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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: 0.476s | 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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citizenpaul ◴[05 Sep 25 03:44 UTC] No.45134802[source]▶
I'm not so sure I go there less and less. Wikipedia is very biased and turf guarded against negative factually true information even when it meets all requirements it will often be taken down automatically with no recourse. Many pages are functionally not editable because of turf guarding.

Anything vaguely sociopolitical is functionally censored on it and wikipedia does nothing about it even if they don't support it.

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ragazzina ◴[05 Sep 25 10:30 UTC] No.45137037[source]▶
>factually true information [...] meets all requirements [...] it will be taken down

Can you make such an example?

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1. joenot443 ◴[05 Sep 25 12:27 UTC] No.45137722[source]▶
A very simple example are ongoing cases where the identity of a perpetrator has been released by smaller or local agencies but not by larger ones. There are countless, countless other examples too, I can walk you through some others if it’ll be helpful.

Wikipedia doesn’t treat all sources as being equal, so even in cases where there’s no reasonable doubt towards a claim’s veracity, if the correct source hasn’t already claimed it, editors are liable to revert your edit.

Obviously this is a phenomenon that occurs much more often in ongoing or politically sensitive stories. That said, it’s important for people to understand the flaws in Wikipedias method of epistemology.

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2. rafram ◴[05 Sep 25 13:37 UTC] No.45138424[source]▶
> A very simple example are ongoing cases where the identity of a perpetrator has been released by smaller or local agencies but not by larger ones.

This is a good policy. It’s much easier for a couple small outlets to be wrong than for the small outlets and some major ones to be wrong, and the stakes are high - naming the wrong suspect could ruin an innocent person’s life. Wikipedia is for knowledge, not rumors. If you want rumors, there are lots of other sites out there.

3. DangitBobby ◴[05 Sep 25 14:48 UTC] No.45139224[source]▶
> Wikipedia doesn’t treat all sources as being equal, so even in cases where there’s no reasonable doubt towards a claim’s veracity, if the correct source hasn’t already claimed it, editors are liable to revert your edit.

This is the right approach. If more information sources held this standard, sloppy reporting and outright lies would be very costly. Would you tell everyone very important news based on a the word of a friend who is known to stretch or invent the truth? Be a reliable source and you can participate.