4 ms·

I do feel they've got a good point about notable sources in 2026. Wikipedia seems to have reliable source rules straight out of the 80s or 90s. In the internet

by CM30 3mo ago

I do feel they've got a good point about notable sources in 2026. Wikipedia seems to have reliable source rules straight out of the 80s or 90s. In the internet era, the most reliable sources aren't usually old school journalists or media outlets, they're enthusiasts and specialists publications dedicated to the topic. For example, they still seem reluctant to allow Serebii.net as a source for Pokemon info, despite the site being A: credited by all the news outlets Wikipedia does consider reliable and B: being reliable and long-term enough that the Pokemon Company themselves uses it as a source, and has the founder do AMAs/interviews at official events. And it's a big problem with any topic (games and media, programming languages and frameworks, internet happenings in general) where internet blogs and YouTube channels are the main authority. The most reliable source about a topic nowadays might not use their real name when writing. They might not have a journalism degree, or work for a mainstream media outlet. They might not have an academic background. But Wikipedia struggles to deal with that. Their rules are too outdated to deal with the changing information landscape. Do I feel like Odin in particular is being hit hard by this? Maybe, maybe not. I've not personally come across Odin when looking for programming languages or frameworks to learn. I haven't seen it discussed much on social media, on YouTube, or on Hacker News. However, the issue still stands. If the 'wrong' sources are the ones covering it, then their notability and popularity is treated as irrelevant, and the language as not worth covering. Wikipedia needs to figure out a new system for this. Maybe some sort of trust system where a source that's treated as reliable by enough existing 'reliable' sources is taken seriously in its own right. If a blog is treated as a reliable source by the New York Times on multiple occasions, then it doesn't seem like a stretch to say it's basically equivalent to the author writing for the newspaper.

ajross 3mo ago
> The most reliable source about a topic nowadays might not use their real name when writing. They might not have a journalism degree, or work for a mainstream media outlet. They might not have an academic background. I really don't think that's true, though. Or it is in the specious sense by leaning heavily on "might". I mean, sure, in a handful of areas it is. But in the real world, on the topics that make up the overwhelming majority of our discourse, the sources we trust most are human beings with names we know, and organizations run by human beings with names we know. Period. And that remains true even in the spots where we admit to the presence of some anonymity. BTC was famously defined and documented by an anonymous developer. But even so, where do you go for your Crypto and BTC news? If, tomorrow, Satoshi were to return from the grave and start posting again, would you trust it? Probably not, right? At this point it would be more likely that someone found a crack on an old laptop and got access to his keys. We trust people first, up and down the scale.
- CM30 3mo ago
  I feel like it's more than a handful of areas, though I'll grant there are plenty where academia or mainstream media outlets are the most reliable/trusted source. If you're talking about astrophysics, the history of the eastern Roman empire or the US' government foreign policy, the Wikipedia setup will work perfectly. On the other hand, if you're talking about Star Trek, the MCU, Taylor Swift or the Legend of Zelda series, the most reliable source is probably not going to be either an academic journal or the New York Times. Many of my videos and articles are about games in the latter series, and the reliable sources for that would probably be something like speedrunners, dataminers, etc. For most of those things, the reliable source would either be the artist or company that owns the rights, or some fansite/video creator that's been documenting them for the last three decades. Plus, a lot of the time the sources Wikipedia accepts are just laundering the same info anyway. It would be very, very easy to get misleading or incorrect information about the next Pokemon game to go viral, just by sending a few publications a link to a random blog and letting them take it at face value. In a depressing number of fields, fact checking and research is minimal even from name brand publications, and some guy's post on Reddit can get treated like gospel.
  - ajross 3mo ago
    > if you're talking about Star Trek, the MCU, Taylor Swift or the Legend of Zelda series, the most reliable source is probably not going to be either an academic journal or the New York Times. You lost me here. I mean, yes, there's serious fan community interaction around those subject which is unauthenticated and anonymous. But that's interaction and not research or journalism. You might cite the existence of a favorite lore or fan theory in a wikipedia article, but you don't take the fan stuff as a source for the original material! To take your specific example: Swift is literally getting married today, I gather. Why do I gather it? Because trusted human beings in my information space (Twitter feed, news articles, etc...) are telling me! Would I trust an anonymous fan source telling me someone got married? Almost certainly not.
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]

by CM30 3mo ago

ajross 3mo ago

> The most reliable source about a topic nowadays might not use their real name when writing. They might not have a journalism degree, or work for a mainstream media outlet. They might not have an academic background. I really don't think that's true, though. Or it is in the specious sense by leaning heavily on "might". I mean, sure, in a handful of areas it is. But in the real world, on the topics that make up the overwhelming majority of our discourse, the sources we trust most are human beings with names we know, and organizations run by human beings with names we know. Period. And that remains true even in the spots where we admit to the presence of some anonymity. BTC was famously defined and documented by an anonymous developer. But even so, where do you go for your Crypto and BTC news? If, tomorrow, Satoshi were to return from the grave and start posting again, would you trust it? Probably not, right? At this point it would be more likely that someone found a crack on an old laptop and got access to his keys. We trust people first, up and down the scale.

CM30 3mo ago
I feel like it's more than a handful of areas, though I'll grant there are plenty where academia or mainstream media outlets are the most reliable/trusted source. If you're talking about astrophysics, the history of the eastern Roman empire or the US' government foreign policy, the Wikipedia setup will work perfectly. On the other hand, if you're talking about Star Trek, the MCU, Taylor Swift or the Legend of Zelda series, the most reliable source is probably not going to be either an academic journal or the New York Times. Many of my videos and articles are about games in the latter series, and the reliable sources for that would probably be something like speedrunners, dataminers, etc. For most of those things, the reliable source would either be the artist or company that owns the rights, or some fansite/video creator that's been documenting them for the last three decades. Plus, a lot of the time the sources Wikipedia accepts are just laundering the same info anyway. It would be very, very easy to get misleading or incorrect information about the next Pokemon game to go viral, just by sending a few publications a link to a random blog and letting them take it at face value. In a depressing number of fields, fact checking and research is minimal even from name brand publications, and some guy's post on Reddit can get treated like gospel.
- ajross 3mo ago
  > if you're talking about Star Trek, the MCU, Taylor Swift or the Legend of Zelda series, the most reliable source is probably not going to be either an academic journal or the New York Times. You lost me here. I mean, yes, there's serious fan community interaction around those subject which is unauthenticated and anonymous. But that's interaction and not research or journalism. You might cite the existence of a favorite lore or fan theory in a wikipedia article, but you don't take the fan stuff as a source for the original material! To take your specific example: Swift is literally getting married today, I gather. Why do I gather it? Because trusted human beings in my information space (Twitter feed, news articles, etc...) are telling me! Would I trust an anonymous fan source telling me someone got married? Almost certainly not.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]