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754 points coloneltcb | 7 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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sedev ◴[] No.43800538[source]
I am going to say a thing I say a lot: please edit Wikipedia. It is easier to do than you probably think! Wikipedia's biggest constraint is no longer money or server space, it's editor time (especially since LLM-based garbage is a force multiplier on disruptive editing that does not have a corresponding improvement to good-faith editing). Any topic area you know about and/or care about can benefit from your attention. Fixing typos is valuable. Adding photos is valuable. Flagging vandalism is valuable. Please edit Wikipedia.
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flask_manager ◴[] No.43800627[source]
I have in the past, but three things put me off doing so now;

Pages where I can spot inconsistencies are often controversial, with long dense discussion pages, edits here are almost impossible beyond trivial details. I dont mind fixing trivia, but not if the actual improvement I think I can make is rejected.

There is a bit of a deletionist crusade to keep some topics small, for example, Ive had interesting trivia about a cameras development process simply deleted. Maybe it is truly for the better, but it is not really that easy to add to the meat of the project, without someone else's approval.

Third, the begging banners really feel a bit gross; I know the size of the endowment, and how long it would be able to sustain the project (forever essentially)... It really feels like the foundation is using the Wikipedia brand to funnel money to irrelevant pet causes. This really puts me off contributing.

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1. webstrand ◴[] No.43800935[source]
I made an edit last year, it immediately got reverted and I got a banner on my user page for vandalism. I complained about that, other people agreed with me but the person who reverted my edits never responded. So there it sits.
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2. paradite ◴[] No.43801468[source]
Seems like the story of Stackoverflow.
3. the_mitsuhiko ◴[] No.43801713[source]
Would be curious to learn what you edited.
4. Arch-TK ◴[] No.43802075[source]
If there's a dispute and the person you're having a dispute with never materialises to argue their side of the argument, you're fine to just revert the banner.
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5. technothrasher ◴[] No.43802378[source]
The only few times I tried to make small edits, typo corrections, or similar, they just got immediately reverted as vandalism. So when I found a page that is largely wrong about a relatively obscure historical figure that I actually know a lot about and have plenty of source material for, I didn't really feel motivated to put the work in to clean it up.
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6. stogot ◴[] No.43802533[source]
I made a small edit to fix a mistake once and it didn’t get called vandalism but I sort of got a harsh message telling I did it wrong and didn’t follow processes

There must be some admin-level expectations of how things should be done but the editor flow gives you zero warning or indication. This was a while back so maybe they changed the flow

7. firesteelrain ◴[] No.43803213[source]
How are people supposed to understand these hard to follow and shifting rules?