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Wikipedia survives while the rest of the internet breaks

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598 points leotravis10 | 4 comments | 04 Sep 25 15:30 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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bawolff ◴[04 Sep 25 16:49 UTC] No.45129304[source]▶
There has been this trend recently of calling Wikipedia the last good thing on the internet.

And i agree its great, i spend an inordinate amount of my time on Wikimedia related things.

But i think there is a danger here with all these articles putting Wikipedia too much on a pedestal. It isn't perfect. It isn't perfectly neutral or perfectly reliable. It has flaws.

The true best part of Wikipedia is that its a work in progress and people are working to make it a little better everyday. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact we aren't there yet. We'll never be "there". But hopefully we'll continue to be a little bit closer every day. And that is what makes Wikipedia great.

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mdp2021 ◴[04 Sep 25 17:07 UTC] No.45129539[source]▶
It's a miracle that the model of voluntary contribution from random agents and imperfect overview partially worked.

The science that could emerge by studying the phenomenon could constitute a milestone.

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ozim ◴[04 Sep 25 17:43 UTC] No.45130002[source]▶
I think “random agents” was only at start. I don’t think you as a random person can edit much there anymore.

Which is good in ways. Though random phase is song of the past.

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masfuerte ◴[04 Sep 25 18:38 UTC] No.45130697[source]▶
I routinely edit articles on Wikipedia without even logging in. The controversial articles, where you are likely to run into problems, are a small minority of what's there.
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1. crote ◴[04 Sep 25 21:12 UTC] No.45132255[source]▶
Wikipedia also tends to suffer from fiefdoms, where even seemingly low-controversy articles become impossible to edit, as someone has decided that article is now their personal pet and they'll spend an absurd amount of time undoing and preventing other people's edits.

The same applies on a larger scale with moderation. There are plenty of poorly-sourced database-like stub entries for STEM subjects, but try to make a page on a "softer" subject and there's a pretty good chance someone will try to nuke it with WP:PROOF, WP:NOTE, and/or WP:OBSCURE if it isn't perfectly fleshed out in the very first draft.

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2. Kim_Bruning ◴[04 Sep 25 21:27 UTC] No.45132414[source]▶
If you encounter that, you can possibly get help to get those articles unstuck. People are not supposed to keep fiefdoms, much of policy prevents it. (and someone with a bit of practice can call in help and clear it up)
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3. ozim ◴[04 Sep 25 22:17 UTC] No.45132868[source]▶
But to do that you have to stop being random and start playing Wikipedia game.

Random people don’t have time for that.

Ergo “it is not a project for random editors anymore”.

I want do an edit or addition and be fairly evaluated without having to call higher instances or fight through bureaucracy.

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4. Kim_Bruning ◴[04 Sep 25 22:22 UTC] No.45132904{3}[source]▶
Fair-ish. It really depends. The last few areas I did anything in (I'm not a regular anymore) basically nothing happened except what I wrote, so I guess the quiet parts are really really quiet and you don't get into much trouble at all.