Wikipedia is powerless, so why worry about it?

[Boink Boink]

There can be only one reason why it is becoming more common to hear people claim Wikipedia has real influence in the world, with little or even no proof.

It's because it doesn't.

It's taken those dumb fucks twenty odd years to realise it, but no, despite it's undeniable ubiquity, in all the ways that matter, Wikipedia's influence on the world is negligible. Try and find a single example if you doubt me.

This is why they were over the fucking moon to see actual proof a while back that words on Wikipedia affects real science. Forgetting to check if this influence is benign, or actually leads to a public good. Better outcomes. More efficient use of resources. Fixing XYZ crisis faster than pre-Wikipedia science was, or rather was not. That last crucial step of self validation doesn't interest Wikipedians, and indeed I dare say they actively avoided thinking about it because the useless bastards can already guess the answer. It's not rocket science.

Lazy peolle will read free shit so they can get an extra five in the canteen. Even so called professionals, typically the ones who have reached a point in their careers where they kind of know they suck. These are not the scientists who are going to save the world, not even as a relatively tiny cog. These are the scientists who probably gave up real science and instead tried to carve out an academic profile by pretending Wikipedia is some kind of academically useful tool.

Which it admittedly always has been, in a limited way. Even an incomlete, biased and disorganised index or aide memoire, still has use as an index or aide memoire. Especially if the alternatives are costly due to their stupid reliance on having completeness, neutrality and organisation as their selling points.

Wikipedia is next to useless to society even when compared to shit shows like YouTube, who have at least carved out a niche in assorted highly useful educational videos. Just as with Wikipedia, you get the best use if you are already smart and use it with caution.

Wikipedia just lacks any compelling reason to use it for that kind of person in that kind of there is literally no alternative that won't cost me thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours so I have to use this questionable free shite and just fucking deal with any disastrous consequences like giving my house concrete cancer in the time honoured way, by blowing my brains out.

Wikipedia's users are so lazy and patently dumb they won't even spend the few meagre dollars and few short hours that would render its ENTIRE claimed utility moot, not least because BY DESIGN (and sadly all too often not in practice) Wikipedia isn't there to offer novel information that hasn't been tried and tested elsewhere. It's all out there, theoretically.

Ask a Wikipedian to prove you wrong, demonstrate an invaluable use case and a tangible societal benefit that resulted from their ridiculous hobby, bonus points of asking about THEIR EDITS specifically, and they will cry, because it exposes the lie they have been living all these years. That is your reward for knowing what people need to know about Wikipedia, their tears.

[wexter]

ubiquity

That is the primary reason I hate Wikipedia; secondarily it is mostly wrong in the context of it being an encyclopedia.

(totally wrong, 99.4% as defined by Wikipedia's internal quality standard the "good article" metric)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Good_articles - OK if it was viewed in the context of being entertainment and it was not ubiquitous.

Is McDonald's ubiquitous? Americans are never farther than 115 miles from a McDonald's, while many cities have several of the chain's outlets within driving distance.

For consumers; There are alternatives to McDonald's, while there are no alternatives to Wikipedia that are highlighted in Google search.

1) Why do you hate Wikipedia
2) Why not have general FAQ's, summing main-points up (Wikipedia, and Wikipedia sucks use a laundry list approach)

A FAQ might be defining Wikipedia as a social network or as entertainment.

[ericbarbour]

Ask a Wikipedian to prove you wrong, demonstrate an invaluable use case and a tangible societal benefit that resulted from their ridiculous hobby, bonus points of asking about THEIR EDITS specifically, and they will cry, because it exposes the lie they have been living all these years. That is your reward for knowing what people need to know about Wikipedia, their tears.

They will cry because THEY ARE MEMBERS OF A CULT. Showing them how they wasted their lives supporting a cultic freakshow attached to a "reference work" will inevitably produce tears. The first thing a cult must do is deny its own existence.

I say again: there is some really good content on Wikipedia. There is some really bad content too. Most of this is by pure random chance--someone with specialized knowledge happened along and wrote content that often is useful. Sometimes the result is unreadable crap. Go thru Category: Semiconductors to see some fine examples of good AND bad content.

Finding things can be difficult because Wikipedia does not have a decent subject index system (categories are extremely difficult to use for indexing, and the stupid search box has severe limitations). The "Good Article system" is a joke, as many "Good Articles" are about nerdy fanboy crap like videogames, sports and cartoons. The cult does not want any actual experts telling them how to run their little shitshow, because then they would be forced to admit they are a lunatic cult.

[REEkipidia]

Wikipedia is not powerless, it is God. People need to stop coping. Whatever goes on Wikipedia goes straight in everyone's brain. We're all part of a giant neural network now and Wikipedia is the brain. I get real life feedback within hours of my Wikipedia edits. I literally hear people on the street regurgitating what I just wrote on Wikipedia, hours after I posted it. The nightmare is real.

[wexter]

The "Good Article system" is a joke, as many "Good Articles" are about nerdy fanboy crap like videogames, sports and cartoons.

"Fanboy crap" is not encyclopedic - nor is an entry for bukkake with pornographic illustrations. Wiki-tan, manga, and other grot is entertainment. Even a serious "good article" such as George Washington is not organized nor is it concise enough to be readable. Community-review is not a process it is simply entertainment on a social network. Articles are never "stable" or reviewed for correctness to meet standard editorial guidelines of any kind.

Friday, March 10, 2006
Jimmy Wales Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has said that he's considering a "stable" edition of the community-edited encyclopedia, according to an interview with the Toronto Star. The edition would be "a body of work" that has already "been through the community-review process," he proposed.
https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikipedia% ... 22_version

Many of the people editing Wikipedia are not "Stable," they are a subset of the overall population.

It seems incredible that, over 17 years, no editorial mechanisms and controls were put into place to assess articles created to a standard, mark them good, and then freeze them in place so they would not degrade. 100% of Britannica articles went though an editorial process to meet standards, .6% of all Wikipedia articles passed a weak and highly personalized "community process" (good articles). 100% of articles need to be reviewed and certified not .6%.

Wikipedia did not develop or mature into an encyclopedia (it could have been made into an encyclopedia, but content growth was the objective in 2005, now it is a large body of free content for Google); Wales provided the direction taken and Sanger jumped ship.

its simply was narrative framed though a "public relations effort" into an institution consisting of a foundation and a monopoly that dominates search results.

Entertainment=Truth (content efficacy is irrelevant)
Revenue Stream for Google=Truth
Encyclopedia=Lie

Internal dysfunction/ toxicity = irrelevant to outsiders
Personalities = irrelevant to outsiders
Scandals = good for clickbait news (revenue)

Wikipedia is not going to mark articles as good, nor is it going to have an initiative to review articles. The WMF has all this money it could use for quality control via standards and methodology It is easier (and cheaper) to deflect bad PR. Google has plenty of cash to build an encyclopedia (or even just point to Britannica and lose advertising revenue) but there is more money in entertainment YOUTUBE and Wikipedia.

[ericbarbour]

It seems incredible that, over 17 years, no editorial mechanisms and controls were put into place to assess articles created to a standard, mark them good, and then freeze them in place so they would not degrade. 100% of Britannica articles went though an editorial process to meet standards, .6% of all Wikipedia articles passed a weak and highly personalized "community process" (good articles). 100% of articles need to be reviewed and certified not .6%.

AND THEY WILL FIGHT TO KEEP IT THEIR WAY.

Wales provided the direction taken and Sanger jumped ship.

I would say something more like "Wales was a dishonest, vacillating, narcissistic leader who was talked into pushing Sanger out. Thereafter, realizing he had a fan following who supported his slimy bullshit, called himself the "Sole Flounder"". Something in that area. Kiss his ass and he hands you the keys to the boat, but keeps the captain's hat. And gives orders that no one really takes serously. Now that his admin/bureaucrat powers have been removed, it should be fully clear that the insiders REALLY don't take him seriously anymore. Not that they ever did--every cult must have a symbolic leader, even a wooden statue will do.

Do I need to link to "Jimbo Found Out" again?

[wexter]

Wales claiming Sole Founder Status

Notice the same dynamic with Musk...

Now that his admin/bureaucrat powers have been removed, .... Not that they ever did--every cult must have a symbolic leader.

The way I read it, he gave up admin/bureaucrat powers to protect himself from internal criticism, to shift the accountability away from himself, and to elevate himself. He now has less downside risk on the platform.

I agree with you 100% that it is a "cult" that literally speaks in tongues.

wexter wrote: ↑Sun Apr 30, 2023 10:25 pm
It seems incredible that, over 17 years, no editorial mechanisms and controls were put into place to assess articles created to a standard, mark them good, and then freeze them in place so they would not degrade. 100% of Britannica articles went though an editorial process to meet standards, .6% of all Wikipedia articles passed a weak and highly personalized "community process" (good articles). 100% of articles need to be reviewed and certified not .6%.

AND THEY WILL FIGHT TO KEEP IT THEIR WAY.

They have absolutely no incentive to change, address problems, or improve quality. Seemed almost impossible that shopping malls would be ghost towns. Internally Wikipedia is a ghost town in terms of participation/population; externally "systems either change or die." Dedra Meero