akolbe

53 ms·

601.
Wikipedia's main page featured a photo of the wrong female WWII pilot(en.wikipedia.org)
3 points by akolbe 5y ago|1 comments
602.
by akolbe 5y ago
It's generally true, in any Wikipedia language version (including English), that the fewer people see a Wikipedia article, the greater the chances that it's crap. In the smaller language versions, that risk is obviously even great
603.
Climate change: Conspiracy theories found on foreign-language Wikipedias(bbc.co.uk)
2 points by akolbe 5y ago|1 comments
604.
Wikipedia and Google Identified Wrong Man as a Serial Killer for Years(vice.com)
3 points by akolbe 5y ago|0 comments
605.
by akolbe 5y ago
The deceptive part is when they tell you they need your money today "to defend Wikipedia's independence" when in actual reality they need money today so they can increase their annual budget by $42 million (that's the in
606.
by akolbe 5y ago
The oldest page I've found featuring the wrong picture is this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20201128204840/https://www.monst... It's dated July 1, 2017, which would mean it precedes the pre
607.
by akolbe 5y ago
I think their defense is that it is all automated – an algorithm decides what to show. And none of the things shown were originally posted by Google. Google is "just the platform", which Section 230 exempts from liability. Otherwi
608.
by akolbe 5y ago
You're making an astute observation about how Wikipedia is different from, say, Twitter or Facebook. Twitter and Facebook do not claim their users' content as their own in the same way the Wikimedia Foundation does in the case of
609.
by akolbe 5y ago
Google surely know about this—they were, after all, a party to the suit—but apparently are unable, or can't be bothered, to get it sorted.
610.
by akolbe 5y ago
Well, no one needs to publish the photo to Google. They just crawl the sites and display what they find on their search results pages. It's a little different with the Knowledge Graph panel shown in the top right corner of the Google s
611.
by akolbe 5y ago
15 years ago Wikipedia didn't supply the info in Google's (and other search engines') Knowledge Graph panels, and didn't tell Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, and other voice assistants what to say in response to
612.
by akolbe 5y ago
It's the same man. Wikipedia (or rather the Wikimedia Foundation which operates Wikipedia) was added to the Discovery suit later on.
613.
by akolbe 5y ago
The Discovery case is still ongoing (and they're not protected by Section 230). What you can do is try to help raise awareness. It is a scandal to my mind that the only media report about this case is this article in a local paper publ
614.
by akolbe 5y ago
The way Wikipedia generates its content though is susceptible to particular problems that traditional sources did not have. Multiple people—all differing in age (from 7 to 100+), educational status and subject matter knowledge—all editing t
615.
by akolbe 5y ago
Google was sued too. I understand Section 230 protected it as well.
616.
by akolbe 5y ago
Absolutely right. What doesn't help here is when the Wikimedia PR machine minimizes and whitewashes problems, as it did in the Wikimedia blog post about this incident, making everyone think that Wikipedia is of uniformly stellar qualit
617.
by akolbe 5y ago
I get where you're coming from. As of now the only press article about this is this little piece in the Tallahassee Democrat that may have led to the Wikipedia image being removed: https://tallahassee.com/story/new
618.
by akolbe 5y ago
Yes, that would be good, but knowing the Wikimedia Foundation I am quite certain that it will not happen. And volunteers won't do it either.
619.
by akolbe 5y ago
Actually, Democrats have criticised Section 230 as well. They complain that websites use Section 230 as a shield in order not to do any moderation of hate speech and the like at all. Nancy Pelosi e.g. has called Section 230 a “gift” to tech
620.
by akolbe 5y ago
Wouldn't it be more correct to say that they (I mean the Wikimedia Foundation in this case, as the operator of the Wikipedia platform) don't review content at all?
621.
by akolbe 5y ago
It's because of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information con
622.
by akolbe 5y ago
Kind of surprised there is barely a mention of second-life use of old EV batteries, e.g. for energy storage applications. Which is something GM (along with others) has said it is pursuing. See https://www.greentechmedia.com/
623.
by akolbe 5y ago
During the past few days, the Google Knowledge Graph panel shown in searches for Nathanial White serial killer seems to have been cleaned up. While a week ago it showed multiple instances of the wrong picture, today it only shows a single p
624.
by akolbe 5y ago
It should be noted that in the Discovery Channel broadcast, the picture of the Florida Nathaniel White was shown only very briefly—long enough to recognize the man if you knew him well, but probably not long enough to memorize his face if y
625.
A photo on Wikipedia can ruin your life(en.wikipedia.org)
219 points by akolbe 5y ago|148 comments
626.
by akolbe 5y ago
I've lost count of the number of donors who've said they felt stung by learning just how well off the WMF is financially, felt they'd been lied to, wished they had donated to someone else, said they'd now cancelled their
627.
by akolbe 5y ago
Minassian Media are the WMF's PR consultants. Mr Minassian's wife is a producer on The Daily Show. This being so, it seems highy unlikely to me that the interview would have been cut in any way that would have run counter to your
628.
by akolbe 5y ago
Hi Katherine. What is not ethical is to create the impression that you struggle to have enough money to keep Wikipedia up and running, when in fact you are three or four times richer than just five years ago, and are building a $100M endo
629.
by akolbe 5y ago
Yes, and they have four times as much money in the bank today as they did in 2015. Go figure! :)
630.
by akolbe 5y ago
The Wikimedia Foundation plays absolutely no role in editing or moderating Wikipedia content. I employs no editors/moderators. All that work is done exclusively by unpaid volunteers.

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