2 ms·

> It saddens me that we will probably see the end of wikipedia soon... I expect the slow ramp of anti wikipedia rhetoric... Now that college students are using

> It saddens me that we will probably see the end of wikipedia soon... I expect the slow ramp of anti wikipedia rhetoric... Now that college students are using completely unsourced... Where is this doom and gloom coming from? Wikipedia isn't ending. Legal challenges can be dealt with as they always have, and in the worst-case scenario the org can move countries if necessary. I can't even imagine why you "expect the slow ramp of anti wikipedia rhetoric". Where is this coming from? Even if something happened to the org, some other org can clone it -- content and infrastructure and all. And college students still have to cite their sources, and I don't even know what that has to do with Wikipedia, which isn't something any college student should be citing directly anyways. Your pessimism doesn't seem to be based on any kind of facts, unless I'm missing something here? Especially with the inaccuracies of LLM's, people continue to care about correct knowledge, and so people will continue to use and update Wikipedia. Heck, LLM's may even make Wikipedia more important than it's ever been before.

thanhhaimai 1y ago
> Your pessimism doesn't seem to be based on any kind of facts, unless I'm missing something here Yes, the slow ramp of anti Wikipedia rhetoric is a documented fact, in both Russia and the USA: https://gizmodo.com/trump-doj-threatens-wikipedias-nonprofit-status-over-alleged-propaganda-2000594928 https://gizmodo.com/trump-doj-threatens-wikipedias-nonprofit...
- crazygringo 1y ago
  You're calling it a "slow ramp (up)". I don't see any evidence of that. It's just more legal attacks just like there have always been. Wikipedia has plenty of money to defend itself, and can always move resources between countries. I don't see anything new going on. It may be new in the US, but it's also merely one government official who sent one letter, and any legal challenge there is incredibly unlikely to succeed in the courts.
marc_abonce 1y ago
Unlike the parent post, I don't think that Wikipedia will end soon. However, Wikipedia has definitely handicapped itself for the sake of submitting to the the law in the last couple of years. Specifically, this has been the case with the formerly fair use illustrations which are now shrunk to a tiny size. This makes Wikipedia a far less useful encyclopaedia for topics like the history of art. Not only did they edit out the images, but they also made the previous versions unreachable in the edit history, which contrasts with the transparency that used to distinguish the project before. I mean, don't get me wrong, I understand the legal need for this change and I still love and support Wikipedia, but it would be naïve to take its current status for granted and assume that the foundation can just move to another country (where?) or that cloning would be easy when the edit history can be retroactively erased.

thanhhaimai 1y ago

> Your pessimism doesn't seem to be based on any kind of facts, unless I'm missing something here Yes, the slow ramp of anti Wikipedia rhetoric is a documented fact, in both Russia and the USA: https://gizmodo.com/trump-doj-threatens-wikipedias-nonprofit-status-over-alleged-propaganda-2000594928 https://gizmodo.com/trump-doj-threatens-wikipedias-nonprofit...

crazygringo 1y ago
You're calling it a "slow ramp (up)". I don't see any evidence of that. It's just more legal attacks just like there have always been. Wikipedia has plenty of money to defend itself, and can always move resources between countries. I don't see anything new going on. It may be new in the US, but it's also merely one government official who sent one letter, and any legal challenge there is incredibly unlikely to succeed in the courts.

marc_abonce 1y ago

Unlike the parent post, I don't think that Wikipedia will end soon. However, Wikipedia has definitely handicapped itself for the sake of submitting to the the law in the last couple of years. Specifically, this has been the case with the formerly fair use illustrations which are now shrunk to a tiny size. This makes Wikipedia a far less useful encyclopaedia for topics like the history of art. Not only did they edit out the images, but they also made the previous versions unreachable in the edit history, which contrasts with the transparency that used to distinguish the project before. I mean, don't get me wrong, I understand the legal need for this change and I still love and support Wikipedia, but it would be naïve to take its current status for granted and assume that the foundation can just move to another country (where?) or that cloning would be easy when the edit history can be retroactively erased.