Post Ade7VUDP6TSXbdvKcq by feld@bikeshed.party
(DIR) More posts by feld@bikeshed.party
(DIR) Post #AddpzYFwqSNJeTIg7c by fullfathomfive@aus.social
2024-01-08T14:48:23Z
2 likes, 6 repeats
From 2015 to 2022, I spent hundreds of hours on Duolingo, translating articles, answering language questions on the forums, and helping to improve the smaller courses by reporting mistakes.There are thousands of volunteers who donated their labour to Duo: the course creators who wrote their courses, the volunteers who created grammar guides (some smaller languages had an entire second course in the forums), the wiki contributors, the native speakers who answered questions in the sentence discussions. All of their work made Duolingo the powerhouse it is today. Duo was built by a community who believed in its original mission: language learning should be free and accessible.Bit by bit all of our work was hidden from us as Duolingo became a publicly-traded company. And now that work is being fed into their AI as training data.Well, I've learned the true lesson of Duolingo: never give a corporation your labour for free. Don't ever trust them, no matter what they say. Eventually greed will consume any good intentions.#duolingo #languagelearning #enshittification #capitalism
(DIR) Post #Addtk7ak6JWgQSvNtQ by didek@101010.pl
2024-01-08T17:13:03Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@fullfathomfive Similiar how donating free time contributing to Google Maps is a bad idea when OpenStreetMap exists.
(DIR) Post #Ade3JdwihNpkUiDWzY by feld@bikeshed.party
2024-01-08T19:00:08.666843Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@cheetah_spottycat @drwho @fullfathomfive What's really scary is how the entire country is now balls-deep in index funds for their personal and retirement investing which is a relatively recent phenomenon as these investment devices were historically more difficult to access.People, unions, pension funds etc are massively exposed and a market correction will wipe people out and cause untold chaos.Sorry grandma but the teacher's pension is dry now, time to join OnlyGrans
(DIR) Post #Ade7VUDP6TSXbdvKcq by feld@bikeshed.party
2024-01-08T19:47:06.520050Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@drwho @fullfathomfive @cheetah_spottycat It will be even worse this time because of the run-up since 2008 and everyone plowing in harder to get them GAINZ as we kept breaking record after record for the highest valuations
(DIR) Post #AderafPLD5thJMcZ1c by daniel_bohrer@chaos.social
2024-01-08T22:39:15Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@fullfathomfive thank you for this post. I am on the other side but somehow yet still on the same; as an avid languague learner for almost a decade, I could profit so much from the lesson notes, the forums, and the community in general, and it helped tons to learn a language! But today Duolingo is just an empty shell.
(DIR) Post #AderagULBzUUf9y4SO by fullfathomfive@aus.social
2024-01-09T00:32:32Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@daniel_bohrer Yeah that's what upsets me about it. I don't feel like I wasted my time on Duolingo, because I learned two languages while contributing and met a great group of people.But that incredible knowledge base we created, which was unprecedented in the history of language learning, is gone for future learners. It's completely contrary to Duo's original mission of making learning free and accessible. The web is getting more and more closed off and we are losing communal knowledge now, instead of gaining it.
(DIR) Post #AdfGpyPFM1dhQpyL9k by tallship@mastodon.sdf.org
2024-01-09T08:32:42Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@fullfathomfive I would suggest that what you really learned was to ALWAYS "License" your contributions to any crowd-sourced project under CC-BY-SA, the #FSF #GPL or #AGPL, or some other #Creative_Commons or strong #Copyleft license.Again: "License" your contributions - do not "ASSIGN" your copyright to any project. It's a common technique used by tricksters to steal your intellectual property for their own diabolical, ulterior motives like you just described#tallship #FOSS #crooks ⛵ .
(DIR) Post #AdhwyF8vCvaxH9t9cm by feld@bikeshed.party
2024-01-10T16:07:57.654402Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@fullfathomfive Duolingo was never an open platform, so what did people expect?
(DIR) Post #Adi5RKWH5yt1yyBzI8 by otyugh@pouet.chapril.org
2024-01-10T17:42:58Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@feld @fullfathomfive I kind of agree with that ; but it's still sad to be right about it, nonetheless.What can be abused will in time, but telling "told you so" doesn't help.
(DIR) Post #Adi5lkwGZxudiC5cZM by feld@bikeshed.party
2024-01-10T17:46:31.602226Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@otyugh @fullfathomfive Unfortunately people are going to have to learn the hard way that you can't build an open ecosystem around a corporation's product. There is a direct conflict of interest between the enthusiastic users and the company.Like, imagine if all the volunteers working on OpenStreetMaps were contributing to Garmin's database... :doh:
(DIR) Post #Adi6AmAP9NnalBdJRI by otyugh@pouet.chapril.org
2024-01-10T17:51:11Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@feld Sure ! But as a cartoon says "you may be right but you don't have to be an ass about it" ; drinking a glass of "I told you so" isn't very welcoming to potential new allies in the common thingy. 🐙
(DIR) Post #Adi6lFIkJ2uxXnvOqW by feld@bikeshed.party
2024-01-10T17:57:35.833797Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@otyugh babying them when they're crying "we've been wronged! we've been wronged!" doesn't help either; you're just reinforcing their bad behavior and making them feel like they should be right about this issue.They're not right about this issue. They will never be right about this issue. They have been taken advantage of and they need to learn their lesson so it does not happen again. They need to learn from the trauma and not suppress it so they get burned again the next time some company promises to e ethical to attract them.
(DIR) Post #Adi7AZefljK7uSG4zg by otyugh@pouet.chapril.org
2024-01-10T18:02:20Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@feld Well if you ever did get good result from that, good for you. Being understanding of where people come from works best for me. It's not about babying people, it's about not being a pretentious jerk, to me.