflicts of interest and has transparent editorial guidelines and process. Many people are probably shocked to find views in WP that aren't aligned with what their newsmedia reports and frames.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    Wikipedia is often wrong once you stray from mainstream topics. Subspecialties often have 1-2 super-contributors, whose blind spots and misunderstandings become part of Wikipedia. Plenty of articles also have no actual citations of their technical content.
    - notahacker 2y ago
      And some of the actual citations are to easily hyperlinked pop science articles and opinion pieces, sometimes actually replacing more accurate unsourced material...
    - signatoremo 2y ago
      Nobody says Wikipedia is perfect. The fact that you can point out that certain content are wrong proves what the GP said — “[It] has whole history available, has little conflicts of interest and has transparent editorial guidelines and process.” It’s also worth pointing out that it could be you who has blind spots, not the contributors. And if you’re certain they are wrong you can always try to correct them, or create a competing topic? > Wikipedia is often wrong once you stray from mainstream topics. So it’s a good source for topics with the largest audience. That alone shows how beneficial it can be. At the very least, it’s a good starting point for further research.
      - skhr0680 2y ago
        > And if you’re certain they are wrong you can always try to correct them, or create a competing topic? I’ve tried that before, and it’s often not worth the time. The lord of the article is often an expert Wikipedia Editor and rules lawyer with endless time to argue and revert even when they have no expert or even basic knowledge about the subject.
        tga_d 2y ago
        In order to maintain some semblance of process, Wikipedia has to approximate what is true by relying on the consensus from reputable sources, not reality itself. This means that experts are often not who you want editing an article, because experts are often poorly positioned to know what the general public knows, and what consensus is from outside their area of expertise. E.g., I have published research that contradicts information on Wikipedia, and while I am of course convinced I and my co-authors are right while Wikipedia is wrong, I would much rather have that state of affairs than a world where Wikipedia is written by everyone with a paper on a subject, and the line is drawn at whoever was the most recent editor.
- pastage 2y ago
  I mostly fact check and do notable research for obscure Wikipedia articles. This is usually a no drama environment sure I have helped delete articles that later became notable and removed true facts lacking sources. Many of these things have fixed themselves over time. My biggest fear with Wikipedia is citogenesis https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/ I have found one in a major news paper, this took three months to take down.
  - tim333 2y ago
    I edit a bit and it seems mostly accurate but I've followed covid origins for a while and the bit "While other explanations, such as speculations that SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a laboratory have been proposed, such explanations are not supported by evidence." isn't really true. There is evidence but for some reason they only want to cite papers from the scientific establishment saying the scientific establishment is innocent.
    - tomp 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - devvvvvvv 2y ago
      Anything even slightly controversial across political lines cannot be trusted. Math and technical topics that don't address any drama or controversy are usually fine for reference, but there are almost always better resources if you're trying to learn about a topic from scratch.
  - bborud 2y ago
    Out of curiosity: was it marked as possible citogenesis during that period? How did the situation resolve itself?
    - pastage 2y ago
      No. I usually edit directly in Wikipedia, my edits are sourced and uncontroversial I try not to deal with the bureaucracy. I took the time to contact the original news outlet and they did the correction pretty fast, Wikipedia had been referencing a secondary sources and those were not that helpful. About five emails, maybe four hours of my time.
- fwipsy 2y ago
  It sounds like you're accusing Wikipedia of being both too easy to edit ("everyone can write things there") and too restrictive about who can edit ("they don't care about facts... Crap editors and political propaganda.") It sounds like your real criticism is that Wikipedia has biases and won't let you correct them. Can you provide links to some examples of bias on Wikipedia so that we can make up for ourselves how bad this is?
  - Viliam1234 2y ago
    > Can you provide links to some examples of bias on Wikipedia so that we can make up for ourselves how bad this is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1061#David_Gerard_and_Scott_Siskind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_no... Here is an example of a Wikipedia admin who spent years harassing a blogger (and a community the blogger belongs to), and it took a lot of effort and a lot of luck to make other admins admit that this was a bad thing and that it should stop. (This is not the worst example I know of, but it is an example where Wikipedia changed its mind later, so you can agree that this was bad even if you trust Wikipedia.)
    - ErikBjare 2y ago
      David Gerard strikes again
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    One very recent anecdotal example involving narwhals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0L-3FfkXfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0L-3FfkXfM Let's just say Wikipedia made an absurd lie, for years from an obvious misunderstanding, and a viciously protective editor got involved...
- lostlogin 2y ago
  > Wikipedia looks like a fantastic resource, but it's not really a reliable source of information. Everyone can write things there, including people with biases and conflicting interests. Their rules about editing are really annoying and unfair, they don't care about facts. This is what lecturers and teachers a tell us. Yet it’s far and away the most accurate and comprehensive resource I know of. When I search the few topics I think I deeply understand, it’s very rarely wrong. I corrected the last error I found. It was a small one and wouldn’t have tripped the unwary.
  - user_7832 2y ago
    Something can be technically correct, yet unreliable. How? Simply by reporting with a bias. The easiest example would be to look at a left (or right) leaning but accurate news organization like Vox or WSJ - they’re absolutely great at many topics, but read only one of the two and you’d have a slightly distorted view of everything. Being unbiased is incredibly hard even for newspapers, let alone a volunteer run org. For a more specific example of wiki’s biases, think of the average Reddit bias - like their insistence of “if you can’t prove it it doesn’t exist”. A lot of people in the world would be very sad if they learnt that their god supposedly vanished.
laxmin 2y ago
Streisand effect is oversold. It is temporary as heck. People will forget about anything, no matter the extent of Streisand effect and go onto the next tictok video or whatever. Who gives a flying fk anyways about an article on wikipedia.
- hangsi 2y ago
  This seems to have an obvious counterexample? The name of the Streisand effect is from exactly the situation of a photo nobody cared about of Streisand's house from decades ago. The fact that it can be superficially referenced is evidence of its longevity.
- playingalong 2y ago
  Not sure. Hardly anyone would remember if Streisand was a singer or actor or whoever. Now her name is mostly tied to Streisand effect, not the art she had produced.
- jumping_frog 2y ago
  I agree with your point of view. Maybe it was effective when it was the first effect. Like the million pixel website. Now there are million balls in the air. There are lot of current things going on. People will move on when they get tired. And the only memory they will have is "something happened".

hshshshshsh 2y ago

[flagged]

_el1s7 2y ago

Wikipedia looks like a fantastic resource, but it's not really a reliable source of information. Everyone can write things there, including people with biases and conflicting interests. Their rules about editing are really annoying and unfair, they don't care about facts. I enjoy reading Wikipedia sometimes, but it's a broken system, a lot of truths missing in it's articles because of crap editors and political propaganda. Also it's admins are toxic and abuse their little power they have over every editor there. Try editing some articles there, and you will see the dark side of Wikipedia.

jampekka 2y ago
> Wikipedia looks like a fantastic resource, but it's not really a reliable source of information. It's about as reliable it gets. It cites sources, has whole history available, has little conflicts of interest and has transparent editorial guidelines and process. Many people are probably shocked to find views in WP that aren't aligned with what their newsmedia reports and frames.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  Wikipedia is often wrong once you stray from mainstream topics. Subspecialties often have 1-2 super-contributors, whose blind spots and misunderstandings become part of Wikipedia. Plenty of articles also have no actual citations of their technical content.
  - notahacker 2y ago
    And some of the actual citations are to easily hyperlinked pop science articles and opinion pieces, sometimes actually replacing more accurate unsourced material...
  - signatoremo 2y ago
    Nobody says Wikipedia is perfect. The fact that you can point out that certain content are wrong proves what the GP said — “[It] has whole history available, has little conflicts of interest and has transparent editorial guidelines and process.” It’s also worth pointing out that it could be you who has blind spots, not the contributors. And if you’re certain they are wrong you can always try to correct them, or create a competing topic? > Wikipedia is often wrong once you stray from mainstream topics. So it’s a good source for topics with the largest audience. That alone shows how beneficial it can be. At the very least, it’s a good starting point for further research.
    - skhr0680 2y ago
      > And if you’re certain they are wrong you can always try to correct them, or create a competing topic? I’ve tried that before, and it’s often not worth the time. The lord of the article is often an expert Wikipedia Editor and rules lawyer with endless time to argue and revert even when they have no expert or even basic knowledge about the subject.
      - tga_d 2y ago
        In order to maintain some semblance of process, Wikipedia has to approximate what is true by relying on the consensus from reputable sources, not reality itself. This means that experts are often not who you want editing an article, because experts are often poorly positioned to know what the general public knows, and what consensus is from outside their area of expertise. E.g., I have published research that contradicts information on Wikipedia, and while I am of course convinced I and my co-authors are right while Wikipedia is wrong, I would much rather have that state of affairs than a world where Wikipedia is written by everyone with a paper on a subject, and the line is drawn at whoever was the most recent editor.
pastage 2y ago
I mostly fact check and do notable research for obscure Wikipedia articles. This is usually a no drama environment sure I have helped delete articles that later became notable and removed true facts lacking sources. Many of these things have fixed themselves over time. My biggest fear with Wikipedia is citogenesis https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/ I have found one in a major news paper, this took three months to take down.
- tim333 2y ago
  I edit a bit and it seems mostly accurate but I've followed covid origins for a while and the bit "While other explanations, such as speculations that SARS-CoV-2 was accidentally released from a laboratory have been proposed, such explanations are not supported by evidence." isn't really true. There is evidence but for some reason they only want to cite papers from the scientific establishment saying the scientific establishment is innocent.
  - tomp 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - devvvvvvv 2y ago
    Anything even slightly controversial across political lines cannot be trusted. Math and technical topics that don't address any drama or controversy are usually fine for reference, but there are almost always better resources if you're trying to learn about a topic from scratch.
- bborud 2y ago
  Out of curiosity: was it marked as possible citogenesis during that period? How did the situation resolve itself?
  - pastage 2y ago
    No. I usually edit directly in Wikipedia, my edits are sourced and uncontroversial I try not to deal with the bureaucracy. I took the time to contact the original news outlet and they did the correction pretty fast, Wikipedia had been referencing a secondary sources and those were not that helpful. About five emails, maybe four hours of my time.
fwipsy 2y ago
It sounds like you're accusing Wikipedia of being both too easy to edit ("everyone can write things there") and too restrictive about who can edit ("they don't care about facts... Crap editors and political propaganda.") It sounds like your real criticism is that Wikipedia has biases and won't let you correct them. Can you provide links to some examples of bias on Wikipedia so that we can make up for ourselves how bad this is?
- Viliam1234 2y ago
  > Can you provide links to some examples of bias on Wikipedia so that we can make up for ourselves how bad this is? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/IncidentArchive1061#David_Gerard_and_Scott_Siskind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_no... Here is an example of a Wikipedia admin who spent years harassing a blogger (and a community the blogger belongs to), and it took a lot of effort and a lot of luck to make other admins admit that this was a bad thing and that it should stop. (This is not the worst example I know of, but it is an example where Wikipedia changed its mind later, so you can agree that this was bad even if you trust Wikipedia.)
  - ErikBjare 2y ago
    David Gerard strikes again
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  One very recent anecdotal example involving narwhals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0L-3FfkXfM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0L-3FfkXfM Let's just say Wikipedia made an absurd lie, for years from an obvious misunderstanding, and a viciously protective editor got involved...
lostlogin 2y ago
> Wikipedia looks like a fantastic resource, but it's not really a reliable source of information. Everyone can write things there, including people with biases and conflicting interests. Their rules about editing are really annoying and unfair, they don't care about facts. This is what lecturers and teachers a tell us. Yet it’s far and away the most accurate and comprehensive resource I know of. When I search the few topics I think I deeply understand, it’s very rarely wrong. I corrected the last error I found. It was a small one and wouldn’t have tripped the unwary.
- user_7832 2y ago
  Something can be technically correct, yet unreliable. How? Simply by reporting with a bias. The easiest example would be to look at a left (or right) leaning but accurate news organization like Vox or WSJ - they’re absolutely great at many topics, but read only one of the two and you’d have a slightly distorted view of everything. Being unbiased is incredibly hard even for newspapers, let alone a volunteer run org. For a more specific example of wiki’s biases, think of the average Reddit bias - like their insistence of “if you can’t prove it it doesn’t exist”. A lot of people in the world would be very sad if they learnt that their god supposedly vanished.

laxmin 2y ago

Streisand effect is oversold. It is temporary as heck. People will forget about anything, no matter the extent of Streisand effect and go onto the next tictok video or whatever. Who gives a flying fk anyways about an article on wikipedia.

hangsi 2y ago
This seems to have an obvious counterexample? The name of the Streisand effect is from exactly the situation of a photo nobody cared about of Streisand's house from decades ago. The fact that it can be superficially referenced is evidence of its longevity.
playingalong 2y ago
Not sure. Hardly anyone would remember if Streisand was a singer or actor or whoever. Now her name is mostly tied to Streisand effect, not the art she had produced.
jumping_frog 2y ago
I agree with your point of view. Maybe it was effective when it was the first effect. Like the million pixel website. Now there are million balls in the air. There are lot of current things going on. People will move on when they get tired. And the only memory they will have is "something happened".