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Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

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598 points leotravis10 | 3 comments | 04 Sep 25 15:30 UTC | HN request time: 0.022s | source
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pessimizer ◴[04 Sep 25 18:25 UTC] No.45130526[source]▶
I've started to think that the fact that Wikipedia will change its descriptions of reality based on whoever is willing to spend the time and money to subvert it is a feature when it comes to survival. When the final sci-fi authoritarian dictatorship comes down, Wikipedia will happily explain that it was always here, and that Eastasia was always the enemy.
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IAmBroom ◴[04 Sep 25 18:30 UTC] No.45130589[source]▶
Its (relatively short) history suggests otherwise, so far.
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1. pessimizer ◴[04 Sep 25 18:48 UTC] No.45130813[source]▶
It certainly does not. It is not dependable for any subject that anybody or any government that commands any significant resources has any interest in. I'm sure there's somebody right this second guarding distortions on some obscure page about some scientific phenomenon that 99.999% of people have never heard of because their investment depends on it.

The political model doesn't work at all. If you just count the votes of the people who show up to vote, the Party will hire buses and empty the retirement homes and homeless shelters. Maybe you can fight this irl if everyone knows there's an election, but nobody knows when there's a war on a talk page.

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2. zahlman ◴[05 Sep 25 14:04 UTC] No.45138730[source]▶
> If you just count the votes of the people who show up to vote, the Party will hire buses and empty the retirement homes and homeless shelters.

They don't even have to go that far; consider the "consensus is not a vote" policy.

3. HankStallone ◴[05 Sep 25 14:16 UTC] No.45138880[source]▶
Yeah, I've heard people say, "I don't use it for anything controversial, but it's accurate for other stuff." That's usually true, but you can't assume it, because you never know what will be someone's personal hobbyhorse.

If I just want to know some dry facts about Podunk, BFE, it'll probably have them right. But maybe not, if the mayor of Podunk wrote the page and is trying to promote the town, or if it was last edited by someone who used to live there and hates the place. And very few people are going to check the talk or history pages to see whether there's been an edit war or other hints that the page might be sketchy.