[HN Gopher] Welcome to Wikifunctions
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Welcome to Wikifunctions
        
       Author : edward
       Score  : 277 points
       Date   : 2023-07-30 04:02 UTC (18 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.wikifunctions.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.wikifunctions.org)
        
       | guy98238710 wrote:
       | Wikifunctions is primarily intended to support Wikimedia
       | projects, especially Abstract Wikipedia. It is the code
       | complement to Wikidata lexemes. It might be used for cross-wiki
       | templates to reduce existing duplication and other auxiliary
       | tasks, but Abstract Wikipedia is the reason it was proposed.
        
         | cypress66 wrote:
         | Talk about over engineering
        
           | bawolff wrote:
           | Yeah, you're not the only one to think that https://en.wikipe
           | dia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
        
             | nonethewiser wrote:
             | So Wikipedia asks me for donations but does company off-
             | sites in Switzerland with Google?
        
               | bawolff wrote:
               | I think a lot of abstract wikipedia is coming from
               | restricted grants not the general donation pool.
               | 
               | Its a weird thing in the non profit world where its often
               | easier to get money for pie in the sky things than
               | keeping the lights on.
        
               | jmye wrote:
               | Do you think they should have to embrace austerity
               | because they've asked for donations? Or do you think they
               | can use donations in lieu of advertising dollars and
               | otherwise function like any other similar company? Do you
               | think it's possible they were invited by google.org or
               | received donations for the off-site itself?
               | 
               | I guess I'm not sure why this is remotely worth
               | commenting on, but it seems to have struck a nerve. It's
               | like being upset that NPR takes donations but then gives
               | its staff 15 minutes off to watch a tiny desk concert
               | sometimes.
        
               | Levitz wrote:
               | >Do you think they should have to embrace austerity
               | because they've asked for donations?
               | 
               | "Not embracing austerity" is one thing, "asking for
               | donations" is another thing, "what Wikimedia currently
               | does" is something completely different from these two
               | things.
               | 
               | When you get a banner featuring Jimmy Wales with the
               | words "Please read: A personal appeal from Wikipedia
               | founder Jimmy Wales" and then something like this:
               | 
               | >To all our readers in the UK,
               | 
               | >Please don't scroll past this. This Friday, for the 1st
               | time recently, we interrupt your reading to humbly ask
               | you to support Wikipedia's independence. Only 2% of our
               | readers give. Many think they'll give later, but then
               | forget. If you donate just PS2, or whatever you can this
               | Friday, Wikipedia could keep thriving for years.
               | 
               | The impression is that Wikipedia (NOT Wikimedia) is in
               | _need_ of money to keep operating, which is simply not
               | true.
               | 
               | Wikipedia has got more than enough money to keep
               | operating, if Wikipedia, ever in our lifetimes, goes
               | under, it won't be because they weren't given enough
               | money but because they mishandled it.
               | 
               | It's like having a beggar come to you saying that he
               | needs to eat, then seeing him 20 minutes later driving a
               | porsche. I consider this to be abhorrent behavior. I
               | donated once and will NEVER. EVER do it again and I
               | advise nobody does it. If you want to do a good deed
               | donate to the Internet Archive.
        
               | moritzwarhier wrote:
               | > if Wikipedia, ever in our lifetimes, goes under, it
               | won't be because they weren't given enough money
               | 
               | I agree, I think it will be because they'll accept more
               | money from commercial actors on the terms of whoever
               | these actors are - Google currently does not seem to
               | force any conditions on WP, as far as I can tell.
               | 
               | > If you want to do a good deed donate to the Internet
               | Archive.
               | 
               | I agree with this as well but I consider both Wikimedia
               | and the Internet Archive as extremely important.
               | 
               | Charitable causes always are at risk of "wasting" money.
               | But the reason for that is that in a purely capitalistic
               | sense the cause itself is not profitable.
        
               | starkparker wrote:
               | The Rockefeller Foundation donated $1 million to Abstract
               | Wikipedia toward the development of Wikifunctions a
               | couple weeks ago:
               | https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/07/12/abstract-wikipedia-
               | gai...
               | 
               | Wikifunctions also got nine Google employees from a
               | Google.org Fellowship in April 2022:
               | https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/04/14/google-org-
               | fellowship-...
               | 
               | The people whose business models benefit from this
               | project's success will ensure it's staffed and funded.
               | Your donations are emphatically not needed, nor will
               | declining to donate do anything to slow it down.
        
               | moritzwarhier wrote:
               | Thanks, I haven't been donating to WP but did not know
               | all of that either (apart from the Google employees who
               | are mentioned and linked already in the conversations
               | referenced in this thread).
               | 
               | 1 million doesn't even seem that much, but still, yes,
               | nobody knows what donations actually mean behind the
               | scenes (who believes in philantropy anyway?)
               | 
               | I mean, it's clear how much Google and others profit from
               | WP and especially Wikidata already.
               | 
               | But does this mean they control the platform?
        
               | panarky wrote:
               | Because nobody who survives on donations or taxes should
               | have the luxury of consuming more than 800 calories per
               | day.
        
               | chris_wot wrote:
               | Why is that so hard to believe? It's a global
               | organisation.
        
             | andybak wrote:
             | Wow. This feels like someone has taken a Borges parody and
             | ran with it:
             | 
             | > What is the scope of the new "Wikipedia of functions"?
             | 
             | > [...] Vrandecic explained the concept of Abstract
             | Wikipedia and a "wiki for functions" using an example
             | describing political happenings involving San Francisco
             | mayor London Breed:
             | 
             | > "Instead of saying "in order to deny her the advantage of
             | the incumbent, the board votes in January 2018 to replace
             | her with Mark Farrell as interim mayor until the special
             | elections", imagine we say something more abstract such as
             | elect(elector: Board of Supervisors, electee: Mark Farrell,
             | position: Mayor of San Francisco, reason: deny(advantage of
             | incumbency, London Breed)) - and even more, all of these
             | would be language-independent identifiers, so that thing
             | would actually look more like Q40231(Q3658756, Q6767574,
             | Q1343202(Q6015536, Q6669880)).
             | 
             | > [...] We still need to translate [this] abstract content
             | to natural language. So we would need to know that the
             | elect constructor mentioned above takes the three
             | parameters in the example, and that we need to make a
             | template such as {elector} elected {electee} to {position}
             | in order to {reason} (something that looks much easier in
             | this example than it is for most other cases). And since
             | the creation of such translators has to be made for every
             | supported language, we need to have a place to create such
             | translators so that a community can do it.
             | 
             | I'm not sure I'm smart enough to decide if this is all
             | really stupid or not. If I had to summarize my feelings it
             | would probably be along the lines of Q6767574, (Q6015536,
             | Q654880), Q65660.
        
               | sundarurfriend wrote:
               | Reminds me of this section of Cryptonomicon:
               | 
               | """
               | 
               | RIST 9E03 is the RIST that RIST 11A4 denotes by the
               | arbitrarily chosen bit-pattern that, construed as an
               | integer, is 9E03 (in hexadecimal notation). Click here
               | for more about the system of bit-pattern designators used
               | by RIST 11A4 to replace the obsolescent nomenclature
               | systems of "natural languages." Click here if you would
               | like the designator RIST 9E03 to be automatically
               | replaced by a conventional designator (name) as you
               | browse this web site.
               | 
               | Click.
               | 
               | From now on. the expression RIST 9E03 will be replaced by
               | the expression Andrew Loeb. Warning: we consider such
               | nomenclature fundamentally invalid, and do not recommend
               | its use, but have provided it as a service to first-time
               | visitors to this Web site who are not accustomed to
               | thinking in terms of RISTs.
               | 
               | ... Click.
               | 
               | RIST stands for Relatively Independent Sub-Totality.
               | 
               | ... Click.
               | 
               | A hive mind is a social organization of RISTs that are
               | capable of processing semantic memes ("thinking"). These
               | could be either carbon-based or silicon-based. RISTs who
               | enter a hive mind surrender their independent identities
               | (which are mere illusions anyway). For purposes of
               | convenience, the constituents of the hive mind are
               | assigned bit-pattern designators.
               | 
               | Click.
               | 
               | A bit-pattern designator is a random series of bits used
               | to uniquely identify a RIST.
               | 
               | """
        
               | _dain_ wrote:
               | this is the kind of unhinged make-work schemes all those
               | wikipedia beg banners are funding
        
               | ulucs wrote:
               | Reads even worse than Ulillillia literature, at least he
               | doesn't fully yield to scientific measurements
        
               | Levitz wrote:
               | My takeaway from this is that Wikimedia clearly has way,
               | way too much money.
        
               | tgv wrote:
               | THAT's the reason? Conveying a sentence as a series of
               | propositions or a tree with case labels has been tried in
               | the previous century, without success. It does not offer
               | a good basis for translation, as e.g. Philips' Rosetta
               | project showed. It works for simple cases, but as soon as
               | the text becomes more complex, it runs into all the
               | horrible little details that make up language.
               | 
               | A simple example: in Spanish you don't say "I like X" but
               | "X pleases me". In Dutch you say, "I find X tasty" or "X
               | is good" or something else entirely, depending on what X
               | is. Those are three fairly close languages. How can you
               | encode that simple sentence in such a way that it
               | translates properly for all languages, now and in the
               | future?
               | 
               | Symbolic representation isn't going to cut it outside a
               | very narrow subset of language. It might work for highly
               | technical, unambiguous, simple content, but not in
               | general. Whatever you think of ChatGPT, it shows that a
               | neural network can't be beaten for linguistic
               | representation.
        
               | bawolff wrote:
               | > It might work for highly technical, unambiguous, simple
               | content
               | 
               | I mean, the goal is wikipedia lite basically - so they
               | are targeting technical unambigious simple content.
               | 
               | My understanding is the goal to target small languages
               | where it is unlikely anyone is ever going to put in the
               | effort (or have a big enough corpus) to do the
               | statistical translation methods. Sort of a - this will be
               | better than nothing approach.
        
               | mst wrote:
               | Feels a lot like RDF, especially in terms of how I expect
               | the underlying utopian dream to play out.
        
               | andybak wrote:
               | I was thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Analy
               | tical_Language_of_Joh...
        
               | starkparker wrote:
               | Vrandecic was Google's consultant on the old Freebase's
               | RDF export. Wikidata, which he helped create, succeeded
               | it. It's the same people pushing the same solution under
               | different names.
        
         | vasco wrote:
         | Abstract Wikipedia is in my opinion fully wasted work.
         | Translation is free and instant for web pages. I've lived for 6
         | years in different countries where I don't speak the local
         | language (and am also not native English speaking) and you can
         | get all the information you need by translating. This works
         | totally fine already today with Google translate on top of
         | pages.
         | 
         | And the pages that are in fact missing from "the other language
         | wikis" are local myths, local detailed history, things that
         | wouldn't even be in the English Wikipedia or in the "abstract"
         | version in the first place.
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | > _Translation is free and instant for web pages._
           | 
           | And also very often quite incorrect, and you don't know
           | where.
           | 
           | I think the general idea of a "universal language" Wikipedia,
           | that gets flawlessly rendered into local languages, is
           | laudable.
           | 
           | But I don't think anybody would ever edit in it directly --
           | what I want to see is that when somebody edits Wikipedia to
           | add a new sentence, it attempts to translate into the
           | "universal language" and prompt you to select from
           | ambiguities.
           | 
           | E.g. if you wrote:                 I saw someone on the hill
           | with a telescope.
           | 
           | It would ask you to confirm which of the following was
           | intended:                 [ ] "with a telescope" modifies "I
           | saw"       [ ] "with a telescope" modifies "someone on the
           | hill"
           | 
           | And it would also ask to clarify meanings, e.g.:
           | [ ] "saw" - spotted visually       [ ] "saw" - dated
           | romantically
           | 
           | It would be a real dream to have translated outputs that were
           | _guaranteed_ to be correct, because the intermediate
           | representation was correct, because the translation from
           | someone 's native language to that intermediate translation
           | was verified in this way.
        
             | vasco wrote:
             | I would still invest those resources into documenting more
             | knowledge that currently doesn't exist online on their
             | original languages and immediately translating to English.
             | For better or for worse English is the "abstract"
             | representation of language online and there's so much
             | absent stuff that worrying about another universal format
             | seems pointless.
        
               | crazygringo wrote:
               | It's not either/or. Different groups of people can do
               | different things at once. And of the two things you're
               | comparing, one is expert technical/engineering and the
               | other requires expert archivists/translators. They're
               | totally different groups.
        
           | zelphirkalt wrote:
           | Not everyone wants to use Google services to be able to read
           | information on Wikipedia.
        
             | nonethewiser wrote:
             | And not everyone wants to donate to wikpeda to solve a
             | solved problem
        
               | BSEdlMMldESB wrote:
               | improving language (and communication) is never a solved
               | problem
        
           | guy98238710 wrote:
           | You might well be right. Furthermore, English is on its way
           | to become the universal language everyone speaks. You are
           | however wrong about comparing AW to translators, which are
           | probabilistic algorithms whereas AW is intended to be as
           | exact as Wolfram Alpha. AW should be also able to use
           | Wikidata to generate unique articles that do not exist even
           | in English.
           | 
           | BTW, translation tech is not as good as you paint it here. I
           | regularly translate my English blog posts to Slovak and every
           | blog post requires 20-30 corrections. DeepL is marginally
           | better than Google Translate. GPT-4 cannot even get word
           | inflection right, an embarrassing fail for such a large
           | model.
        
           | reaperducer wrote:
           | _This works totally fine already today with Google translate
           | on top of pages._
           | 
           | How would anyone even know? By definition, if someone is
           | using Google Translate, he already doesn't know the language,
           | so how can he judge the quality of the results?
           | 
           | My company spends millions on professional translators
           | because products like Google Translate are so bad for
           | anything beyond the most basic uses.
        
           | nologic01 wrote:
           | This is wrong on two counts: 1) translation is not the same
           | as abstraction and 2) having the world's encyclopedia
           | translated by an advertising company is not exactly
           | everybody's idea for how things should be organized
           | 
           | Of course wrong criticism doesnt mean the project is a
           | success (i think its been going for a few years now). The
           | documentation in particular does not highlight what this
           | infrastructure is good for.
        
             | starkparker wrote:
             | Denny Vrandecic -- the lead developer of Wikifunctions,
             | former Germany PM of Wikidata, co-developer of Semantic
             | Wikipedia, and former member of the Wikimedia Foundation
             | Board of Trustees -- also helped develop Google's Knowledge
             | Graph from 2013 to 2020. None of this is hidden, it's even
             | on his Wikipedia article.[1]
             | 
             | The "having the world's encyclopedia translated by an
             | advertising company" ship sailed years ago. All of these
             | projects are supported, directly and indirectly, by exactly
             | that motivation. The ultimate goal of commercial
             | enterprises is to take zero-cost volunteer projects like
             | Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap and make them cheaper for
             | enterprises to associate user input with compatible
             | monetization. It's now just a bonus side-effect, rather
             | than their mission, that any public good comes from these
             | projects.
             | 
             | 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denny_Vrande%C4%8Di%C4%87
        
             | sneak wrote:
             | "translated by an advertising company" is akin to "Tor was
             | funded by the US government" - it's basically
             | organizational ad hominem.
             | 
             | Google's translations are fine and are high quality and
             | don't yet (or in the foreseeable future) inject ad copy
             | into the translations (like they do on eg Google Maps for
             | POIs).
        
               | trashburger wrote:
               | That's apples and oranges though. Tor is out of control
               | of the US military as this point (+/- your tinfoil hat
               | level), whereas Google Translate was created and is owned
               | solely by Google. I'm not saying GP is fully correct but
               | context is important.
               | 
               | I personally think using transformers for, well,
               | transforming input into another language is going to be a
               | great approach once hardware catches up for local offline
               | use at a reasonable speed and hallucinations are
               | minimized.
        
               | nologic01 wrote:
               | Corporate entities come and go. They bait-and-switch at
               | will as they are ultimately only answering to legal
               | obligations and in particular shareholders. It would be
               | odd to overlay such a liability and uncertainty on top of
               | wikipedia.
               | 
               | While abstraction is not the same as translation, if the
               | wikipedia community wants specifically a translation
               | service that is more tightly integrated into the platform
               | imho it should be a fully open source project.
        
             | vasco wrote:
             | My point is about translating after the fact by the end
             | user solving the problem. Now you can use Google translate
             | for free, later you can use your own LLM. Abstracting the
             | knowledge away is wasted work. We already have it in a
             | definitive source language (english for most things, local
             | languages for local things).
             | 
             | This abstract Wikipedia sounds like Esperanto to me.
        
               | nologic01 wrote:
               | > Abstracting the knowledge away is wasted work
               | 
               | Translation solves an immediate problem of giving human
               | users a glimpse of Wikipedias knowledge base, but it is
               | still stricly wrapped in textual data. It is still a
               | content black box that, e.g an LLM would not make more
               | transparent.
               | 
               | Abstraction builds a mathematical representation. Its a
               | new product and it opens up new use cases that have
               | nothing to do with translation. It may on occasion be
               | more factually correct than a translation, or may be used
               | in conjuction with translation, but is potentially a far
               | more flexible and versatile technology.
               | 
               | The challege is really matching ambition and vision with
               | resources and execution. Especially if it is to attract
               | volunteers to crowdsource the enormous task, it needs to
               | have a very clear and attractive onboarding ramp. The
               | somewhat related Wikidata / wikibase projects seem to
               | have a reasonable fan base so there is precedent.
        
             | nonethewiser wrote:
             | What is the value in Wikpedia abstracting the language in
             | its articles apart from translation?
        
               | starkparker wrote:
               | Similar to abstracting maps and geography into GIS data
               | and getting things like geographic proximity and POI-type
               | filtering with lower overhead than creating a category
               | tree for place articles in Wikipedia.
               | 
               | For instance, Wikipedia right now relies quite a lot
               | entirely on manual tagging (authored categories) for
               | classifying related subjects. If you want a list of all
               | notable association footballers, for instance, then the
               | best way to get one is to go to Category:Association
               | football players. But then you're stuck in a very human,
               | flawed, and often in-flux attempt to reach a consensus
               | definition of that, and the list remains out of reach.
               | (Hell, American players are categorized as "soccer
               | players" under the same tree, confounding things like
               | search, because that's the kind of thing Americans do.)
               | 
               | With abstraction, you get classification for much less,
               | and the consensus problem moves from an arbitrary,
               | authored category tree to a much narrower space. If an
               | article is about a footballer, and the abstract data for
               | that subject contains occupation Q937857 (association
               | football player). The dialect and language don't matter
               | -- a footballer is a footballer. If you just want a list
               | of footballers, you can get just a list of footballers
               | without even going near things like SPARQL: https://www.w
               | ikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinks...
        
           | jiggawatts wrote:
           | Not to mention that machine translation became dramatically
           | better with LLMs like GPT 4 and will just get better over
           | time... rapidly.
           | 
           | I fully expect by next year for AI translation of Wiki-like
           | content to be essentially perfect.
        
       | zelphirkalt wrote:
       | Has anyone figured out how to input lists? It shows inputs for
       | selecting the type of each element of a list, but when I select a
       | type like "String" the type input field is empty again. When I do
       | not enter anything, but click the "dropdown arrow" right of the
       | field, the field becomes grayed out and empty again. Not sure how
       | to use this.
        
         | trashburger wrote:
         | https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates...
         | 
         | > Initially, we will support two pre-defined Types for the
         | inputs and outputs of Functions: Strings and Booleans. The
         | creation of new Types will at first be restricted to staff
         | members.
         | 
         | Seems like no list support yet.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | proxygeek wrote:
       | Wow... Would this collection be helpful as a free and curated
       | source of coding blocks to train future LLMs on?
        
         | nottheengineer wrote:
         | Probably, but LLMs seem to gain more understanding from seeing
         | lots of different examples than they do from a few examples of
         | good code so people won't stop scraping stackoverflow.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | chris_wot wrote:
       | These look like they are all builtins. I'm really not sure what
       | is meant by "decolonising functions", it seems to take
       | inspiration from a professor who allowed his class to speak and
       | discuss mathematics in Spanish (admirable!)... but this is a
       | website!
       | 
       | I can't even tell if there is a documentation area.
       | 
       | Perhaps this may get better over time?
        
       | starkparker wrote:
       | Previously: "Wikipedia Is Trying to Transcend the Limits of Human
       | Language" (2021) on the announcement of Wikifunctions
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28389516
        
       | firefoxd wrote:
       | Well, that one hurts a bit. I think I got the domain name for
       | close to 6 years now. Been paying ever since. Oh i got the
       | hosting as well, been paying for that for 3 years at least.
       | 
       | If only I ever got to finishing it. Though my version looks more
       | like stackoverflow where people can upvote edits of functions.
        
         | zarzavat wrote:
         | Don't sweat it. It appears this wikifunctions is not intended
         | for "mortals" to use. It's an implementation detail of an
         | upcoming structured data project.
        
       | bestcoder69 wrote:
       | Is this a bet against LLMs?
        
         | hobofan wrote:
         | No, the concept of Wikifunctions and Abstract Wikipedia has
         | been brewing for some years. It's basically an
         | extension/complement to Wikidata and the efforts to collect as
         | much information as possible on Wikipedia in a language-
         | agnostic way.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | easeout wrote:
         | Doesn't seem that way. I think it's a way to collect high
         | quality information for humans, but LLMs can still benefit as a
         | side effect.
        
       | moritzwarhier wrote:
       | So I spent what amounts to almost an hour today being amazed and
       | entertained by the perceiced absurdity of this.
       | 
       | Now, after a good dinner, reading the FAQ again, I'm starting to
       | roughly feel like this might actually make sense, in another
       | world, or maybe it might even make sense in reality when better
       | fleshed-out?
       | 
       | And also I start to remember what this reminds me of (plenty of
       | other entertaining references already here in the comments):
       | 
       | https://thedailywtf.com/articles/the-inner-json-effect
       | Two days later he started poking around. He started with a
       | seemingly-innocuous file called "customers.json" and stared in
       | confusion at its contents:                {             "File" :
       | "Customers.json",             "Class" : "Customers",
       | "Author" : "redacted@redacted.com",             "Purpose" : "",
       | "Functions" : [                 568,                 899,
       | 900,                 901,                 902,
       | 1877,                 2880             ]         }
        
       | chrisjj wrote:
       | I was about to say I stopped reading at:
       | 
       | > the creation of new development environments or programming
       | languages or paradigms will become easier, as they could simply
       | refer to Wikilambda for a vast library of functions.
       | 
       | ... except morbid curiosity compelled me to the end.
        
         | olsonjeffery wrote:
         | https://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2011-May/05876...
        
           | lanstin wrote:
           | I remember being intrigued by this idea. I doubt it would
           | work but it's interesting to understand why. Seems the main
           | hold up is that each function might have to point to other
           | function as dependencies, so it's not going to be linear but
           | really a graph. And then you are immediately in the position
           | of I like this code but I am user Log package N, but they use
           | Log package M so I have to copy and edit. . Vs _ and how
           | things are published and versioned is just implementation
           | details.
        
       | TekMol wrote:
       | What are the holes in the namespace?
       | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Z1 is about "Type: Object"
       | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Z2 is about "Type: Persistent
       | object"         https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Z10 404
       | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Z100 404
       | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Z500 is about "Error type:
       | Unspecified error"
       | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Z1000 404
       | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Z10000 is about "Function:
       | join strings"
        
         | quiddity wrote:
         | Many of the built-ins are currently turned off, whilst the team
         | continues configuring things and bug-fixing.
         | 
         | The intended built-ins are listed at
         | https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Reserved_...
         | 
         | There are more interesting examples of some user-made functions
         | at the Older Beta-deployment location the team has been using
         | for the past year:
         | https://wikifunctions.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:Ma...
        
       | osigurdson wrote:
       | Perhaps if this would have been introduced 20 years ago it may
       | have gotten some traction. ChatGPT / AI seems like the ideal spot
       | to request functions as it can also tweak - though honestly it
       | isn't as good as I'd like it to be (yet).
        
       | low_tech_punk wrote:
       | Like https://val.town but written in a wiki specific python or
       | javascript? I wish there is an easy way to see the code for each
       | function instead of the "low code" UI.
       | 
       | Ref:
       | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:How_to_crea...
        
       | lifeisstillgood wrote:
       | This is I suspect what a Domain Driven Design should be - every
       | compmay should have something like this. Things like "how do we
       | estimate the number of headlamps needed from supplier A, B and C
       | in the next three months"
        
       | fegu wrote:
       | Most interesting functions use other functions. I did not find
       | how they solve using existing functions, avoiding duplication of
       | basic functionality, but also handling how things might break if
       | an underlying function is independently updated. Does anyone know
       | how they solve this, it is an interesting problem?
        
       | nologic01 wrote:
       | The documentation doesn't quite match the ambition of the project
       | which may complicate the onboarding of new contributions
       | 
       | Some suggestions for immediate questions that people might want
       | to see on a landing page:
       | 
       | * How does the function collection relate to existing function
       | libraries in various programming languages
       | 
       | * What are the target domain and range of the function set, i.e.,
       | what is the overall scope of the project. Even if its open ended
       | it needs some meaningful and self-explanaory scheme to categorize
       | and group them
       | 
       | * What are some gee-wow uses. Why should one be involved. How can
       | this be used outside wikipedia etc
        
         | mormegil wrote:
         | Yes, I think a pointer to somewhere like
         | https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia or around
         | (possibly under
         | https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Abstract_Wikipedia)
         | should be here.
         | 
         | Also I'd say one of the more important pages here is actually
         | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:What_Wikifu...
        
           | starkparker wrote:
           | Also, from the well-buried FAQ:[1]
           | 
           | > In the future:
           | 
           | > * It will be possible to call Wikifunctions functions from
           | other Wikimedia projects, and integrate their results in the
           | output of the page.
           | 
           | > * It will be possible to use data from Wikidata in
           | functions.
           | 
           | > * It will be possible to call data sets from Commons Data
           | namespace.
           | 
           | Everything right now is just transparency about the project's
           | immaturity and publicly alpha-testing actual use
           | cases.[2][3][4]
           | 
           | 1: https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:FAQ/en
           | 
           | 2: All open tickets on Wikilambda, the stack behind
           | Wikifunctions:
           | https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/maniphest/?project=PHID-
           | PR...
           | 
           | 3: https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/abstract-
           | wikiped... -- "We encountered a number of issues while
           | deploying, and it was fascinating to fix these live while the
           | community was watching. There are still a number of high-
           | priority bugs, and we need to fix those before we get to the
           | next step. The current plan is to open the wiki for editing
           | on Tuesday, August 1st 2023, and we'll update you if that
           | changes."
           | 
           | 4: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Updates
           | /2...
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | starkparker wrote:
         | There are no reasons for public users to contribute; editing is
         | locked to trusted, hand-selected users given temporary
         | permissions.[1] The lack of documentation and purpose are
         | arguably intentional because they're targeting internal uses. A
         | large-scale, alpha-quality solution still looking for any non-
         | Wikimedia Foundation problem to solve, made public mostly
         | because Wikimedia prefers to be and enjoys being messy in
         | public.
         | 
         | 1:
         | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:Apply_for_e...
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | ngc6677 wrote:
       | Wondering, if a function execution will be able to (a) be called
       | from a URL, with inputs `https://wikifunctions.org/to-
       | base-64?input=my%20string` (b) retrieve the output from the URL
       | `https://wikifunctions.org/tobase-64?output=bXkgc3RyaW5n`? It
       | could be used directly from the Browser's Omnibox URL address
       | bar, such as with https://searx.be/info/en/search-syntax,
       | https://duckduckgo.com/bangs,
       | https://github.com/internet4000/find
        
         | mormegil wrote:
         | Well, MediaWiki has a comprehensive API, so yeah, see e.g.
         | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox#action...
         | 
         | But I don't think Wikimedia Foundation wants to provide a free-
         | to-all unlimited compute... No idea what the resource limit
         | plans are, etc. But at least now in this early phase, the user
         | rights are very limited, anyway.
        
       | mikewarot wrote:
       | It really doesn't explain what it's for.. so I'm left to guess
       | that it's a RosettaCode clone.[1]
       | 
       | I can't figure out how you're going to see implementations of a
       | function in the language of your choice.
       | 
       | Will there be C/C++/D/Go/Rust/Python/Java sections?
       | 
       | [1] https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Rosetta_Code
        
       | ulrischa wrote:
       | Who should use this? When I search for a function I need it in a
       | programming language I use.
        
         | bawolff wrote:
         | In theory they want to have functions in all programming
         | languages
        
       | erdtgyujiokiyut wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
         | formerly_proven wrote:
         | Don't look at Wikidata then
        
       | yosito wrote:
       | I couldn't find a function for which the implementation is
       | visible. Which leaves me quite confused about what exactly the
       | nature of this wiki is.
        
         | brap wrote:
         | The implementation is in the 'details' tab, but even still this
         | project is very confusing.
        
           | yosito wrote:
           | All of the details tabs I checked had a message saying that
           | the implementation was hidden.
        
       | userbinator wrote:
       | There is a link on the main page titled "Decolonizing Functions",
       | which leads to...
       | 
       | https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Abstract_...
       | 
       | I'm not sure if that is satire, or for that matter this whole
       | site.
        
         | nonethewiser wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
         | soared wrote:
         | > first, to recognize the contributions of people with diverse
         | backgrounds, in order to offer more protagonists who can
         | inspire and with whom more people can identify second, to
         | provide examples and motivations that are relatable to under-
         | represented backgrounds and identities, in order to reach and
         | be more immediately helpful to more people
         | 
         | Seems pretty reasonable IMO. Feels like pretty mellow and easy
         | actions to take. But the linked post I agree is a bit ...
         | condescending? Self congratulating?
        
         | js8 wrote:
         | Your outrage at this seems to be analogous to outrage of people
         | who think that it is horrible that Unix has a "kill" operation.
         | Basically, you don't understand that "decolonization" is a
         | metaphor for a broader historical perspective, and instead
         | you're trying to interpret it literally and in a bad faith.
        
           | userbinator wrote:
           | The only ones talking about "decolonization" are on one very
           | extreme side of the political spectrum and trying to inject
           | identity politics into everything.
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33607032
        
             | js8 wrote:
             | I don't understand your argument. Where is, aside from the
             | word "decolonization", the author of that document trying
             | to "inject identity politics"? And to what end? (And you
             | certainly seem to be concerned by identity of the people
             | making those claims..)
             | 
             | Take a step back and think about how your statement really
             | sounds. It's like saying that "a group of extremist geeks
             | who wrote Unix is trying to inject violence into
             | everything". It's faux outrage that misses the point.
        
               | nonethewiser wrote:
               | To what end? You'd have to ask the author and hope for a
               | grounded answer. Probably internal satisfaction, virtue
               | signaling, or advancing ideology.
               | 
               | > Take a step back and think about how your statement
               | really sounds.
               | 
               | Why dont you tell him how you think it sounds instead of
               | misrepresenting a consensus?
        
           | raincole wrote:
           | People also got mad at Git for having default branch named
           | master.
        
             | js8 wrote:
             | Yeah, and it was misguided and irrelevant all the same.
             | People who actually use Git understand that "master" is a
             | metaphor, just like people who are concerned about
             | historical views being represented understand that
             | "decolonization" is also a metaphor for this due
             | dilligence.
             | 
             | Context is everything. You're not gonna be killed by Unix
             | command, enslaved by Github, and the land you own is not
             | going to be confiscated by people who are writing an
             | encyclopedia.
        
               | civilized wrote:
               | The difference is that "master" doesn't actually imply
               | the existence of slaves in English, while
               | "decolonization" does literally imply that there is some
               | sort of colonialism that is being undone.
        
               | js8 wrote:
               | That's irrelevant unless you assume that they use the
               | word "decolonization" in a bad faith. I argue they don't,
               | and so it's a non-issue (people are being offended for no
               | reason).
               | 
               | But IIRC, the first time I encountered the word "master"
               | in computing, it was in the context of serial link data
               | transfer, and there was a "slave".
        
               | civilized wrote:
               | It's irrelevant that the usage of a word, by the word's
               | very construction, favors the formation of false beliefs,
               | so long as there are good intentions behind it?
               | 
               | The fact that a word can be used in the context of
               | slavery doesn't mean the word always and everywhere
               | carries the taint of slavery. What could possibly limit
               | the reach of such a principle? Can I talk about how I
               | like cotton shirts better than other fabrics, when the
               | mere mention of cotton might bring some people back to an
               | uncomfortable place?
        
               | nonethewiser wrote:
               | > People who actually use Git understand that "master" is
               | a metaphor
               | 
               | I don't think thats actually true. I think everyone knew
               | the etymology was not slave owners. Which is the problem
               | - its fighting a manufactured battle. Creating "systemic
               | racism" out of thin air.
        
           | nonethewiser wrote:
           | > Your outrage at this seems to be analogous to outrage of
           | people who think that it is horrible that Unix has a "kill"
           | operation.
           | 
           | The reaction is more similar to people who ARENT bothered by
           | the use of kill, master, etc. The article about
           | "decolonizing" functions is a shoehorned idealogical venture.
           | A completely unnecessary political aside.
           | 
           | I also wouldnt call it outrage. That just seems like a way to
           | make the point sound unreasonable without addressing its
           | logic. If his reaction is outrage then so yours.
        
           | johnnyworker wrote:
           | What "outrage"? Might as well ask why you are going insane
           | with hatred over a simple question. How would that feel?
           | Would you even bother to respond to something like that?
        
             | js8 wrote:
             | I responded in attempt to explain the viewpoint of the
             | other side, by using an analogy (that can be familiar to
             | people who do computers). There is no "insane hatred" in my
             | response, on the contrary, I was trying to expand the PP's
             | perspective.
             | 
             | PP seemed to be concerned about the word "decolonization"
             | specifically, rather than the actual goal of properly
             | organizing the history, and seemed annoyed by it enough to
             | comment here. I would say that justifies it to be called an
             | "outrage", but it's hard to defend or concede now that it
             | has been flagged. I think were they not outraged, they can
             | simply ignore my comment as irrelevant, and they are also
             | welcome to clarify whatever objections they have with
             | respect to that project.
        
               | johnnyworker wrote:
               | > There is no "insane hatred" in my response
               | 
               | I know. My point was just that it's a needless escalation
               | (just like replying that to you would have been), since
               | even annoyance isn't outrage.
               | 
               | Either way it's talking about the inner emotions of a
               | person on their behalf - flagged or not, how could
               | someone possibly defend themselves against that? People
               | can talk about their own feelings if they want, but
               | talking about the feelings of others, feelings those
               | other people didn't even express, just doesn't lead
               | anywhere good, yet it's so common on the web nowadays.
               | The wisdom of not reading feelings into text has been
               | lost for a long time now. Let's bring it back I say :)
               | 
               | In short, you can ask people how they feel, but you can't
               | tell them. Certainly not via text in absence of a history
               | of actually knowing that individual person (as opposed to
               | "a category of person you perceive that individual to
               | belong to", which is how this came across to me).
               | 
               | > they are also welcome to clarify whatever objections
               | they have with respect to that project.
               | 
               | Yes, and I can't say I disagree with it being flagged
               | because "is this a joke?" is just needlessly convoluted.
               | Just make your point, state where you disagree with the
               | content etc. instead of asking others to rephrase or
               | confirm that yes, they're serious. To me that's just as
               | annoying as saying "y u mad bro?". But since it's already
               | agreed that that's no good, I didn't reiterate that.
        
         | starkparker wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
         | abathologist wrote:
         | That page seems totally reasonable and admirable to me. It's
         | literally just advocating for including the wide and varied
         | history of algorithm development, in order to encourage readers
         | from many different backgrounds to find ways to connect with
         | the important topic.
        
           | Levitz wrote:
           | >It's literally just advocating for including the wide and
           | varied history of algorithm development, in order to
           | encourage readers from many different backgrounds to find
           | ways to connect with the important topic.
           | 
           | I'm at a loss of words for what I feel towards respecting
           | (even promoting!) the idea that a piece of knowledge ought to
           | become interesting or valuable if there is ethnic
           | relationship to it. It reeks of supremacist talk to me.
           | 
           | If someone came up to me saying that he got into mathematics
           | because Charles Babbage was a white guy, just like him, I'd
           | think that person doesn't belong in current society. This
           | doesn't change if the person belongs to any minority.
        
             | beepbooptheory wrote:
             | Just a friendly note: We all live in the same world, you
             | can't, like, so obviously feign this level of ignorance and
             | false outrage and expect to be taken seriously. It is clear
             | to everyone that you _are_ in fact aware of the nuances
             | here, so you 're remark is always going to be colored by
             | your obvious bad faith (and possibly worse things). Maybe
             | just first of all find a better forum for this kind of
             | stuff, and also consider finding some better rhetorical
             | devices to use.
        
           | userbinator wrote:
           | What exactly do you mean by "to find ways to connect with the
           | important topic"? That sort of obfuscated language doesn't
           | help explain anything.
        
             | nonethewiser wrote:
             | Hes saying non-whites feel like functions are foreign to
             | them
        
           | LudwigNagasena wrote:
           | [flagged]
        
             | atoav wrote:
             | If you want to write who invented the algorithm and there
             | is one asian invention in 1303 and one by some eueopean in
             | 1803 then leaving out the asian inventor is actively
             | harmful to the encyclopedia as it distorts truth.
             | 
             | This article to me just tries to raise awareness for the
             | fact that our western history of who invented what is often
             | incomplete and sometimes simply wrong.
             | 
             | Historians right now have the unenviable task of
             | considering how the history they work with has been
             | distorted by racism (e.g. by playing down the role of
             | certain people with the "wrong" race and instead
             | attributing things to people with the "right" race).
             | 
             | I'd like an encyclopedia to list all inventors of something
             | even if they are not known in my culture -- preferably in
             | my own language as well, but that is a different topic.
        
             | cypherpunks01 wrote:
             | > I don't think an encyclopaedia should cater to racist
             | views of its readers over factual information
             | 
             | Uh, nobody thinks this. I'm sensing an straw man argument
             | fast incoming..
             | 
             | > So it seems unreasonable to stretch the truth to
             | diversify or narrow down the number of people you mention
             | 
             | It's entirely unclear where you see the truth being
             | stretched? Factually recognizing important contributions by
             | people from under-represented backgrounds is doing the
             | exact opposite of narrowing the "number of people you
             | mention". It's literally mentioning _more_ people who
             | contributed to a certain effort or field of study.
        
               | LudwigNagasena wrote:
               | > Uh, nobody thinks this. I'm sensing an straw man
               | argument fast incoming..
               | 
               | Of course they do. That's what they say:
               | 
               | > The way I understand the program of decolonizing
               | mathematics is to follow two principles:
               | 
               | > first, to recognize the contributions of people with
               | diverse backgrounds, in order to offer more protagonists
               | who can inspire and with whom more people can identify >
               | second, to provide examples and motivations that are
               | relatable to under-represented backgrounds and
               | identities, in order to reach and be more immediately
               | helpful to more people
               | 
               | They imply that people will more readily identify and
               | congregate with people of their own racial and ethnic
               | background. That may be true, that doesn't make it any
               | less racist.
               | 
               | > It's entirely unclear where you see the truth being
               | stretched? Factually recognizing important contributions
               | by people from under-represented backgrounds is doing the
               | exact opposite of narrowing the "number of people you
               | mention".
               | 
               | If you factually recognize important contributions, you
               | don't have to make any efforts or care about the raised
               | issue.
               | 
               | > It's literally mentioning more people who contributed
               | to a certain effort or field of study.
               | 
               | Mentioning more than what?
        
       | mg wrote:
       | What is everyone's favorite function / formula?
       | 
       | Mine is                   n/(n+x)
       | 
       | It has a bunch of interesting aspects:                   As n
       | gets bigger, it goes from 0 to 1.                  When n equals
       | x, it is 0.5              As n gets bigger, the difference
       | between n and n+1 gets smaller              For two sufficiently
       | large n's, the results are equal.
       | 
       | Say somebody told you about a new cafe in town and that it is
       | completely awesome. The best cafe ever. What probability do you
       | assign to it really being an exceptionally awesome cafe? If your
       | x is 3, then the probability after one person praised it is 25%:
       | 1/(1+3) = 0.25
       | 
       | And if another person told you about that cafe being awesome, the
       | probability becomes 40%:                  2/(2+3) = 0.4
       | 
       | And after 3 people told you the cafe is awesome, chances are 50%
       | it really is:                  3/(3+3) = 0.5
       | 
       | The changes in probability are pretty strong at the beginning.
       | But after 1000 people reported about the awesome cafe, the next
       | report makes almost no difference anymore. It only ups the
       | probability from 0.997008 to 0.997011.
       | 
       | By changing x from 3 to 4, your formula becomes more
       | "suspicious", by changing it from 3 to 2, it becomes more
       | "gullible".
       | 
       | I wonder if this formula has a name already. If not, "the trust
       | formula" might be a candidate.
        
         | forgotpwd16 wrote:
         | Initially thought this project was about formulas.
        
         | keithalewis wrote:
         | The Weierstrass -function. It is what your function wants to be
         | when it grows up.
        
         | Jap2-0 wrote:
         | This isn't the same formula, but the concept is a bit
         | reminiscent of https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-rating/
        
         | pcnix wrote:
         | This is similar to calculating probability from an odds ratio -
         | if x = 1 and if n = your odds ratio, p = n/(n+1)
         | 
         | A neat explainer for how this helps with Bayesian updates
         | (which is the update in trust that you're describing) is here -
         | https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QGkYCwyC7wTDyt3yT/0-and-1-ar...
        
         | anonymous_sorry wrote:
         | Doesn't quite work. If nobody has told you about the cafe, the
         | probability that it is awesome should not be zero.
         | 
         | Perhaps you only define the trust function from n=1+
        
           | mg wrote:
           | Good point! The formula indeed assumes a base probability of
           | zero. That's actually why I put "The best cafe ever" in there
           | and that it is called an "exceptionally awesome cafe". I got
           | a bit lax later in the text just calling it "awesome".
           | 
           | For a cafe aficionado, who spends most of their time in
           | cafes, reading HN and thinking about formulas, the
           | probability that some random cafe becomes their new favorite
           | is virtually zero.
           | 
           | In other words: The more cafes you already know, the closer
           | to zero the chance that a random one will be the best of them
           | all.
           | 
           | So yeah, it is a formula for cafe lovers. Not for the casual
           | person who is happy with a random filtered coffee swill from
           | the vending machine. Those would have to add a base
           | probability, turning the formula into something like
           | b+n/(n+x)*(1-b).
        
             | cubefox wrote:
             | I think Laplace's Rule of succession [1] could be better
             | here. It assumes there are binary "successes" and
             | "failures" (e.g. thumbs up/down). Let s be the number of
             | "successes", n be the total number of data points
             | (successes+failures), and 1/x the prior probability of a
             | success. Then the probability that the next data point will
             | be a success is:
             | 
             | (s + 1)/(n + x)
             | 
             | E.g. for prior probability 1/2 (success and failure
             | initially equally likely), x=2, so
             | 
             | (s + 1)/(n + 2)
             | 
             | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_succession
        
         | ajtulloch wrote:
         | One way to view this formula is to use the fact that the Beta
         | distribution is a conjugate prior for the binomial
         | distribution.
         | 
         | Essentially if you have a Beta(a, b) prior then your prior mean
         | is a/(a+b) and after observing n samples from a Bernoulli
         | distribution that are all positive, your posterior is Beta(a+n,
         | b) with posterior mean (a+n)/(a+n+b). So in your example you
         | effectively have a Beta(0, x) prior and x
         | ("suspicious"/"gullible") is directly interpreted as the
         | strength of your prior!
        
           | TekMol wrote:
           | Can this way to view the formula be expressed without the
           | terms                   beta distribution         conjugate
           | prior         binomial distribution         bernoulli
           | distribution         posterior
           | 
           | ?
           | 
           | Because I could easily grasp that it is a "trust formula" in
           | the way mg described it. But this way to "view" the formula
           | is a mistery to me.
        
             | bigbillheck wrote:
             | > Can this way to view the formula be expressed without the
             | terms
             | 
             | You're asking "Can this way of viewing the formula in terms
             | of Bayesian probability be expressed without any of the
             | machinery of Bayesian probability?".
        
               | checkyoursudo wrote:
               | Have you ever heard of the "Up Goer 5"?
        
             | ivan_ah wrote:
             | Yeah, that's a lot of jargon associated with Bayesian
             | statistics, but at it's root the idea is simple. How to
             | merge information you have before observing some data
             | (a.k.a. prior) with new information you just observed, to
             | obtain updated information (a.k.a. posterior) that includes
             | both what you believed initially + the new evidence you
             | observed.
             | 
             | The probability machinery (Bayes rule) is a principled way
             | to do this, and in the case of count data (number of
             | positive reviews for the cafe) works out to give be a
             | simple fraction n/(n+x).
             | 
             | Define: x = parameter of how skeptical you are in general
             | about the quality of cafes (large x very sceptical), m =
             | number of positive reviews for the cafe,
             | 
             | p = m+1 / (m+1+x) your belief (expressed as a probability)
             | that the cafe is good after hearing m positive reviews
             | about it.
             | 
             | Learning about the binomial and the beta distribution would
             | help you see where the formula comes from. People really
             | like Bayesian machinery, because it has a
             | logical/consistent feel: i.e. rather than coming up with
             | some formula out of thin air, you derive the formula based
             | on general rules about reasoning under uncertainty +
             | updating beliefs.
        
             | tines wrote:
             | [flagged]
        
           | svalorzen wrote:
           | Also, in case anyone is interested, the uninformative
           | Jeffreys prior for this in Bayesian statistics (meaning it
           | does not assume anything and is invariant to certain
           | transformations of the inputs) is Beta(0.5, 0.5). Thus the
           | initial guess is 0.5, and it evolves from there from the
           | data.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | CrazyStat wrote:
             | Isn't 0.5 an absurd guess for the probability of a new
             | restaurant being exceptionally good?
        
         | eterevsky wrote:
         | I would view this as Laplace smoothing or Additive smoothing
         | for binary distributions
         | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Additive_smoothing). I use it
         | all the time when I'm working estimating rates of some events
         | from a limited amount of samples.
        
         | vorticalbox wrote:
         | How do you pick "x"?
        
           | jmye wrote:
           | I'm with you - I easily see how it affects the formula, but
           | I'm not clear on how you decide what the right value, or
           | range of values would be.
        
           | BSEdlMMldESB wrote:
           | you pass it in?
           | 
           | it looks like it is a two argument function
        
           | patmorgan23 wrote:
           | Based on the application/your experience.
        
         | badtension wrote:
         | This reminds me of a simple algorithm to determine which
         | product to choose if all have similar ratings but varying
         | number of votes - add one positive and one negative review and
         | recalculate.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8idr1WZ1A7Q
        
         | jackphilson wrote:
         | I think the jump from 1->2 ppl telling me it's the greatest
         | cafe ever is a bigger jump than the jump from 0->1. Thus I
         | think it would be more like a logarithmic curve.
        
       | sriku wrote:
       | I keep the cynicism inside me in check usually, but these days
       | finding it harder to do. So people contribute to this and then
       | what? Google/MS/OpenAI etc train models on the data and try to
       | sell it back to us?
        
       | Havoc wrote:
       | Also quite confused as to what this? Like a central directory of
       | common programmatic tasks/algos?
        
       | wilg wrote:
       | I love the idea of having a wiki-based spec for the best
       | implementation and/or algorithm that has a bangin' talk page and
       | I can generally trust for most situations.
        
       | noaoh wrote:
       | https://rosettacode.org/wiki/Rosetta_Code is a similar website
       | for people interested in this sort of thing
        
         | 20after4 wrote:
         | WikiFunctions, I believe, has a larger purpose in the context
         | of Wikimedia wikis, and that is they are building a library of
         | functions that can be called directly from wikitext and the
         | code will be evaluated automatically when the page is rendered.
         | 
         | I think the idea is to provide an easy way to embed dynamic
         | content into the text of a Wikipedia article. This should
         | provide a nice compliment to the way WikiData is used to
         | dynamically insert data into articles.
         | 
         | Note: I worked for the Wikimedia foundation in the past,
         | however, I wasn't involved with WikiFunctions. I just have some
         | vague memories of internal product planning discussions about
         | the feature.
        
         | itishappy wrote:
         | > We are not competing with sites such as gist, or sites such
         | as rosettacode.org, esolangs.org, or helloworldcollection.de,
         | where code snippets are collected either to share them quickly
         | with others or around a specific theme in different programming
         | languages.
         | 
         | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:What_Wikifu...
        
       | andersa wrote:
       | This has to be one of the most confusing documentation sites I
       | have ever seen. Maybe I just don't get it, since I never edited
       | Wikipedia.
       | 
       | Opening some of the pages at random, like
       | 
       | https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z828
       | 
       | https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z110
       | 
       | There's a "try this function" section, which I couldn't get to
       | take any sort of input on a few tries. It always ended up with a
       | field that said "no results found" on typing things in it.
       | 
       | There's a "current object" section, displaying some kind of alien
       | script. Like, what is this? Is it supposed to tell me something?
       | "Z1K1": "Z2",         "Z2K1": {             "Z1K1": "Z6",
       | "Z6K1": "Z110"         },         "Z2K2": {             "Z1K1":
       | "Z8",         this goes on for quite a while
       | 
       | Clearly I am not part of the target audience here. But who is?
        
         | starkparker wrote:
         | Kind of surprised nobody's posted this in reply yet (or that
         | these aren't linked to from _anywhere_ I can find in the UI),
         | but:
         | 
         | on ZObjects:
         | https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/ZObject
         | 
         | on human-readable equivalents to the above:
         | https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Canonical...
         | 
         | It's all so very utopian.
        
         | quiddity wrote:
         | We didn't want to announce Wikifunctions before you can edit it
         | (what's a wiki if you can't edit it?).
         | 
         | It is currently in locked-down testing. We have been slowly
         | configuring and testing the wiki, the first new multilingual
         | project in over 12 years! It is more complicated than a normal
         | new wiki, in many ways.
         | 
         | We are expecting to open it to broader editing in the next few
         | days - on or after August 1. We are planning an announcement at
         | that time.
         | 
         | There are details of the deployment plan in our last
         | newsletter:
         | https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Abstract_...
         | 
         | And a broad overview of the project at
         | https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Abstract_Wikipedia/Overview
         | 
         | (And many more examples of functions at our older Beta-
         | deployment location (also currently locked down) at
         | https://wikifunctions.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:Ma...
         | )
         | 
         | I hope that context helps! [Disclaimer: I'm not a developer,
         | but work with the team]
        
           | djbusby wrote:
           | Disclosure, not disclaimer.
        
         | capableweb wrote:
         | > Clearly I am not part of the target audience here. But who
         | is?
         | 
         | Abstract Wikipedia authors/editors/developers is the target
         | audience. As far as I can gather, this Wikifunctions is
         | supposed to be a store for functions used to generate text
         | based on data, so things can be written once and
         | "automatically" translated to many languages, meaning you can
         | cover more by stating "facts" and matching them to outputted
         | language somehow.
        
         | bawolff wrote:
         | > Clearly I am not part of the target audience here. But who
         | is?
         | 
         | That would be my biggest criticism too. It seems like the
         | target audience and use cases are ill defined, vauge and hand
         | wavey.
         | 
         | I dont think it knows really what it wants to be, other than
         | definitely some sort of function store for abstract wikipedia,
         | which also seems unnessarily complex.
         | 
         | Quite frankly i get massive wikidata-second-system vibes from
         | the whole thing.
        
         | Lockal wrote:
         | Huh, it took me a while to find that there is a UI for exactly
         | this object on "Details" tab.
         | 
         | I hope "Z1K1": "Z2" will be removed from UI soon. It is like
         | "Q42 P31 Q5" for Wikidata - everyone understands it, but it is
         | not the main interface.
         | 
         | Basically, at this point of development, consider this as a
         | storage of Python
         | (https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z10004) or Javascript
         | code (https://www.wikifunctions.org/view/en/Z10005).
         | 
         | But instead of writing                 def
         | format_person_info(name, surname, birth_date, death_date):
         | return "{} {} ({}-{})".format(name, surname, birth_date,
         | death_date)
         | 
         | you need to
         | 
         | 1) create a page that declares a public interface for your
         | function: and there is no "camel case vs snake case": function
         | name will be "Format person info" (and huomatsutoDan Dang Zhe
         | Qing Bao  in Japanese, and so on), with arguments: name,
         | surname, birth date, death date (again, people can add
         | translations)
         | 
         | 2) create a set of tests
         | 
         | 3) create an implementation using Zvalues (see links above for
         | example) in public interface. If this is not the first version,
         | implementation can be reviewed and approved by some reviewer.
        
           | Eduard wrote:
           | > It is like "Q42 P31 Q5" for Wikidata - everyone understands
           | it, ...
           | 
           | I don't.
        
             | danbruc wrote:
             | It's a semantic triple [1] - subject, predicate, object -
             | made out of Wikidata IDs. Some common ones one will quickly
             | memorize and start to recognize if one works with Wikidata.
             | 
             | Q42 is Douglas Adams [2], P31 is instance of [3], Q5 is
             | human [4].
             | 
             | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_triple
             | 
             | [2] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42
             | 
             | [3] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P31
             | 
             | [4] https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5
        
               | lanstin wrote:
               | Fascinating. I had no idea people are still working on
               | this sweetly optimistic project, like the architects
               | writing a catalog of data taxonomies but for the unfenced
               | territory of humanities knowledge. Sort of a modern
               | Principia Mathematica with the Godel of GPT4 waiting to
               | blow it away.
               | 
               | Still 42 for Douglas Adams manually assigned token is a
               | nice touch.
        
         | moritzwarhier wrote:
         | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:What_Wikifu...
         | 
         | > We are not competing with sites such as gist, or sites such
         | as [...] esolangs.org
        
         | 1equalsequals1 wrote:
         | I think the Current Object section is specifying the hierarchy
         | for the current page and also the hierarchy compared to its
         | relatives. All the Z something identifiers are
         | objects/pages/concepts
        
       | layer8 wrote:
       | This gives some background:
       | 
       | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:FAQ
       | 
       | https://www.wikifunctions.org/wiki/Wikifunctions:Introductio...
        
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       (page generated 2023-07-30 23:01 UTC)