Tim Bray on Grokipedia

Why give it oxygen?

Proof? More than a couple anecdotes please.

The ADL was caught in a campaign making edits. I remember more details in the past but I simply can't find them now with any search engine.

https://forward.com/news/467423/adl-may-have-violated-wikipe...

But also the ADL is accusing others of covert campaigns: https://wassermanschultz.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?...

So I am sure this is a thing among corporations/NGOs. Note that I picked the ADL because I happened to know this and not because I am trying to make a point about the ADL's purpose. Also I am not really answering the part about progressives although the ADL is arguably a progressive NGO. I think there are astroturfing campaigns on Wikipedia whether progressive or not.

That's how Wikipedia works. People can edit it. People who are members of organizations can edit it. The edits are transparent, and the history is preserved. It is open to anyone. It is like you're saying the whole world is biased and stacked against your point of view. The example you provide doesn't suggest any kind of centralized control or gatekeeping at all. Just some interested parties trying vying to contribute to articles that are of interest to them. What if I told you a single person, soon to be a trillionaire, would like to replace it with one he controls himself. Why wouldn't that bother you more? Honestly perplexed.

No. I don't think I am mischaracterizing it and I did not say the whole world is biased against me. I am not the person you replied to in case you're confusing me with them. I gave an example of an astroturfing campaign and yes, the ADL did not disclose what they were doing until they got caught. I don't think that should be casually dismissed as merely just interested parties. I think it is a genuine problem with Wikipedia. I think it violates the spirit of it and I think a paid campaign could subtly influence or overwhelm pages even though it's perfectly within the rules it should be disclosed the edits were done as part of a paid campaign and not a volunteer effort. I did not claim Wikipedia was centralized either. As far as gatekeeping I don't know. I am neither claiming it exists nor denying it.

> What if I told you a single person, soon to be a trillionaire, would like to replace it with one he controls himself. Why wouldn't that bother you more?

I didn't say anything about Grokipedia. I don't have an opinion on it presently. Couldn't the same argument be applied that he's just an interested party? Grok could be used to edit Wikipedia for that matter in a covert campaign. I think both preventing LLMs and relying on them are problematic but it's probably inevitable and I may already be late to the party because I don't know what percent of edits are done by LLMs on Wikipedia but let's say it's not 0%.