Boink Boink wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 11:34 am
Unsurprisingly, the ChatGPT output appears convincing and perhaps even compelling to a lay person.
To an expert in Wikipedia, you can easily see that it is not much more than a summary of what Wikipedia editors and the Foundation have said about themselves, in settings where sober self reflection is required. This stuff is everywhere, ironically because it is found in Wikipedia. It is already "knowledge".
Critics know different, and the flaws between this output and observed reality (and incresingly, academic study of Wikipedia) are quite glaring. This is where a lack of in depth knowledgeable mainstream coverage of Wikipedia, and the presence of obvioisly biased shite like Slate, becomes hugely relevant.
A lot of the things being talked about as possible, have of course already happened. They are not present here in this output, because Wikipedia and the Foundation don't like acknowledging that their fears are coming true and their attempts to course correct are failing because their model is fatally flawed. The epic failure to effectively respond to the massive criticism and reputational damage arising from Wikipedia being one giant sausage fest, for example.
It is of course, especially in hindsight, completely laughable to think that mere appeals to their better selves and simply asking good people to dive into a lake of shit, would change Wikipedia's culture, but they quite literally have no other levers to effect change. All it did, if it did anything, was bring more activists, more division, and thus an even greater sense that on Wikipedia, sober expertise, mutual respect and a collaborative spirit doesn't mean shit to either side. It being well understood by those who freely choose it as a hobby and quickly become addicted, that Wikipedia is all about WINNING.
The stench is too oppressive now to persuade non-addicts to stay for long enough to become part of the trillion word effort that would effect real change. One nasty horrible bastard or a small clique of best friends can as a result now effectively rule over huge swathes of Wikipedia content and policy areas. We can all name them. They're not as they claim to be, the best of the best defending Wikipedia, quite the opposite.
Editors either do battle willingly, or avoid conflict for their own selfish reasons (standing up to bullies is hard and dealing with assholes is exhausting). There are no peacemakers. There are no referees. The wikipolice are the most corrupt among them, and when not doing seriously bad shit, usually to protect or excuse a bully or an asshole or an editor who is pushing the right POV, now spend most of their time virtue signalling and defending the honor of the badge. Wikipedia is America in so many ways. It baffles the rest of the civilised world. These are but minor but correctable issues in UK policing, for example. Americans would be amazed at how the very worst policing scandals in our largest and almost powerful police force here, are called a quiet Tuesday in small town America.
It's a sorry sight indeed to see studies being talked about in the safe space project within a project that is "Women In Red", having absolutely no effect on the encyclopedia, neither culture or content. Proof positive that Wikipedia has failed to be what it set out to be. A dynamic, self correcting, bureaucracy averse, expertise respecting force for societal good. It is the exact opposite. It keeps women in their place, in their designated room doing their designated work.
And sadly, they readily accept being put in their place and given their chores, knowing that the price to be paid for objecting, is a Wikipedia black eye. They creditably have their male alies. But they are more like your gay friend, rather than men who have accepted the patriarchy is a thing and want to genuinely help, without furthering the trope that women are helpless fragile creatures.
Wikipedia violence is quite literally policed by a panel of fourteen men and one women (who is clearly not a feminist and gets elected precisely because of it). Under this system, unsurprisingly, habitually hostile exhaustingly combative ideologically driven editors living out persecution fantasies, can survive on Wikipedia for fifteen years and still avoid a ban by a vote of 7 to 4. People are focusing on the effect on Holocaust distortion, which is important, but equally important is the effect on Wikipedia's reputation among 50% of the world.
Outcomes like this are normal, routine. Many inside Wikipedia even suggested the mere possibility of a ban was ridiculous, right up to the very top. The old white American man who presided over Wikipedia's first two decades of mistakes, used his position as a retired member of that panel, now resting in comfortable contentment as some kind institutional sage, to clearly influence the younger members, some elected on promises of change.
His feminist female contemporaries are long gone, as is the institutional memory of the high point of having three such women on the panel, the meagre effect of a decade of negative headlines. A Wikipedian to his core, he lacks the integrity to reflect on what he has personally done to foster and protect this culture, and only ever posits what others can do. His name is not Jimmy Wales. ChatGPT only knows good things of this man, who of course has his own very glowing Wikipedia biography.
Wikipedia is not a force for change, it is living proof that even in these enlightened times, the patriarchy doesn't have to do shit if the women in their society are genuinely powerless and overtly discriminated against. Wikipedia is Saudi Arabia. And that might be unfair to Saudi Arabia!
Sure, usually around elections, the question is openly asked, why don't more women even stand for election? The one women there now only very reluctantly stood to avoid the embarrassment to Wikipedia that a 15-0 outcome represents. No surprise that she is currently inactive. Like most awkward questions, the Wikipedia model ensures they go nowhere and the status quo is preserved. Effective answers require honest self reflection and a genuine desire to change, not a mere concern that bad headlines will deprive you of your favourite way to waste time.
Poor old ChatGPT with its optimistic and outdated output is a naive child when you consider things like that sausage dominance factor at the highest level are one of the many real, indisputable facts that speak to the likelihood that the Wikipedia model can ever do anything to correct mistakes in how It was set up and has evolved. It being rather obvious nobody set out to design Wikipedia to be a male dominated affair.
Wikipedia has failed. You can't know that unless you know what it set out to be. You can't know that until you appreciate that Wikipedia long ago stopped having a dream or a mission, it instead simply became a self serving act in survival. It is this survival strategy that means that in the face of falling donations, Wikipedia doesn't address the immediate cause (brand damage), they cut costs. Editors don't reflect on their part, they focus only on how well paid the Foundation staff who have presided over failure are. Failing to accept that in the Wikipedia model, paid staff have an almost negligible effect on the things harming the brand.
It is Wikipedia editor's survival choice not to stand up to bullies and arrest corrupt cops, that harms the brand. These are survival choices, but they are being freely made. Nobody is forcing these people to be selfish, self interested cowards. Wikipedia is not Saudi Arabia in that sense. It is America. A failure.
Most of the "may" things talked about in the output have actually happened simply because Wikipedia editors have the freedom to pick and choose what they do. So unsurprisingly, they pick the easy stuff, and the model precludes paying people to make up the difference. This is why even basic shit like properly sourcing all of its content and steadily but rapidly improving their most important articles to an encyclopedic standard (true, complete, unbiased), is a very, very, low priority. Even if it did pay people to do it, the difference is in fact 95% of the work needed to secure Wikipedia a decent reputation as an authoritative source. So it's clear that Wikipedia would bankrupt itself on Day 1 if it ever tried to be a real encylopedia. Hence it does not even try.
Increased regulation and reputational damage of a weird website that is part social media part time wasting hobby but which is consistently and brazenly falsely advertised as an "encyclopedia" was inevitable. It is just regrettable that it is taking decades. Even so, on current evidence, Wikipedia might be lucky to reach 30.
ChatGPT knows nothing of these obvious realities. Its output still reflects the hopeful, deluded, if not downright dishonest version of Wikipedia's role, potential and future. Wikipedia keeps its dirtiest secrets very well. You have to know exactly which rocks to turn over, exactly what kind of meat to bait your traps with, to reveal them. Wikipedia can fool AI easily. Writing garbage that reflects their hope and dreams but is impervious to reality, is their specialism.
Wikipedia has contributed to the polarisation of society (and thus the collapse of faith in politics or even democracy), precisely because the editors are biased towards left wing viewpoints (and I refer here to the mainstream, such as whether or not the US Government is being responsible in how It has inexorably raised the debt ceiling in the last few decades).
It's been fucking hilarious in a very sick way, watching America dabble with fascism, even though the things that led to the rise of Hitler and the mistakes his opponents made is such a well studied well understood topic that even Wikipedia does a good job of documenting it (Whermacht porn aside).
But it is precisely because of the left and Wikipedia, that by the time the threat arrived, the people were already numb to the cries of LOOK OUT, HE'S A NAZI! It had no effect. History repeated itself, almost. Close enough that people died uneccesarily, and continue to die.
Wikipedia's uselessness as the supposed modern alternative to being well read and a deep thinker, was proven. ChatGPT knows nothing of this, because the left refuse to admit it, and the right long ago stopped caring.
ChatGPT is entirely unaware that well before Trump, Wikipedia proactively promoted itself as the only place on the internet that is impervious to misinformation, and as Trump rose to power, they were extremely proactive in "correcting" what appeared to them to be "false".
If Wikipedia is truly "one of the most popular online sources of information, and people often turn to it for quick reference." and if it is true that if it weren't for the heroic efforts of the brave Wikipedia editors in the face of the Trump supporters, Wikipedia "can perpetuate false information and contribute to the spread of misinformation.", if this was all indisputable truth before Trump rose to power, how did it happen?
The way Wikipedia editors typically answer this conundrum, namely by saying quite literally that half the American population are racist, brainwashed or just straight up insane, is what proves beyond doubt that they truly are blind to the way they intentionally distorted the reality of American society, politics and culture in the run up to that election.
They presented their narrative, not the truth, because they wanted so badly for it to be true, and they genuinely seem to think that Wikipedia has the power to turn opinion into fact.
This is why they will never do anything to fix this problem, since for them, it is not a problem.
If it kills Wikipedia, they'll blame the Jews.