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    Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

    (www.washingtonpost.com)
    923 points coloneltcb | 15 comments | 25 Apr 25 23:03 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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    sedev ◴[26 Apr 25 03:04 UTC] 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 ◴[26 Apr 25 03:18 UTC] 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.

    replies(7): >>43800693 #>>43800935 #>>43801154 #>>43802662 #>>43806166 #>>43811054 #>>43818009 #
    1. webstrand ◴[26 Apr 25 04:26 UTC] 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.
    replies(7): >>43801468 #>>43801713 #>>43802075 #>>43802378 #>>43805984 #>>43810371 #>>43812591 #
    2. paradite ◴[26 Apr 25 06:52 UTC] No.43801468[source]▶
    Seems like the story of Stackoverflow.
    3. the_mitsuhiko ◴[26 Apr 25 07:53 UTC] No.43801713[source]▶
    Would be curious to learn what you edited.
    4. Arch-TK ◴[26 Apr 25 09:18 UTC] 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.
    replies(1): >>43803213 #
    5. technothrasher ◴[26 Apr 25 10:26 UTC] 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.
    replies(1): >>43802533 #
    6. stogot ◴[26 Apr 25 11:00 UTC] 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

    replies(1): >>43805865 #
    7. firesteelrain ◴[26 Apr 25 13:00 UTC] No.43803213[source]▶
    How are people supposed to understand these hard to follow and shifting rules?
    replies(1): >>43806746 #
    8. dharmab ◴[26 Apr 25 18:14 UTC] No.43805865{3}[source]▶
    I've had my edits similarly mass reverted with an unkind message.
    9. arjie ◴[26 Apr 25 18:27 UTC] No.43805984[source]▶
    For reasons unknown, I am much better than many at navigating this:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655989

    https://x.com/arjie/status/1847046183342297498?s=46

    If you share with me what your change is I might be able to get it done.

    10. Kim_Bruning ◴[26 Apr 25 20:14 UTC] No.43806746{3}[source]▶
    The base rules are actually not very complicated.

    But any time you try to write them down, people will come along and interpret them to their own advantage, sometimes outright in the opposite direction. That's a people problem, to some extent, not purely a Wikipedia problem.

    (BRD is my favorite pet-peeve)

    replies(3): >>43807151 #>>43807313 #>>43809367 #
    11. firesteelrain ◴[26 Apr 25 20:57 UTC] No.43807151{4}[source]▶
    I am going to use this at work!
    12. oarsinsync ◴[26 Apr 25 21:18 UTC] No.43807313{4}[source]▶
    > The base rules are actually not very complicated.

    > But any time you try to write them down, people will come along and interpret them to their own advantage, sometimes outright in the opposite direction.

    I think this a feature/bug of a (litigious) society that works on the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law.

    13. dredmorbius ◴[27 Apr 25 04:07 UTC] No.43809367{4}[source]▶
    BOLD, revert, discuss, for those unfamiliar:

    <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BOLD,_revert,_discus...>

    14. GoblinSlayer ◴[27 Apr 25 08:29 UTC] No.43810371[source]▶
    I think it's an antispam bot, just rerevert.
    15. Avamander ◴[27 Apr 25 15:28 UTC] No.43812591[source]▶
    If you revert someone's malicious reverts three times, you'll be forced into arbitration. They rarely bother with that though.