WIRED runs another love letter to Wiki-world

Because no one else is doing it--not even the media.
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ericbarbour
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WIRED runs another love letter to Wiki-world

Post by ericbarbour » Tue Feb 18, 2020 12:21 am

https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-o ... -internet/

He attempted to write a "balanced" piece. But it still ends up looking like a Walesian Wiki-Luv blowjob, which is par for the course at WIRED.

I guarantee some of his statements will make readers on this forum grind their teeth. Maybe he should have asked Cade Metz for some hard info on the still-dysfunctional culture? Good luck contacting Mr. Cooke. Email rgcooke [at] gmail.com, or try his Twitter. Already tried and got no response.

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Re: WIRED runs another love letter to Wiki-world

Post by Strelnikov » Tue Feb 18, 2020 6:01 pm

The reason is in the second para:
....Yet in an era when Silicon Valley's promises look less gilded than before, Wikipedia shines by comparison. It is the only not-for-profit site in the top 10, and one of only a handful in the top 100.It does not plaster itself with advertising, intrude on privacy, or provide a breeding ground for neo-Nazi trolling. Like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, it broadcasts user-generated content. Unlike them, it makes its product de-personified, collaborative, and for the general good. More than an encyclopedia, Wikipedia has become a community, a library, a constitution, an experiment, a political manifesto—the closest thing there is to an online public square. It is one of the few remaining places that retains the faintly utopian glow of the early World Wide Web. A free encyclopedia encompassing the whole of human knowledge, written almost entirely by unpaid volunteers: Can you believe that was the one that worked?
Richard Cooke knows his audience and they are the survivors of a zillion messageboard flamewars, people who might have been doxxed or slandered on Twitter or Swatted or humiliated at work through the efforts of trolls and shitty corporate email passwords. This is an example of a smart PR puff-piece posing as journalism, because Cook brings up all the faults of en.Wikipedia but ending all of them in a hedging but.... because Wikipedia is now the only real game in town when it comes to online encyclipedia-like-things with built-in public engagement. (The Internet version of the E. Britannica is locked tight.)

By the way Mr. Barbour, I looked up Richard Cooke - when he isn't doing things like this "article", he writes for The Monthly magazine of Australia; he is their American correspondent.

....One challenge in seeing Wikipedia clearly is that the favored point of comparison for the site is still, in 2020, Encyclopedia Britannica. Not even the online Britannica, which is still kicking, but the print version, which ceased publication in 2012. If you encountered the words Encyclopedia Britannica recently, they were likely in a discussion about Wikipedia. But when did you last see a physical copy of these books? After months of reading about Wikipedia, which meant reading about Britannica, I finally saw the paper encyclopedia in person. It was on the sidewalk, being thrown away. The 24 burgundy-bound volumes had been stacked with care, looking regal before their garbage-truck funeral. If bought new in 1965, each of them would have cost $10.50—the equivalent of $85, adjusted for inflation. Today, they are so unsalable that thrift stores refuse them as donations.
Above we see how capitalism, if left unchecked, will destroy even basic reference material, or at least any physical copy of said material.

Ayn Rand (Jimmy's hero) is laughing in Hell, which is hard when you only have one lung and are always on the run from the Gestapo. (Adolf Hitler, one-time "Master of Europe" runs anti-Heaven now with his mangled SS, SA, and Wehrmacht.)
Still "Globally Banned" on Wikipedia for the high crime of journalism.

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Re: WIRED runs another love letter to Wiki-world

Post by ericbarbour » Fri Feb 28, 2020 9:53 pm

And today it was posted on Metafilter:

https://www.metafilter.com/185852/Wikip ... e-Internet

Where, as usual, they whined about racism and sexism and other -isms. Some good points were made, though.
If you want a true glimpse of Wikipedia's priorities (such as they are), take a look at the page for any professional wrestler. And then realize that they used to be significantly longer a few years back, before a campaign to get rid of entire sections like "Frequently Used Moves" and "Feuds".
How charming, that total headcase koavf showed up and urged them to contribute.
I would heartily recommend all of you become more active in editing Wikimedia Foundation projects. If anyone wants help, please let me know.
posted by koavf at 10:58 AM on February 28 [3 favorites]
Let me guess: a few of them will take him up on the offer, find themselves fighting with lunatics, and get eterna-blocked.

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