Raining on Wikipedia’s anniversary parade

[Blooxo]

I don’t think Wikipedia’s 20th anniversary is a good thing. In fact it means there is something very wrong with how society values knowledge.

The fact that universities and other educational companies haven’t set up a reliable successful alternative means that they are happy with wiki’s state of affairs. Lasting a long time is not necessarily a good thing — just look at the List of hoaxes on Wikipedia (T-H-L), with many 14-year-old hoaxes which are older than many Wikipedians themselves.

The Internet was supposed to bring knowledge to everyone, but instead it made a lot of nonsense available like Wikipedia. If I could go back to 2002 when I first saw Wikipedia and never make the edits that I did, I would. Linux is also having the same problems as Wikipedia and it is 30 years old. I’d hate to see what Wikipedia looks like at 30, 40, 50 years old.

I was one of the last generations to have my childhood without Wikipedia; now people have access to Wikipedia from birth, as Alexa reads wiki-sourced bedtime stories. Society will have to live with Wikipedia’s consequences for a long time.

[Poetlister]

Wikipedia has in some respects impoverished knowledge. It has driven good, reliable data sources out of existence. Mistakes (whether good faith, extreme POV or vandalism) in Wikipedia have polluted other sources.

[Randy from Boise]

Wikipedia has been a massive public good with certain negative aspects.

Can you imagine a post-factual world without there being some bedrock of objective reality? No matter how occasionally toxic the participant culture at WP can be, or how dubious the manipulation of content of certain controversial topics, universal access to a free, constantly updating, exhaustively broad public information database is a massively positive thing, which helps to insure the hegemony of a fact-based internet.

The end-all of knowledge? Never claimed to be!

But an excellent starting place for the world.

t

[Poetlister]

Wikipedia has been a massive public good with certain negative aspects.

Can you imagine a post-factual world without there being some bedrock of objective reality? No matter how occasionally toxic the participant culture at WP can be, or how dubious the manipulation of content of certain controversial topics, universal access to a free, constantly updating, exhaustively broad public information database is a massively positive thing, which helps to insure the hegemony of a fact-based internet.

The end-all of knowledge? Never claimed to be!

But an excellent starting place for the world.

t

Wikipedia at its best is good. I do use it sometimes, with caution. But as the saying goes, "If you put a spoonful of wine in a barrel full of sewage, you get sewage. If you put a spoonful of sewage in a barrel full of wine, you get sewage." There is too much sewage in Wikipedia for it to be called excellent.

[AndyTheGrump]

I've given up trying to figure out whether Wikipedia is a 'good thing' or a 'bad thing'. It's just a thing now. A part of the landscape. An inevitable consequence of the increased connectivity of the world. If Jimbo* hadn't come up with the idea, somebody else would have come up with something similar, sooner or later, and it would almost certainly have evolved to fill the same niche, and ended up with all the same issues. Some topics it covers passably well, other topics it clearly shouldn't be covering at all. But that's the inevitable consequence of having a humungous repository of open-sourced 'knowledge' created by whoever wants to become involved in such a project. It is unlikely to get significantly better. Or significantly worse on it own. There are too many factors driving it towards the centre ground on the utility-mediocrity scale, and too many factors ensuring that the volunteers it gets are the ones who are most likely to keep it that way.

At some point, something else is going to come along that will replace it. And most likely, inherit the same problems. Any volunteer effort is going to end up with the same people, or people much like them, and there really isn't any incentive for a 'professional' encyclopaedia of such a scope. Possibly the best replacement would be not one project, but a whole raft of them: topic-area-specialist repositories of knowledge where those most qualified to contribute would have a reason to do so.


*From now on, I recommend everyone at WO to refer to Jimbo as the sole founder of Wikipedia, just to piss off Larry the Loon. He deserves it...

[Randy from Boise]

I've given up trying to figure out whether Wikipedia is a 'good thing' or a 'bad thing'. It's just a thing now. A part of the landscape. An inevitable consequence of the increased connectivity of the world. If Jimbo* hadn't come up with the idea, somebody else would have come up with something similar, sooner or later, and it would almost certainly have evolved to fill the same niche, and ended up with all the same issues. Some topics it covers passably well, other topics it clearly shouldn't be covering at all. But that's the inevitable consequence of having a humungous repository of open-sourced 'knowledge' created by whoever wants to become involved in such a project. It is unlikely to get significantly better. Or significantly worse on it own. There are too many factors driving it towards the centre ground on the utility-mediocrity scale, and too many factors ensuring that the volunteers it gets are the ones who are most likely to keep it that way.

At some point, something else is going to come along that will replace it. And most likely, inherit the same problems. Any volunteer effort is going to end up with the same people, or people much like them, and there really isn't any incentive for a 'professional' encyclopaedia of such a scope. Possibly the best replacement would be not one project, but a whole raft of them: topic-area-specialist repositories of knowledge where those most qualified to contribute would have a reason to do so.


*From now on, I recommend everyone at WO to refer to Jimbo as the sole founder of Wikipedia, just to piss off Larry the Loon. He deserves it...

Nothing about this is wrong.

t

[Poetlister]

There are of course many specialist wikis. Indeed, many are hosted on fandom.com, which was also started by Jimbo. The question is whether they can get high enough rankings on Wikipedia to attract people away from Wikipedia.

[Casliber]

Wikipedia has in some respects impoverished knowledge. It has driven good, reliable data sources out of existence. Mistakes (whether good faith, extreme POV or vandalism) in Wikipedia have polluted other sources.

What good reliable data sources are you referring to?

[Poetlister]

Wikipedia has in some respects impoverished knowledge. It has driven good, reliable data sources out of existence. Mistakes (whether good faith, extreme POV or vandalism) in Wikipedia have polluted other sources.

What good reliable data sources are you referring to?

Reference works that have ceased publication, such as Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia and Encarta.

[Casliber]

Wikipedia has in some respects impoverished knowledge. It has driven good, reliable data sources out of existence. Mistakes (whether good faith, extreme POV or vandalism) in Wikipedia have polluted other sources.

What good reliable data sources are you referring to?

Reference works that have ceased publication, such as Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia and Encarta.

{{citation needed}}

[Poetlister]

Wikipedia has in some respects impoverished knowledge. It has driven good, reliable data sources out of existence. Mistakes (whether good faith, extreme POV or vandalism) in Wikipedia have polluted other sources.

What good reliable data sources are you referring to?

Reference works that have ceased publication, such as Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia and Encarta.

{{citation needed}}

What are you querying, that they have ceased publication (check Wikipedia) or that they were reliable sources?

[Casliber]

Wikipedia has in some respects impoverished knowledge. It has driven good, reliable data sources out of existence. Mistakes (whether good faith, extreme POV or vandalism) in Wikipedia have polluted other sources.

What good reliable data sources are you referring to?

Reference works that have ceased publication, such as Funk & Wagnalls New Encyclopedia and Encarta.

{{citation needed}}

What are you querying, that they have ceased publication (check Wikipedia) or that they were reliable sources?

Am querying that the reason for their demise was wikipedia. Both were pretty moribund before wikipedia's arrival.

[Poetlister]

Encarta's failure is no tragedy

The news came last week that Microsoft is discontinuing Encarta. The digital encyclopedia has been roundly beaten by Wikipedia. And this is astonishing, because it seems to be a reversal of the much-lamented "tragedy of the commons".

Guardian

[Midsize Jake]

A lot of traditional-print encyclopedias were having a really hard time making the transition from paper to CD-ROM in the late 90's, and sales were suffering as a result. You could almost argue that Microsoft Encarta itself drove some of the smaller players out of business during the 1995-2004 timeframe, because their CD-ROM version was significantly better than most, at least in terms of UI design and presentation.

Nevertheless, we should mostly be able to agree that Wikipedia either drove surviving traditional-print competitors out of business, or else made it essentially impossible for them to return to profitability, especially once the Great Recession came along in 2008-09. Most of us would probably also agree that if Wikipedia hadn't done that, some other free crowdsourced encyclopedia-like website would have, and many of us would be here criticizing that site instead (though our domain name would be different, of course).

Or, maybe not. Wikipedia made a lot of mistakes, especially early on, that it failed to correct — and in some cases, it's still making them to this day. We focus on a lot of issues here, like BLPs, paid editing, cult-like behavior, sexism, and half-assed governance structures, that they've always handled poorly and are still handling poorly now (though I do think they're doing better on the cult-like behavior problem, FWIW). Meanwhile, people in the media continue to focus on "accuracy," which has always been (and still is) a red herring, as it plays right into their hands (i.e., "if only more good people would participate, these accuracy problems would all just go away"). Accuracy matters, but it's kind of missing the larger point.

The point is, those problems didn't have to be poorly-handled initially, and they didn't have to remain poorly-handled. If a smarter, more responsible, and more (please pardon my use of this word) altruistic group of people had been running the site during the first 8 years or so, maybe there wouldn't have been any valid criticisms, and who knows, maybe there wouldn't be any critics, or at least not enough to reach the "critical mass" necessary to maintain sites like this. That's what our message should be for their 20th anniversary.

Maybe I should write that up as a blog post, even.

[Bezdomni]

At this point, it's still sneaking into bars... I wouldn't bother playing into their hype about turning 20, Jake.

I think it's not entirely unlikely that its toxic/addictive environment has shortened some people's lives (or served as a catalyst), given the heart attack and the shooting-suicide we read about here in 2020... who knows, Britannica may have been just as bad.

Just for info: the murder-suicide is not mentioned in the list of 2020 wp-deaths and the heart attack was not fatal. As this is a public thread, it probably would be best just to mention them without providing specifics.

[Poetlister]

I don't think it's conceivable that Britannica could ever be as bad as Wikipedia. It is run ultimately by people who don't want to make a financial loss, so they need to maintain its reputation for accuracy. Day-to-day control is not in the hands of random, often anonymous, people on the Internet who often abuse their power in pursuit of POV or even COI motives, or are just (as is being discussed on another thread) sociopaths. Nobody is making a fortune out of it, so to that extent they are possibly more altruistic than the WMF.

[Bezdomni]

To take a look at just how twisted en.wp logic might be, I thought I would first do a little survey to see which of the GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, or Apple) had the most "edits" from 1 Jan 2018 to 31 Dec 2020.

Any guesses as to which one won?

the data

Facebook: 817 §
Amazon (company): 646 §
Apple, Inc: 621 §
Google: 509 § (nb: does not count Alphabet, Inc.)

GAFA total = 2,593
Donald Trump = ?

There were a total of 2,593 "edits" to the GAFA entries from 2018-2020.

Any guesses as to how far back in time the last 2,593 "edits" to DJ Trump's BLP will take you?

the answer

It takes you back to 10:32 GMT 31 May 2020.

How many "edits" did DJT's biographical entry have during the same 2-year period?

more disaster data

GAFA total = 2,593
Donald Trump = 6,865 §

or 2.65 times as many...

QED.

ps: anyone clever enough to figure out how many entries have (Donald) Trump in their title?

[Poetlister]

The number of edits obviously depends on both whether there is a lot to say and how many editors are interested. Edit wars will increase the edit count. Trump was always going to be one of the most edited articles as soon as he was president, and indeed as soon as he was the confirmed candidate.

[Bezdomni]

The number of edits obviously depends on both whether there is a lot to say and how many editors are interested. Edit wars will increase the edit count.

That's true. I wonder why there isn't more controversy on Wikipedia about the GAFA. How many nations and US states are suing or have either won lawsuits against, levied fines on, or passed laws about Google? (I gather the latest is Australia.)

I remember there was a bit of discussion too about how little tax some of these companies paid on $800 billion in revenue.

Amazon: $281b . . . . . . . . Google: $161b
Apple: $260b . . . . . . . . Facebook: $71b

There might have even been some talk about all the revenue Facebook made from US political advertisements and maybe even quite a bit more talk about the pocket money paid to them by разрушители (Russian disruptors)

I think there might have even been some discussion about GDPR, the Pinkerton detective agency, OSHA compliance, Foxconn, Pegatron, the Wistron riots (§), etc. But yes, never mind.... since reliable sources like the Washington Post don't talk much about Amazon, I suppose en.wp (being the reflection of billionaire-owned RS like Politico 1, the NYT, and the WaPo who jangle those shiny keys) won't either.

That said, I guess it's just en.wp volunteers, not the WaPo, who are uninterested in the story about

Apple’s use of forced labor in its supply chain

source

ps: aha, while there is no mention of this claim that I've found anywhere (or of the Indian riots), there is mention of Apple's lobbying efforts against a bill trying to minimize use of forced labor in China (in a sub-page called Criticism of Apple Inc. (T-H-L))

1Allbritton is only a minor millionaire; his father, from whom he inherited Politico, was substantially richer, having been, for example, Pinochet's banker. (§)

[C&B]

Wugapodes (T-C-L) Does vent, and Vent Again! (diff) -"at the risk of sounding like an asshole" Does sound like "I don't want to sound like an asshole but-" And is Always a good Start