9 ms·

There has been this trend recently of calling Wikipedia the last good thing on the internet. And i agree its great, i spend an inordinate amount of my time on

• fngjdflmdflg 1y ago
  This doesn't make sense because Wikipedia is a collection of sources, most of which are on the internet. If would be surprising if Wikipedia was a good thing but the online sources it uses are bad.
  • phantomathkg 1y ago
    Wikipedia can be bad because it is edited by human. And because it is edited by human, the side that has more people will win. For example, Wikipedia has a Chinese issue. [1] Because both Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese both live under the Chinese language in Wiki (And we have a dropdown within Chinese wiki to choose what regional variants we want to read). There's a constant wiki edit war. This is not only happened to the political topic, but also how something should be phased. Even though Chinese officially ban access to Wikipedia by the Great Firewall, enough people VPN and manage to edit wiki pages by pages, and more annoyingly, there are more wiki admin coming from PRC than Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau etc. So you cannot assume Wikipedia is neutral. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59081611 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-59081611
• pohl 1y ago
  I've heard it expressed as "the last good thing on the internet" many times, but it never occurred to me to interpret that to mean it has attained perfection in some regard. I always took it to mean that it has thus far evaded the enshitification trends.
• chermi 1y ago
  It suffers similar to stackoverflow in terms of making it excessively hard to contribute to something you really do know a lot about. I don't really see a solution for hot topics like isreal-palestine. However, I should be able to improve a page on some physics subject I'm an expert in that has been turned into an obvious ad for some professor's niche work.
• glenstein 1y ago
  > It isn't perfect. It isn't perfectly neutral or perfectly reliable. It has flaws. I don't know that the attackers against Wikipedia are advocating for a modest point like that, which I would think even proponets accept as a truism. I think Wikipedia is just another variation on institutional knowledge, and, as the world descends into misinformation and authoritarianism, it was inevitable it too would be attacked for perceived "bias." Everything from global warming to vaccines, to newer and newer frontiers we never would have guessed, like hurricane trajectories or drones or air traffic, have fallen one after another to a kind of reactionary skepticism, resentful of the fact that these domains are controlled by real facts, and not merely participatory collective storytelling. There are some things left, that we problaby think could never get politicized, that will be. Pickleball rules? Quantum mechanics? Baseball history? Soon longstanding uncontroversial claims belonging to those are going to fall into the category of essentially contested concepts. So Wikipedia, with ordinary and lonstanding requirements for reliable sourcing, and decades of policy on what that means in reaction to countlessly many debates, is resilient against the kind of recreational, hedonic skepticism that the masses use to dismantle other knowledge claims. So "well wikipedia's not perfect" kind of rubs me the wrong way because it seems like it implies we should be more welcoming of this attitude of hedonic skepticism, which has been so destructive. I think it should be celebrated. Authoritative factual validity, and the norms that make it possible, used to be uncontroversial. And thus far, social media misinformation has outcompeted fact checkers, but not (yet) Wikipedia. I feel like that's never been more important.
• BrtByte 1y ago
  What makes it remarkable isn't that it gets everything right, but that it's constantly trying to
• potato3732842 1y ago
  When you put something on a pedestal it almost always eventually gets co-opted by people who's goals are not noble enough to build a pedestal themselves and who are seeking a ready made pedestal from which to spew their garbage. Of all the demographics who should understand this, you'd think that people complaining about the failure of all the other institutions would be high on the list.
• mdp2021 1y ago
  It's a miracle that the model of voluntary contribution from random agents and imperfect overview partially worked. The science that could emerge by studying the phenomenon could constitute a milestone.
  • bryanlarsen 1y ago
    To me the key highlight of the article is the finding that editors generally start fairly radical and neutralize over time. Only really passionate people are willing to put the effort into Wikipedia articles which correlates well with radical opinions. But over time working as Wikipedia editors tends to de-radicalize people's work. Contrast that with the rest of the internet, which mostly rewards radicalization and nudges people towards it.
    • IAmBroom 1y ago
      That's some of it, but certainly Wikipedia's editorial discussions differ from most forums in that its objective remains neutral, with worldwide access. If the number of editors were limited, it could easily develop bias (see your own Facebook page for examples). If the subject matters were limited, it could develop bias (WikiSolarEnergy wouldn't tend to attract anti-solar-energy types).
  • ozim 1y ago
    I think “random agents” was only at start. I don’t think you as a random person can edit much there anymore. Which is good in ways. Though random phase is song of the past.
    • masfuerte 1y ago
      I routinely edit articles on Wikipedia without even logging in. The controversial articles, where you are likely to run into problems, are a small minority of what's there.
      • crote 1y ago
• xorvoid 1y ago
  I would say this is all we really should reasonably expect from our knowledge consensus systems. In fact it’s the same values that “science” stands on: do our best everyday and continue to try improving. It’s a bit hard for me to imagine something better (in practice). It’s easy to want more or feel like reality doesn’t live up to one’s idealism. But we live here and now in the messiness of the present. Viva la Wikipedia!
  • abnercoimbre 1y ago
    Indeed, Wikipedia really is worth celebrating. While I sympathize with the GP, we should avoid devolving into purity spirals or we'll never have moments of joy.
    • sshine 1y ago
      It’s possible to both criticise Wikipedia and celebrate it.
      • squigz 1y ago
        We don't always have to do both at once though. Sometimes we can just enjoy things.
      • xeromal 1y ago
        You know when you're proud of something and you tell it to someone and they always find something to nitpick while also saying good job. That's what this feels like. It's very unnecessary. Time and a place
        • sshine 1y ago
          That’s one example, but I mean less personal. Wikipedia isn’t a person. For example: I’m a big fan of Wikipedia. I spent countless hours writing articles in my early twenties. I stopped because the environment got more hostile as the site grew in popularity. I think that might have been necessary to address the influx of drive-by editing, but it still meant I stopped enjoying being a contributor. I don’t appreciate the constant asking for money — as far as I understand, they’re well off without donations. There. I think the misconception here is that criticism has to be mean and personal. As someone who celebrates the project’s ideals, giving criticism is an act of love.
• mmphosis 1y ago
  Wikipedia is my default search engine.
  • ThinkingGuy 1y ago
    Mine, too. 1. Wikipedia for general knowledge questions ("What languages are spoken in Nigeria?") 2. Wolfram Alpha for time/date/number questions ("How many days until 2026-07-01?") 3. Mapquest for driving directions 4. DuckDuckGo for everything else
  • balder1991 1y ago
    > Wikipedia is my default search engine https://paste.sr.ht/~awal/2310cfca431e9f723df281d02558eaebd77e2091 https://paste.sr.ht/~awal/2310cfca431e9f723df281d02558eaebd7...
• IAmBroom 1y ago
  To say "It isn't perfect" is simply to admit it's a human endeavor.
• uragur27754 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • bawolff 1y ago
    All the more reason to debate among ourselves. One of the greatest risks is to have a precieved threat make everyone think they have to close ranks and stifle all debate. That is how projects (or even societies) die.
  • thegrim33 1y ago
    Do you not realize that ridiculously straw-manning people with different beliefs than you as horrible, evil, hateful, truth-hating extremists .. is the very "extremism" and "attempting to destroy ideological opponents" that you're supposedly fighting against? How do you not see the irony?
    • yummypaint 1y ago
      It's essential to understand that tolerance is not a moral precept, it's more like a peace treaty. It's a practical social contract that allows everyone to live in peace while exercising their rights. Treaties only protect parties who abide by their terms, and it MUST be this way, or a free society will be torn down by people who want to ban books, racially discriminate, and impose their religion on others. Much has been written on this topic, you should avail yourself. https://conversational-leadership.net/tolerance-is-a-social-contract/ https://conversational-leadership.net/tolerance-is-a-social-...
      • zahlman 1y ago
        > Treaties only protect parties who abide by their terms, and it MUST be this way, or a free society will be torn down by people who want to ban books, racially discriminate, and impose their religion on others. In my experience, the majority of accusations of various groups or individuals wanting to do these things, are simply not supported by the available evidence. Meanwhile, accusations of the desire to discriminate, impose religion etc. are often cited as justifications for censorship.
• mrandish 1y ago
  I agree with both your points. Wikipedia is extremely useful because it's generally very good - and it's also not perfect. I'll add I don't think it can be any closer to "perfect" than it is because the same fundamental traits which lead to its imperfections also enable its unique value - like speed, breadth, depth and broad perspectives. The only areas where it might very occasionally not be ideal tend to be contentious political and culture war topics or newer niche articles with low traffic. Basically topics where some people care too much and those where not enough people care at all. But this isn't as big a downside as it might be because anyone can look at an article's talk page and edit history and immediately see if it's a contentiously divisive topic or, on the other end of the spectrum, see when there's been little to no discussion.
• SlowTao 1y ago
  The last good place is https://neal.fun https://neal.fun
• aftbit 1y ago
  Excellence is never finished: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64d6548c19f38a141b206058/b540af7a-e789-4e12-9643-be1fe495cbad/Excellence+Table.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/64d6548c19f38a...
• obscure-enigma 1y ago
  the fact that anyone can be an editor on Wikipedia scares me. I mostly use it for STEM, current affairs and timelines, stuff that can't be easily fiddled—unlike topics around history & politics. These are highly baised on wikipedia. For instance, look at wikipediocracy.com
• adonovan 1y ago
  Agreed. It's funny how only a couple of years ago we all told schoolchildren "stop citing Wikipedia, anyone can edit it, read an actual book!" yet now in this benighted era of AI we urge them to consult Wikipedia for "the truth" because it's not the hallucination of a machine. Yes, it has its flaws, but I plan to keep on editing and donating.
  • nostromo 1y ago
    If you choose to donate, know that a small fraction of your donation goes to Wikipedia. Most of your donation goes to unrelated projects. Wikipedia could function forever without another donation if they wanted to.
    • SamBam 1y ago
      Source? (Particularly for that last part.)
      • kayxspre 1y ago
        Discussion about Wikipedia not actually being in financial jeopardy has been around for some time, and I remember reading about it at least once a year, during the donation banner season. Here are a few sources that discuss them. [1] https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-foundation-donate.html https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/wikipedia-wikimedia-fou... [2] https://www.dailydot.com/news/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/ https://www.dailydot.com/news/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraisi... [3] https://archive.ph/CClQ6 https://archive.ph/CClQ6 (this is a Washington Post article. I'm using the Archived link as it's paywall-free)
• citizenpaul 1y ago
  I'm not so sure I go there less and less. Wikipedia is very biased and turf guarded against negative factually true information even when it meets all requirements it will often be taken down automatically with no recourse. Many pages are functionally not editable because of turf guarding. Anything vaguely sociopolitical is functionally censored on it and wikipedia does nothing about it even if they don't support it.
  • techpineapple 1y ago
    What are people regularly using Wikipedia for that the bias is that terrible? Are you exclusively looking up controversial conflicts, right wing leaders and climate change? I just have never had my everyday curiosity cross paths with only those things which are controversial by Wikipedia standards. Also I find a lot of people’s disagreements usually come down to “ok, I see that the information that I thought was censored is actually available but not in the format that I prefer” And if you’re looking for objective information about the Israel Palestine conflict you’re hardly going to get it anywhere.
  • LastTrain 1y ago
    There is no such thing as unbiased. Maybe it simply doesn’t match your bias.
    • d0mine 1y ago
      There is a difference between unintentionally introducing a bias and propaganda . The latter is a guided by professionals. It is not an accident.
      • LastTrain 1y ago
        You are accusing Wikipedia of spreading propaganda? On behalf of who?
        • antonymoose 1y ago
          Wikipedia isn’t a person. Wikipedia isn’t doing anything. Individuals and groups, be they ad-hoc formations, corporate backed, or nation-state backed routinely astroturf all corners of the internet and Wikipedia is a very big, very common target.
• 2Gkashmiri 1y ago
  I used to edit for wikipedia. I saw a "problem" where a specific troll factory was pushing a particular narrative which is factually contrary to international law. I held out for as long as I could but it was emotionally draining
  • throwaway2037 1y ago
    > factually contrary to international law Can you provide us with more specifics? I am curious to hear more.
    • 2Gkashmiri 1y ago
      now you can look it up yourself, i wont give links or anything. "kashmir" as is name, is an international dispute for control over a region between india and pakistan with the natives of that land wanting independence. What UN recognized definition of the place is "india administered kashmir" and "pakistan administered kashmir" that is split between the two till the time the issue is resolved before the UN. This is a internationally accepted definition that encompasses the situation being active. what indian based troll factory does is, unilaterally call it "indian UT of jammu and kashmir" and "pakistan occupied kashmir". I resisted for as much i could, i would revert the edits and they would be back, i would give evidence of the same in order to maintain status quo but sadly i could not keep up. i was overrun and it felt like being eaten by a mob of hungry zombies.
  • kortilla 1y ago
    What does that mean? Laws don’t define truth.
    • 2Gkashmiri 1y ago
      will of the people does? what is truth?
• chris_wot 1y ago
  It's also full of bullies and those who are drinking from the cool-aid.
• KingOfCoders 1y ago
  "It isn't perfect." Articles about some chemical process are fine, indeed often excellent. Everything where facts get filtered and presented, is bad. Read about real world events - especially where different groups or countries were involved - in three different languages on Wikipedia, and you'd think three different universes exist.
  • throwaway2037 1y ago
    > Read about real world events - especially where different groups or countries were involved - in three different languages on Wikipedia, and you'd think three different universes exist. Can you give a clear example? I would like to read it for myself.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • BlueTemplar 1y ago
    It isn't so much as bad, as inevitable. And as you say, Wikipedia has the built-in antidote with the other language versions and the Talk pages.
    • zahlman 1y ago
      > And as you say, Wikipedia has the built-in antidote with the other language versions and the Talk pages. The Talk pages are just a first introduction to the sheer madness behind the scenes; one quickly starts to realize that relative few people are calling the shots in a lot of places and that their personal biases are causing serious problems. The "Reliable Sources" policy would be atrocious enough already (there are no objective processes for challenging a source's inclusion or exclusion from the informal list on a given topic, only political ones) without the "power user" editors who are clearly abusing it.
• tclover 1y ago
  [flagged]
• emsign 1y ago
  [flagged]
• socalgal2 1y ago
  people are also working to o make it worse everyday. We’re lucky the people working to make it better are winning. It it’s a hard battle
• yehat 1y ago
  Wikipedia has gone too far from being what it was meant to be. I can agree it is the "last good thing on the internet" with the caveat - "for some people". Is is neither objective, thus not scientific, nor complete in terms of depth of the information. All of this happens because of invading obsession with "modern" ideologies that pollute and distort the pure knowledge gathering, which is a very complex matter itself that becomes a mission impossible in the case of Wikipedia.
• lucideer 1y ago
  I used to contribute semi-regularly to Wikipedia in the past, but tried contributing recently & found the experience to be off-putting (to put it mildly). I also have long been frustrated with certain areas of Wikipedia that I feel struggle so significantly with NPV that they're rendered beyond useless, likely net harmful. (These are not the topics I've attempted contributing to recently, I wouldn't dare). I'm continuously annoyed by the contrast of their overbearing donation pushes with the overspends in their published reports. BUT all that said I do sometimes need reminding in today's world how much of a miracle Wikipedia still is. Not something to be taken for granted. And on the overspends: this is hard to qualify given there's really no comparable projects in existence. Maybe this is just the price we need to pay.
  • lucideer 1y ago
    To add a thought on tackling the listed faults: 1. I suspect the NPV problem may be a fundamentally unsolvable problem (or at least one that would literally take a global paradigm shift in how all societies are structured to do so). This seems outside of Wikipedia's control. Attempting any draconian measures to tackle it might have negative knock-on effects on many of the other assets that give Wikipedia it's value. 2. The spending problem, as I said, is subjective & might simply be a case of efficiency being incompatible with an organisational culture that produces such a miraculous thing. I honestly suspect the opposite is true: I personally think the overspends are indicative of organisational disfunction that could seriously hurt the project in the longer term, but that's pure gut feeling on my part, based on nothing of substance. Who knows. 3. The increasing difficulty in contributing (80% of edits coming from 1% of editors) on the other hand is - imo - a potentially terminal problem & one that needs to be addressed urgently if we want to keep this resource alive. In the past, Wikipedia vandalism was a rite-of-passage of school & college kids. This obviously needs counter-measures but it really feels like today's Wikipedia has gone so far in the opposite direction as to entirely dissuade new contributors. Old Wikipedia used to be filled with User: namespaced subpages with long form essays on the ever running debate between deletionism & inclusionism. In today's Wikipedia, the inclusionists have emigrated, tired of battle, & the remaining deletionists bravely prevent any budding new contributor from having a positive welcoming community experience by quickly auto-deleting their WIP stubs or moving them into esoteric red-taped namespaced processes nobody knows how to navigate. It's a deeply unwelcoming environment for new users, especially young people. I'd love to see an age profile of the population of frequent editors.
• ascorbic 1y ago
  I was thinking the other day about which websites might still exist in 100 years on whatever the web becomes, and Wikipedia to me seemed the most likely. It manages to be both stable and flexible. Functionally it's almost identical in all important ways to how it was ~25 years ago, but organisationally it has adapted to handle the incredible increase in scale. It is certainly flawed, because it's made by humans, but I think it may be the web's greatest achievement.
• stevage 1y ago
  I would say that OpenStreetMap is also a pretty good thing on the internet. Maybe not quite as impactful, and I'd say less well run, and rougher around the edges, but it's largely resisted being taken over by evil corporations or heavily influenced in bad directions.
  • rstarast 1y ago
    Add musicbrainz to the list. It was weirdly comforting to rediscover it 15 years later with nothing really having changed (for better and worse)
  • torium 1y ago
    Torrents are also a good thing on the internet.
    • sorbusherra 1y ago
      Linux is also good thing on the internet.
      • tejohnso 1y ago
        Definitely! So I guess we need a go-to "good things on the internet" list :) I submit libgen / annas-archive
    • fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
      Me getting free movies and music, piracy good Meta getting free books to train an LLM, piracy bad
      • torium 1y ago
        Powerful entities getting a pass, bad. Individuals getting a pass, good. See, it just depends on how you slice the Venn diagram. With a bit of imagination you'll be able to start connecting the dots by yourself in no time.
• NeliX4 1y ago
  For me the real power of Wikipedia lies in its local language editions. English articles often reflect only positive perspective, while local versions bring fresh viewpoints. Local language have sharper criticism that gets toned down in English.