[HN Gopher] Wikipedia's nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S....
___________________________________________________________________
Wikipedia's nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney
Author : coloneltcb
Score : 840 points
Date : 2025-04-25 23:03 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| jmclnx wrote:
| Well seems the war on truth has started. There is a 1984 quote
| about history that escapes me now.
| shmerl wrote:
| Probably:
|
| _> We, the Party, control all records, and we control all
| memories. Then we control the past, do we not?_
| dang wrote:
| Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker
| News.
| metaphor wrote:
| https://archive.is/JozhY
| jtrip wrote:
| The scale of deep body trauma that has been done to the US will
| not seem clear today, but it will have dire consequences for the
| future trajectory of US. I am sad for this, for the current
| status quo I was born under, but I suppose History must happen.
| Loughla wrote:
| I'm not sad for myself. I'm older and established. I'm scared
| for my cousins, nieces, nephews, and children for the fucking
| train wreck they're going to step into.
|
| It was bad enough with 2001, 2008, and 2020. But this is next
| level.
| MPSFounder wrote:
| The PhD institution I went to reduced their acceptance from 50
| to 26. There is fear of not securing funding. The damage done
| is projects that are promising were cut. These projects will
| get picked up by other countries. The damage in the long term
| will be losing our edge in many regards, which will harm our
| economy. Where I did my undergrad just replaced their dean with
| an AIPAC member who has no experience in academia (a first in
| nearly two hundred years of this institution's). It is insane
| what is happening. A judge in Wisconsin was arrested today.
| There are those who believe America is resilient. The damage
| being done (I can promise you) will cause this great nation
| unbelievable harm in the long run, when this traitor in charge
| and his foreign allies (Putin and Netanyahu) which he promises
| allegiance to OVER our constitution and our moral values have
| long since passed. There is much noise, much of it as a
| distraction, but on the small level, many changes (most
| recently the NSF director leaving) are tangible changes that
| have a real impact that is certainly felt immediately in budget
| cuts, but will be even more drastic in its long term strategic
| impact. Also, I fly a bunch, and I see an immediate change in
| the respect America used to command abroad. Our values and
| reputation, which took over a hundred years in the making,
| became a laughing stock, and our closest allies no longer view
| America as a beacon.
| sneak wrote:
| The US has not been a force for good in the world in some time,
| if ever.
|
| Unfortunately for Americans, it has to get worse before it can
| get better. Much worse.
|
| The institutions are deeply corrupt, and have been for decades.
| They must be destroyed and possibly replaced. It sucks, and it
| will hurt. It may even possibly require an entire revolution,
| as many of the deeply evil US institutions such as the CIA and
| FBI are so deeply and tightly integrated with the federal
| government that it may require destruction of the state itself.
|
| The status quo has been comfy for a lot of Americans, but the
| world as a whole is not a better place because Facebook and
| Lockheed and the US CIA exist.
|
| This has been pending for most of a century.
|
| What comes after will be more transparent, more fair, and more
| integrated with society.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > What comes after will be more transparent, more fair, and
| more integrated with society.
|
| Can you walk me through how you see this playing out, step-
| by-step?
|
| _I want to believe!_
| sneak wrote:
| Over the last thousand years, humans have become more
| educated and more connected. Violent deaths have been
| steadily falling.
|
| Over the last hundred years, American military and
| paramilitary forces, and their vendors, have subverted
| transparency and democracy to turn America into a military
| dictatorship.
|
| There is nothing to suggest that the fall of the United
| States and subsequent replacement (with whatever may come)
| will reverse the thousand year trend of increased education
| and decreased violence.
|
| The culture of the 3.6% of people who live in the current
| territory of the USA will be irreparably damaged, however.
| This may not be entirely a bad thing, given how significant
| an outlier the US lifestyle is compared to the rest of the
| world.
| bigthymer wrote:
| > There is nothing to suggest that the fall of the United
| States and subsequent replacement (with whatever may
| come) will reverse the thousand year trend of increased
| education and decreased violence.
|
| We're talking about long-term cycles of change here so it
| is difficult to opine with certainty leaving a lot of
| room for differing opinions. Unfortunately, however, I
| think the end of Pax Americana will usher in increased
| conflict and violence, particularly in the West which has
| experienced a long period of peace due to American
| dominance.
| matwood wrote:
| > There is nothing to suggest that the fall of the United
| States and subsequent replacement (with whatever may
| come) will reverse the thousand year trend of increased
| education and decreased violence.
|
| The US recently put the world on notice that everyone
| needs a larger military and should develop their own
| nukes if they can. I fail to see how that will continue
| to decrease violence.
| sneak wrote:
| There have been no large scale wars since the development
| of nuclear weapons. The data available thus far suggests
| that mutually assured destruction prevents total war.
|
| I live in a county in which most people are armed. There
| are very few attempts at carjacking.
| matwood wrote:
| I'm not sure talking about guns in the US is proving what
| you want. The US has a much higher gun murder rate per
| capita than most other high income countries. It's in
| fact near the top with active war zones.
|
| When everyone has weapons, more people get shot. That's a
| fact. When countries arm up there is a much higher chance
| of a conflict happening that can't be rolled back.
| energy123 wrote:
| Revolutionaries tend to suffer from extreme naivete or
| arrogance. They don't understand that idealists like them
| usually get pushed aside or killed by the real crazies
| during the power vacuum stage, then the country becomes
| significantly worse. It's happened so many times in
| history. Until the US starts killing half of its population
| like Pol Pot did it can always get worse.
| empthought wrote:
| > but the world as a whole is not a better place because
| Facebook and Lockheed and the US CIA exist.
|
| You've cherry-picked a few bogeymen.
|
| What about Norman Borlaug, Bell Laboratories, the Gates
| Foundation, Margaret Sanger and the Worcester Foundation for
| Experimental Biology?
| int_19h wrote:
| Regardless of all the nasty things US has done, if it goes
| down, it will get much worse for everyone else as well. Quite
| possibly worse than it will for Americans themselves. For one
| thing, it's such a big actor economically that its downfall
| will hurt everyone a great deal just from that alone. But
| secondly, when empires go down, they usually do so flailing
| at any real or perceived enemies around them - and given the
| sheer military strength of this country, it's not going to be
| pretty.
| matwood wrote:
| > What comes after will be more transparent, more fair, and
| more integrated with society.
|
| No one is claiming that US been or will ever be perfect, but
| what are you smoking? Everything that's happened in the
| current administration has gone the opposite direction of
| transparent, fair, and integrated.
| xvilka wrote:
| There's always a choice to move somewhere else.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Seems relevant: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-
| actions/2025/01/endi...
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Remember when people pretended it was the scandal of all scandals
| that the IRS was reviewing PACs who were forbidden from doing
| political activity for political activity? And now many of those
| same people are cheering this, and the act blue 'investigation',
| and the threats against Harvard's tax exempt status for nakedly
| corrupt reasons? Man I wish shame still had some stopping power.
| almosthere wrote:
| It's 2 paragraphs... What's the substance of the allegation?
| mikeyouse wrote:
| It's a similar nonsense letter to the same ones he sent to
| several prominent medical journals. Speech chilling, 1st
| amendment violating unsubstantiated threats on DOJ letterhead.
| Of all the unfit people in this administration, he's likely the
| most unfit. His entire career has been deeply unethical and
| partisan and often borderline illegal.
| mindslight wrote:
| But what about The Twitter Files?! (cue X-Files intro music)
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| He doesn't have a leg to stand on and he knows it. Otherwise he
| would empanel a grand jury and wait for indictments. He is a
| partisan sadist and he loves to use the legal system to abuse
| people.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| The allegation is the substance.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Same person also threatened the New England Journal of Medicine.
| Thought crime is real.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/health/nejm-prosecutor-le...
| TZubiri wrote:
| As a non american that edited wikipedia.
|
| You guys control the servers, if anything you have the psyop
| advantage.
|
| However, the librarians are very vocal about self determination
| and keeping wikimedia out of important decisions.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Wikipedia/Wikimedia could move to a country that allows this type
| of manipulation on their platform or figure out how to comply
| with the existing US law.
|
| Wikipedia could also stop operating as a 501c3 and incorporate.
|
| But the typical out for these organizations are that they are not
| responsible for what people post. I don't feel like that is very
| responsible. They already have moderation on the platform.
|
| But Wikimedia/pedia can't claim 501c3 status. It could spin off
| the political content/controversial into 501c4 which has more
| leeway. It can tighten editorial controls, emphasize first
| amendment, look at Section 230. Publish reports showing how
| misinformation is identified and corrected, partner with fact
| checking organizations.
|
| But also if they cannot police their own content without an
| unpaid army of volunteers then herein lies the bigger issue with
| their model.
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| Except they have a financial cancer. If the government
| investigations uncover more scandals, beyond what were found in
| the Israel-Palestine topic area, public support and goodwill
| for Wikipedia will evaporate overnight, and they'll have no
| choice but to liquidate or absorbed into a successor
| organization.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CANCER
| blibble wrote:
| or they could move to a country that respects the rule of law
| and continue operating as they do at present
|
| may I suggest Switzerland
| firesteelrain wrote:
| It's not about that. It's about tax avoidance. By saying they
| are 501c3, there are rules and laws they must follow or risk
| losing their 501c3 status. Now that they have been put on
| notice, it's important for them to tighten up
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| But the Democrats tried to control misinformation during a public
| health crisis so it goes both ways.
| krupan wrote:
| It does, but both side's followers are blind to it when their
| side does it. Or they think it's ok for their side to do it.
| I'm not sure which is scarier
| acdha wrote:
| You're painting with an awfully broad brush, omitting both
| the magnitude of the difference and far overstating the
| homogeneity of one of those sides.
| yesco wrote:
| Agreed, the pandemic authoritarianism was far more
| invasive, with non-compliance being life ruining for many,
| so I don't think it's really comparable to the current
| administrations clownish floundering.
|
| Acting like they are the same shamefully diminishes the
| previous administrations actions, which is particularly
| dangerous since their documented suppression of the now
| widely accepted lab leak theory has resulted in little
| action to prevent further illegal gain of function
| research. Its inevitable we will face yet another worldwide
| pandemic in the next decade or so while this careless
| research continues without proper safety controls or
| scrutiny.
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| A lot of what you refer to as "pandemic authoritarianism"
| took place under Trump as well. Vaccine mandates have
| been part of many jobs for years and years. It's not a
| Republican or Democrat thing.
| g-b-r wrote:
| > Its inevitable we will face yet another worldwide
| pandemic in the next decade or so
|
| If we do, the absurdities about masks and vaccines that
| were spread by some will make it last just as long as the
| covid one
| acdha wrote:
| You're not arguing in good faith if you're not
| recognizing that the "pandemic authoritarianism" started
| under Trump, or asserting that the lab leak theory was
| ever suppressed (it was continuously discussed throughout
| - just check the comments here for the last 5 years!) or
| that the most criticized theories making wild claims
| about bioweapons or gain of function research are now
| widely accepted. Many assessments have included the
| possibility of a lab leak of a natural specimen from the
| beginning, but in the absence of evidence nobody credible
| is saying more than, say, the CIA's "low confidence" back
| in January.
| tgv wrote:
| > pandemic authoritarianism
|
| Sacrificing people on the altar of your freedom is
| better? There was a reason for lock-downs and masks. They
| were implemented worldwide. It wasn't some fluke of US
| policy.
| archagon wrote:
| Wikipedia is not owned by "The Democrats." Its editors are a
| pretty diverse and esoteric bunch.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| I'm demonstrably not, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to
| make the above commentary. But even if I was it would be
| irrelevant. It wouldn't cause both sides of this to be
| comparable, and neither does virtue signaling being above
| partisanship.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| In my humble opinion Wikipedia is the single best thing thing to
| emerge from the Internet boom. Its name is a wordplay on one of
| the most important intellectual projects of the Enlightment.[0]
| The DC prosecutor letter reads like something straight out of the
| totalitarian playbook.[1]
|
| Please donate now to show your support. It's time to fight back
| against this crap.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A9die
|
| [1] "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_the_man_and_I_will_giv...
| LordGrignard wrote:
| Hi I don't know if you know it but Wikipedias not that poor or
| hard pressed... Atleast, the whole "donate or we broke"
| narrative that they build every few months is complete bullshit
| https://youtu.be/3t8GUbzVxmQ?si=sa_oHe3DA_QmpGcE
| globular-toast wrote:
| Neither is Google, yet there is still probably multiple ads
| on that video you linked.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| I'm fully aware of that. The reason they get donations is
| that it's worth supporting.
| BrtByte wrote:
| Wikipedia isn't perfect, but it embodies the idea that
| knowledge should be built collaboratively and made freely
| available to everyone
| jowea wrote:
| As much as a I agree with the first paragraph I don't think
| that is a reason to donate money.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| What else would you recommend instead? Doing nothing is not a
| very compelling argument.
| mjrpes wrote:
| Here's the letter:
| https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ocNyx34Et19sKtlta0bTPPzSPcp...
|
| No claims, no evidence. No sources, except "it has come to my
| attention" and "information received by my office".
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| "Some people say."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYA9ufivbDw
| simonw wrote:
| Yikes that letter is alarming.
|
| > In view of public criticisms, including those expressed by
| Wikipedia Co-Founder Dr. Lawrence M. Sanger, regarding the
| opacity of editorial processes and the anonymity of
| contributors, what justification does the Foundation offer for
| shielding editors from public scrutiny?
|
| Larry Sanger has been criticizing Wikipedia for more than 20
| years:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger#Criticism_of_Wiki...
|
| The author of that letter is
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Martin_(Missouri_politician...
| - "the first U.S. attorney for D.C. in at least 50 years to be
| appointed without experience as a judge or a federal
| prosecutor".
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The Heritage Foundation has been open about their desire to
| strip Wikipedians of anonymity, this is just the government
| putting that plan into practice:
|
| https://slate.com/technology/2025/02/wikipedia-
| project-2025-...
| satanfirst wrote:
| Their entry on Wikipedia is well worth a read:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Heritage_Foundation
|
| Kind of explains a lot in the balancing act in Trumps rise
| to power while trying to look like a marionette for various
| interests this term. They should remember Hitler's
| rebellion from his masters.
| cutemonster wrote:
| Trump is dumb and 80 though. But if he had been 40 and
| intelligent.
|
| Vance is 40, I wonder how intelligent or not is he?
| squarefoot wrote:
| If the HF is behind this, then Wikipedia is doomed beyond
| any legal defense. Back it up entirely and move it
| overseas.
| grafmax wrote:
| Authoritarian regimes thrive on fatalism and despair. But
| they also inspire resistance. We did not have mass
| protests a few months ago. Our society is in deep crisis
| and the outcome can still swing either way.
|
| For all the progress they've made in dismantling our
| democratic institutions, deep incompetence runs through
| this administration.
|
| Our efforts should be still directed to fighting their
| overreach. It is not the time to retreat.
| buyucu wrote:
| The easiest solution is for the Wikimedia Foundation to
| move out of Us jurisdiction to a more democratic country.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I don't think that would work. The US would just attack
| those countries as they are doing right now, trying to
| force us to give up DEI and ESG.
| grafmax wrote:
| It's questionable whether this bully continues to have as
| much influence as it thinks it does.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I don't see any signs of succesful resistance yet.
| fugalfervor wrote:
| China is doing just fine resisting the bullying. EU can
| do the same.
| douglasisshiny wrote:
| To be more clear, it's operatives of the Heritage
| Foundation who now work in the government putting this into
| place. Does anyone think Trump actually does much day to
| day? He often seems completely unaware of what's going on
| in his own government. I invite anyway to watch his evening
| press conferences where he's handed a bunch of Executive
| Orders, is told what he's signing (he has no clue), and
| signs it.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Getting really bad vibes from this. Plenty of people in power
| are unhappy with Wikipedia for years. So far it's an amazing
| source and surprisingly neutral given the complexity of the
| problem. Would not want to lose it in a political fight.
| dxroshan wrote:
| What is happening is very scary. Many people don't seem to care
| about any evidence or sources. They blindly follow whatever
| lies that their leaders say. I think this has been the case at
| anytime in history. However, now, with the internet, it is easy
| to spread such lies to mass and easy for such leaders to make
| blind followers.
| rnd0 wrote:
| Clearly people care very deeply about sources and evidence
| -and they're attacking things (wikipedia, various gov
| websites) which can be used as objective sources.
|
| If you don't have objective sources, it's easier to lead
| people around by the nose -hence the attack.
| 93po wrote:
| Here's the root of the problem though: wikipedia isn't an
| objective source by its very nature. Wikipedia requires
| mainstream established news sources for a lot of articles
| that aren't academic in nature, and especially for articles
| about people. You cannot include information that isn't
| supported by corporate news articles, which means corporate
| news is now the arbiter of truth, and corporate news lies
| _all the time_ about _everything_.
|
| Wikipedia is, and always has been, the encyclopedia of the
| elite and billionaire narrative, and especially the left-
| wing narrative, which dominates nearly all corporate news
| groups. I say this as a far left person myself.
| eastbound wrote:
| > Many people don't seem to care about any evidence or
| sources. They blindly follow whatever lies that their leaders
| say.
|
| I'm one of those people you complain about. When I did deep
| research about DEI, I presented evidence and sources to
| people like you, including judges that I knew in my private
| life.
|
| It seems you didn't care, to a point that I had in my hand a
| document printed from a department of justice's own website
| (about mothers' own violence on their children, which is as
| high as men's given the scope you decide to choose) and the
| person who in his public life is a judge, didn't even bother
| discussing the thesis and just told me: "This document is
| false. You changed the figures before printing the document".
|
| You may say that Trump is bad for dismantling your
| administration, but you guys don't care an inch about truth,
| evidence, sources, honesty, bad faith, or even for the number
| of children who are beaten to death by their mothers.
| shakna wrote:
| "given the scope you decide to choose"
|
| By changing the scope, you changed the effect. Unless you
| did every statistical validation here... Yeah. That reads
| exactly like data manipulation. t-distribution approaches
| standard normal distribution, when the degree of freedom
| increases. That's not something that anyone should ignore
| and give credit to. It's the same bullshit that Donald has
| repeatedly tried to do, to prove himself doing the right
| thing, even as everything falls apart.
|
| Caring about the truth, requires caring about the
| methodology, and not just the conclusions.
| eastbound wrote:
| That's not what the judge argued. He accused me of
| falsifying the document by doctoring it before printing.
|
| Which shows:
|
| - How much bad faith you have, assuming I argumented to a
| judge on a false hypothesis,
|
| - Condescension to assume that I'm not a scientist who
| masters p-values,
|
| - And ultimately, you confirm the hypothesis that you
| lead your research in bad faith, knowing full well the
| true level of violence from women and hiding it, which
| leads to more child deaths. You are accessory to
| criminality.
|
| Your attitude confirm as well that it's good this entire
| field of researched be defunded, it is a net win for
| science.
| dotancohen wrote:
| I'd really appreciate to hear about your research and
| where I could read about the violence. My Gmail username
| is the same as my HN username. Thank you!
| shakna wrote:
| The p-value is useless, where the t-value does not hold
| substance. One depends upon the other. If there's too
| much of a degree of freedom, it doesn't matter if the
| p-value looks accurate. The data is probably no longer
| normally distributed, requiring non-parametric testing.
|
| You've leapt to me being a researcher acting in bad
| faith, accusing me for a whole industry. As to defunding
| an entire field of research, it sounds like you'd like
| statistics or mathematics defunded? I'm afraid they will
| persist regardless. Too many industries depend upon them.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Yeah I think you might be doing a little over-
| generalization there.
| eastbound wrote:
| Depends on the extend of the subjects I've studied and
| the number of good faith - bad faith people I've met.
|
| I literally wrote a book on one of those subjects and
| made it to a national news channel in two countries about
| it.
|
| The cause is lost for science, people don't respond to
| logic.
| SonOfLilit wrote:
| This is legal communication written by a lawyer and intended to
| be read by lawyers.
|
| Consistently, the first thing every lawyer has said to me when
| preparing for any interaction with third parties that had a
| legal aspect was "never volunteer information you were not
| explicitly asked for". Of course lawyers would practice this
| among themselves. The law requires him to suspect something
| wrong to investigate, so he states "I hereby formally suspect
| something wrong". If the investigation leads to a court filing,
| the law would then require him to submit evidence, so he will
| strategically decide which evidence to submit and submit it.
| Why would he commit in advance to what evidence he believes
| relevant if not required by law?
|
| But also, if reading the letter as if written in good faith -
| which I find hard to do - those are all true reasons to suspect
| something wrong (it is common knowledge and well established
| that Wikipedia is a very influential source of knowledge, and
| that there are attempts at foreign influence), and great
| questions to ask to investigate whether the Foundation is
| making a reasonable effort to fight it if you were a regulator
| or auditor or other investigator, all of which have _great_
| answers already written up that prove the foundation is doing a
| very good job at establishing and maintaining processes to
| ensure the neutrality of its articles. In my headcanon,
| Wikipedia 's lawyer responds simply with a list of URLs.
| pwarner wrote:
| It was probably Elon
| 93po wrote:
| Can we stop bringing up annoying people in every single
| comment section when they have nothing to do with the topic
| at hand?
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Elon Musk has been waging a war with Wikipedia[1] for a
| couple of years now, and has the ear of the president. Of
| those in the administration, he is the single name that
| really stands out as a guy with a Wikipedia beef.
|
| Seems like he has lots to do with the topic, and it is
| absolutely likely that he is the one who elicited this.
| Recall that Musk also basically appointed his own head of
| the IRS (though Bessent then ousted that person and
| installed his own stooge).
|
| 1 - https://www.the-independent.com/tech/elon-musk-
| wikipedia-naz...
| citizenkeen wrote:
| How do I start worshipping Wikipedia so it can become a church?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Wiccanpedia.
| matwood wrote:
| > can become a church?
|
| Now we're talking about something that needs its non-profit
| status revoked...
| tzs wrote:
| > Before being named U.S. attorney, Martin appeared on Russia-
| backed media networks more than 150 times, The Washington Post
| reported last week. In one appearance on RT in 2022, he said
| there was no evidence of military buildup on Ukraine's boarders
| only nine days before Russia invaded the country. He further
| criticized U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia
| security concerns.
|
| This is getting ridiculous. Is there anyone associated with this
| administration who does _not_ have a record of promoting Russia
| 's positions?
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| [flagged]
| walrus01 wrote:
| Well, considering they have a very high ranking guy in the
| Putin regime who considers that to be his full time job,
| google "Vladislav Surkov", they seem to be doing a fairly
| effective job of it so far.
| hightrix wrote:
| Russia has a pretty high ranking guy in the US Government
| as well, google Krasnov.
| esseph wrote:
| They'd be the exact same.
|
| It's like like Dugin's Foundations of Geopolitics was a wish
| list.
| kylecazar wrote:
| If they were any good at it there would probably be _less_
| overt Russian sympathizing.
| jfengel wrote:
| Except that's not coming from the top. Tens of millions of
| people wanted this.
|
| Maybe this is indeed what Russia would do to us. But we're
| beating them to the punch by doing it to ourselves.
| dd36 wrote:
| Or they're aiding it.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Why do you assume it has to come from _just_ the top?
|
| The Internet Research Agency explicitly focused on the
| masses.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Research_Agency
| r053bud wrote:
| We voted for this! This is "democracy" at work
| ty6853 wrote:
| I mean yes? Democracy is a pretty poor model for governance.
| IMO peak enlightenment happened circa the 17th or 18th
| century when classical liberalism decided government should
| be based on individual liberties and anything outside of that
| is decided democratically not because it is a good system but
| because votes are roughly a tally of who would win if we all
| pull knives on each other because we didn't like the vote.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Democracy is not 2 parties doing voter suppression and
| gerrymandering as a filter to pass the result to an
| electoral college.
|
| The US system was never designed to be fair to individuals
| in the first place, pointing at it as a failure of
| democracy is IMHO pulling the actual issues under the rug.
| rayiner wrote:
| It's basically impossible to engage in meaningful voter
| suppression in a country where election results can be
| cross-checked against high-quality polling.
|
| "Gerrymandering" also has no effect on Presidential
| elections. And in 2024, Republicans won a larger share of
| the House popular vote than their share of House seats.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Voter suppression is the act of limiting the pool of
| voters. That includes putting large swaths of the
| population behind bars or flagged as non eligible to
| voting, putting barriers to voter registration etc.
|
| It can never be 0 and every country will have a minimum
| requirement, but the degree to which it is done in the US
| is far ahead of most western country.
|
| Gerrymandering has an effect on the criteria for voter
| eligibility, the voting rules in the state etc. It's not
| direct but who's in power has a sizeable effect on who
| will have an easier time voting.
| rayiner wrote:
| No, "voter suppression" is the act of preventing
| legitimate voters from voting. Society determining that
| categories of people shouldn't vote (children, felons,
| non-citizens, etc.) isn't voter suppression, it's simply
| establishing qualifications for voting. The goal isn't to
| get to 0 or try to get as close to 0 as possible. People
| who should vote should be able to vote, while people who
| shouldn't vote shouldn't be able to vote.
|
| In the modern era, we should probably narrow the
| franchise, instituting civics tests and restricting
| voting to natural born citizens. Statistically, both of
| these would have hurt my party in 2024, so this isn't
| self-interest speaking.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Voter suppression is suppressing voters one way or the
| other. Your idea of restricting by birth rights is of
| course another form of it.
|
| It's fascinating to look at that proposition for a
| country that mostly got rid of its indigenous population.
| rayiner wrote:
| Words have meaning. Setting qualifications is different
| than "suppression." The former determines who are
| legitimate voters. The latter is an effort to keep
| legitimate voters from voting. Conflating legitimate
| qualification rules with "suppression" is fuzzy thinking
| in service of propaganda.
|
| Restricting by birth right is simply an extension of the
| universal practice of restricting voting by citizenship.
| Every democracy decides who has sufficient stake in and
| familiarity with the society to be able to vote.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > Words have meaning
|
| Well, yes. At this point we could as well get back to
| Wikipedia for at least a common interpretation of the
| concept:
|
| > The disenfranchisement of voters due to age, residence,
| citizenship, or criminal record are among the more recent
| examples of ways that elections can be subverted by
| changing who is allowed to vote.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression
|
| > universal practice of restricting voting by citizenship
|
| Citizenship restriction is not universal BTW, and going
| from a civil status (can be acquired) to a physical one
| is an incredibly huge leap that is nothing simple.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Look, if you insist on using this term like this, it will
| make conversation and mutual understanding more
| difficult. If banning toddlers from voting is "voter
| suppression", then now we must distinguish between "good
| voter suppression", like banning votes from toddlers, and
| "bad voter suppression", like for example tactics to
| mendaciously make it harder to vote for people who are
| otherwise eligible.
|
| The result is that "voter suppression" is no longer
| understood to be a bad thing. You lose the ability to
| drop this phrase and expect people to pick up that the
| implication is negative. For example, you said above:
|
| > Democracy is not 2 parties doing voter suppression and
| gerrymandering as a filter to pass the result to an
| electoral college.
|
| If "voter suppression" as a term now include things that
| are universally understood as good, like banning toddlers
| from voting, this sounds incoherent. Democracy very much
| _is_ about doing voter suppression, and everybody agrees
| it to be a good thing!
|
| If you don't like how it sounds, you need to stop
| including good and proper things under the "voter
| suppression" label. Rayiner tried to help you with that,
| by distinguishing between mendacious voter suppression,
| and good and proper setting of voter qualifications, but
| you rejected that.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| > No, "voter suppression" is the act of preventing
| legitimate voters from voting.
|
| Next you will tell us all how easy it is for all
| Americans to get drivers ids / similar licensing right?
|
| > Statistically, both of these would have hurt my party
| in 2024, so this isn't self-interest speaking.
|
| Ah. There it is.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| This "IDs are hard to get by in US" narrative is really
| funny to anyone who lived in Europe, where IDs are harder
| to get by than in US, while being required for more
| purposes and activities. I have yet to see anyone saying
| that voter ID requirements are voter suppression to also
| bite the bullet and say that Europe is a totalitarian
| hellhole compared to the US, the land of the free.
| sapphicsnail wrote:
| How can someone talk about democracy peaking when the
| franchise was extended to a tiny minority of the
| population. You don't give a damn about individual
| liberties, you only care that the "right" people have
| liberty.
| edgyquant wrote:
| That poster is specifically arguing against democracy
| sapphicsnail wrote:
| Your right. I stand corrected. They don't give a damn
| about democracy or individual liberties.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| Hmm. What if I told you that the parent was clearly in
| favor of the republic? Would that change your
| disposition? If not, why not.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Ah yes, the wonderful time of enlightenment when all
| straight white Christian land-owning men's rights became
| recognized, not just the nobility's. Just a few short
| centuries from there, the rights of poorer white men,
| children, women, people of any other skin color, non-
| Christian, and LGBT people would be recognized too.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| You jest, but skin in the game is argument is not
| irrelevant. It is called a franchise for a reason after
| all. You want a slice of the pie, you should be able to
| prove that you know what you are doing. Owning land was a
| good enough proxy then. We can argue what would be a good
| proxy now.
| keybored wrote:
| You're saying that people who owned land (and humans) as
| property had skin in the game while everyone else did
| not. Just stop.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| There is no reason to conflate the two. To be frank, I
| explicitly stated land ( and not property as a more
| generic term ), which makes me question how much of a
| good faith of a conversation this is. My point stands on
| its own merits, but you seem to want to rely on cheap
| rhetorical theatrics a good chunk of the audience here
| can see through.
| keybored wrote:
| Okay, owning land then. My bad. All humans existing in
| the nation have skin in the game by the fact that they
| exist there. How do landowners have more of a stake?
| ty6853 wrote:
| They have land that can be taken or voted away. I don't
| think only land owners should be able to vote, but it's
| worth noting worldwide having significant property is one
| of the most common ways for immigrants to qualify for a
| resident visa (other two common ways is job or business
| investment). Right or not it signifies enough skin in the
| game to many if not most societies to reflect
| reciprocated integration the community.
|
| Remember in the early days there was almost no
| immigration control as well, so finding proxies for skin
| in the game might have been more challenging than today,
| when emigrating is almost impossible for the poor so they
| are stuck with their skin in America whether they like it
| or not.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Having the laws of the nation apply to you means you have
| skin in the game when it comes to deciding what those
| laws are. Owning something, land or whatever else,
| doesn't give you even one iota more "skin the game" than
| those that don't.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| I disagree, but lets for the sake of argument assume that
| I buy into your premise. In terms of degrees, do people
| who own land and have the laws of the nation apply to you
| ( which is a fascinating distinction by the way, which
| you may have not fully thought through, but I will leave
| it as a tangent unless you want to explore it further
| here ) have more skin in the game than those who only
| have laws of the nation apply to them?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| No, they have the same amount of skin in the game. Given
| that the state can decide to kill you, or to force you to
| work, land is irrelevant in the grand scheme of the law's
| impact.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| The response seems a little too emotional to be
| considered rational. Still, lets consider another
| perspective.
|
| Would you agree that people with more money are treated
| differently from people with less money? Money is not
| exactly property or power, but would you agree that they
| stand more to lose than a person without either? If they
| stand to lose more, they automatically have more skin in
| the game. In fact, if we count money, we can give fairly
| definitive amount of skin in said game.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| No, this is an absurd idea. People with more money have
| more options - including easily leaving the country if
| they don't like its laws. In contrast, people with less
| money have less options and are more dependent on the
| state, and more at the state's whims if it decides to
| turn against them. For example, a wealthy person may be
| able to appeal a wrongful conviction, even taking things
| all the way up to international courts. A poor person
| will likely have to accept the initial decision of any
| judge. An increase of 50% in taxes will cost a wealthy
| person much more in pure monetary terms, but will have a
| much, much higher impact in quality of life for a poor
| person.
|
| So, since laws and governance have a disproportionate
| impact on those with less money, I would say that, if
| anything, those with less money have _more_ skin in the
| game. But I wouldn 't put it like that myself - my
| position is that every person who lives in a country and
| is subject to its laws for a long enough time has, on
| balance, the same amount of "skin in the game". The only
| distinction related to the right to vote should beade
| based on the ability to take rational decisions (that is,
| while they still have just as much skin in the game, some
| people shouldn't be allowed to vote because they lack the
| ability to rationally understand the vote - but this only
| applies to children and to those with severe mental
| disabilities).
| watwut wrote:
| Whatbexactly are values you consider enlightened and did
| you ever bother to read history, specifically the parts
| about how society functions not just where armies went?
|
| I assure you French prior, dueing and after French
| revolution was not pinacle of great governance. More like,
| the low.
| timeon wrote:
| Seems like US-centric view. Many countries had several
| iterations since then.
| cyberax wrote:
| > IMO peak enlightenment happened circa the 17th or 18th
| century
|
| Hmmm... The time when most people were not able to read?
| yndoendo wrote:
| Democracy built lies, decide, and rejection of facts through
| propaganda.
|
| Really need a viable means to fight it, say allowing an
| elected official's constitutes being able to sue them for no
| less than $10,000 for incidence of bearing false witness.
| Help erode the dark money networks.
|
| Also having a 4th branch of Governments, the people with
| State and Federal binding resolution, would help. Only way to
| overrides those in power is to unionize the will.
| westmeal wrote:
| The suing thing would be cool but the court system is slow
| by design. I can't see it working in practice however I'm
| also really fed up with the bullshit so i understand.
| Ar-Curunir wrote:
| Good luck relying on a court of law when the President
| suspends courts and arrests judges. The latter is happening
| right now.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Less than 30% of voter age Americans voted for this
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| And a minority of those who did vote voted for this.
| monkeyelite wrote:
| What presidential elections are you comparing it to?
| rchaud wrote:
| The majority that did vote, voted for this. The
| participation rate has always been low in rich western
| countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics
| education, there's no evidence that a higher participation
| rate would have changed the outcome.
| pesus wrote:
| Plurality, not majority. It may be pedantic but it's an
| important difference.
| rafram wrote:
| I was going to say that it was a majority this time, but
| it seems like the results shifted as more votes were
| counted after election night, and he ended up with 49.8%.
| Still, unbelievably, pretty close to a majority.
| khazhoux wrote:
| I don't think it's important in the slightest. Fact is
| that they were exactly two competitive candidates, and of
| all the people that cared to vote, more voted for one
| than the other. It may not be technical majority, but
| this is the common understanding in this country of
| "majority rule."
| akio wrote:
| The majority did not vote for Trump, and I question how
| many of the minority that did vote for him voted for
| _this_ , specifically. Almost certainly not all of them,
| given his approval rating is now well below his popular
| vote share.
| Narkov wrote:
| > The participation rate has always been low in rich
| western countries.
|
| Australia has entered the chat.
| extra88 wrote:
| You can't bring them up without including that voting is
| compulsory there.
| crabmusket wrote:
| See my sibling comment. Getting your name checked off is
| compulsory but nothing stops you from handing in a blank
| ballot.
| swat535 wrote:
| Why would you hand blank ballot at. That point? You might
| as well vote.
| aloha2436 wrote:
| "I don't like any of the rat-bastards." "I don't care."
| "I think it's funnier to draw a dick. (And I don't
| care.)" "I trust other people to make the right choice."
| "I refuse to participate in this bourgeois sham
| election." ...are all reasons I've heard, even if I don't
| actually understand any of them.
| extra88 wrote:
| For the purposes of this comparison, those "informal"
| votes still count in the typically used participation
| statistics. Voters intentionally case "wasted" ballots in
| other countries too.
| crabmusket wrote:
| For reference, informal votes were around 5% in our last
| federal election:
|
| https://results.aec.gov.au/27966/website/HouseInformalByS
| tat...
|
| This article contains a fun breakdown of the types of
| informal votes including a category for "the usual
| anatomical drawings" (0.7% of informal votes):
|
| https://www.crikey.com.au/2025/04/22/2025-federal-
| election-p...
| nntwozz wrote:
| > The participation rate has always been low in rich
| western countries.
|
| The general election in 2022 had 84,2% of eligible voters
| in Sweden.
| riffraff wrote:
| Italy had 64% for the parliamentary elections in 2022,
| which is the lowest ever but it's pretty far from 30%.
| pokot0 wrote:
| just to note that if "30% voted for this" participation
| was roughly 60%
| wahern wrote:
| 63.9% per https://www.cfr.org/article/2024-election-
| numbers Which apparently was quite high. Only 3
| presidential elections in the past 100 years exceeded
| 63%: 1960, 2020, and 2024.
| mulmen wrote:
| There's also no evidence that increased turnout would
| have had the same result.
|
| What seems to be overlooked in these conversations is the
| skill with which American voters have been
| disenfranchised by partisan forces.
|
| It's easy to blame people for not voting if you ignore
| the real difficulties in actually casting a vote for many
| Americans.
| rayiner wrote:
| In fact there was an extensive analysis of the election
| by Democrat pollster David Shor, who found that 100%
| turnout would have resulted in an even larger Trump win,
| by 4.8 points: https://www.vox.com/politics/403364/tik-
| tok-young-voters-202...
|
| This has been the pattern for awhile now. The pool of
| politically unengaged people are especially Trumpy
| compared to regular voters:
| https://abcnews.go.com/538/vote-back-
| trump/story?id=10909062...
| mulmen wrote:
| This is very interesting but how would turnout and choice
| change if historically disenfranchised and suppressed
| communities had equal access to the polls?
| rayiner wrote:
| Such as?
| mulmen wrote:
| [delayed]
| sgc wrote:
| That an enormous sample size. Statistically a complete
| participation should be very close, so the burden of
| proof lies with those who claim it would be different.
| Regardless of whether Trump would have won or not, that
| is a clear indication of evenly split public sentiment.
| So we still get to justly reap the fruits of our
| collective choices. There is no exoneration by
| whimsically dreaming of improbable alternatives.
|
| I don't think it is was that hard to vote. That is a
| straw man to avoid facing the hard truth of American
| apathy. Now next election, perhaps we can have a
| conversation on that point. Things a trending rather
| poorly right now.
| ellen364 wrote:
| The electorate self-selected into voters and non-voters,
| it wasn't a random sample. Some chose to go to the polls
| and some chose to stay at home. Voter preferences don't
| say a lot about the preferences of non-voters, who've
| already shown they choose differently.
| mulmen wrote:
| There's also one party that disproportionately targets
| specific voter demographics for suppression.
| sgc wrote:
| It shouldn't be that hard for you to show some evidence
| things would be different then. There is nothing
| indicating a stronger preference to vote has anything at
| all to do with which direction you lean. More and less
| does not equal right and left, so the burden of proof is
| on those who claim it is relevant. Yet polling indicates
| things would have gone pretty much just as they went.
| ellen364 wrote:
| I don't know if voters and non-voters have the same
| political leanings. It isn't something I've ever looked
| into. My observation was merely that measures of statical
| confidence assume random samples. Extrapolating from a
| non-random sample can give odd results. But this isn't a
| research paper, so it doesn't much matter.
| jzb wrote:
| "I don't think it is that hard to vote"
|
| Says a person commenting on HN that almost certainly
| isn't in a demographic that it has been made
| intentionally difficult to register, stay registered, and
| get time off an hourly job to stand in line for hours to
| vote.
| sgc wrote:
| I did not say 'is', I said 'was'. I have not seen studies
| or even many anecdotal stories indicating people think it
| was too hard for they themselves to vote. I have seen a
| lot of people saying that about other people, but as of
| 2024, attempts to disenfranchise voters had not been very
| well done. I also don't think having ID is a high bar,
| which is what a large amount of the noise has been about.
| Many, many democratic countries have this requirement
| [1]. Coupled with other things it can become a problem,
| but when anybody says voter id itself is a problem, I
| can't take them very seriously.
|
| I however repeat, that was last year. Things could very
| well take a dramatic turn for the worse.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_identification_laws
| cyberax wrote:
| The problem is that all the additional requirements
| _always_ result in targeting Democratic voters. Always.
|
| For example, voting by mail is bad. Unless you are a
| senior (and thus more likely to vote Republican).
|
| And it doesn't take much to change the outcome of many
| elections. Just a 0.1% shift is often enough to flip the
| result.
| sgc wrote:
| So the fight needs to be to make things universal and
| fair, not to do away with everything. I agree there are
| many attempts to throw elections in the US, but I also
| think unreasonable resistance to measures that make a lot
| of sense on many levels would have far better results if
| it was spent making sure things were implemented
| correctly.
|
| I think a lot of people see all-out resistance as
| extremist and somewhat irrational, and so you are losing
| people's good will. I do see it that way, I am
| sympathetic as to what leads to it and don't let it count
| against those pushing for 'no new rules' even if I find
| it immature / poorly thought out - but at the same time I
| don't think most people think it through and are as
| understanding as I try to be.
| cyberax wrote:
| > So the fight needs to be to make things universal and
| fair, not to do away with everything.
|
| Like, automatic voter registration on license renewal?
| Nope. Denied if you're in a Republican state.
|
| > I think a lot of people see all-out resistance as
| extremist and somewhat irrational
|
| That's more restrictions _will_ be used to entrench
| Republicans even more. That's the simple reason for
| resistance.
|
| And yes, the media does a poor job explaining this.
| jzb wrote:
| Having an ID is a high bar when it can take a day or more
| at the DMV to get one. Right now in NC you either have to
| book an appointment - none are available for months - or
| show up like you're queuing for concert tickets in the
| 80s at 6am before the office opens, get a number, come
| back at one, and hope they get to your number. (Source:
| daughter just did this procedure last week for a
| learner's permit.)
|
| The GOP has also closed polling places in predominantly D
| areas, fought drop off boxes, etc. It is intentionally
| hard to vote for minorities and people in D areas.
|
| Yes, it's going to get worse. But it isn't good now.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| << It's easy to blame people for not voting if you ignore
| the real difficulties in actually casting a vote for many
| Americans.
|
| I hesitated while reading this part, because I wholly
| agreed with the first 2 sentences. Do you mean physically
| difficult in terms of barriers to voting or making a less
| direct comment about the usefulness of that vote? If the
| former, I think I disagree compared to other countries (
| and the levels of paperwork needed ). If the latter, I
| would be interested to hear some specifics.
| mulmen wrote:
| Physically more difficult. Purging voter rolls. Moving
| polling locations. Voter ID requirements. Restrictions on
| mail in ballots. Etc.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| I willing to give you moving polling locations, but with
| that minor concession.
|
| Can you explain to me like I am 5 why those are bad
| things? For a simple person like myself, one would think,
| data accuracy, voting system integrity, and verifiability
| would be of use and value to everyone.
| fugalfervor wrote:
| Voter ID laws disproportionately affect a very specific
| subset of the population, one that reliably skews in one
| direction on the political spectrum.
|
| However, there is no evidence that voter ID laws reduce
| fraud, nor is there evidence that the absence of such
| laws introduces fraud.
|
| Something like 90% of voter fraud is people making
| mistakes on their ballot, or not realizing they were not
| allowed to vote. Also, voter fraud is rare and elections
| are already very secure.
|
| Introducing laws that don't affect the (already low)
| level of fraud, while making it harder for one party's
| voter base to vote, is not of use and value to everyone
| -- it is of use and value to the side that benefits from
| a reduction in the other side's votes.
| bagels wrote:
| Not majority, under 50%
| rayiner wrote:
| Arguments based on voter participation overlook that
| voting is a statistical sample of the population. The
| people who don't vote broadly break down roughly the same
| way as the people who do vote. And even to the extent
| they don't, it's risky to make assumptions about how they
| would have voted.
|
| If you can generalize about non-voters, it's that they're
| broadly more anti-institution than voters--which is what
| causes them to put less stock in the institutional
| practice of voting. In the U.S. in the Trump era, that
| has meant that non-voters or infrequent voters support
| Trump somewhat more strongly than regular voters.
| mpesce wrote:
| We regularly have 92% - 93% participation in federal
| elections here in Australia. Having one next weekend, and
| already record numbers of pre-poll votes.
| Perenti wrote:
| And those that don't vote have to show a very good
| reason, or pay a fine, or face gaol.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| Correction: those that don't enter a polling station.
| What you do in there is up to you. You can cast a vote,
| spoil the ballot, cast a "donkey vote" (numbering the
| options in the order printed), leave the ballot empty, as
| long as it goes in the box.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Must be the sausages
| chaboud wrote:
| It's almost like elections are held on Saturdays and
| participation is compulsory.
|
| Almost...
| Perenti wrote:
| Everybody votes in Australia (not sure how rich, but in
| top 20 for sure). If you don't you have to show cause or
| pay a AUD$50 fine. I know some think this is anti-
| freedom, but it does prevent farces like the current USA.
| Historically there have been problems in the past (30
| years ago) but these days the Australian Electoral
| Commission (Independent from government) revise electoral
| boundaries to ensure no more gerrymanders.
| tmtvl wrote:
| In Belgium attendance is mandatory as well. I think it's
| a positive as it means complacency ("my side has already
| won, no reason to go out and vote") is never a factor in
| the outcome.
| drowsspa wrote:
| In Brazil as well. I think a good side effect, or perhaps
| the main intended one, is that governments aren't allowed
| to supress voters and have to make sure everyone has easy
| access to the voting booths. Every election there are
| mandatory pieces on TV about how people are voting even
| in the most remote of places.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Under fifty percent for what it's worth. And there was a
| lot of disenfranchisement
| Someone wrote:
| > The majority that did vote, voted for this
|
| Nitpick: Trump got less than 50% of the votes (https://en
| .wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia...)
|
| More importantly, I think quite a few who voted for Trump
| didn't vote for this extreme version of Trump.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| "American democracy"
| rayiner wrote:
| David Schor's analysis found that if everyone had voted,
| Trump would have won by 4.8 points:
| https://www.vox.com/politics/403364/tik-tok-young-
| voters-202...
| jen729w wrote:
| And those that stayed at home deserve what they got.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| 100% of voter age Americans made a decision. That includes
| not registering to vote or not voting.
|
| Pretend I want a snack, I can choose between a cookie and
| an apple. If I dislike both then I also have the option to
| not get a snack. Neither is selected.
|
| This is different from not voting because a candidate still
| wins.
| Supermancho wrote:
| If the US wanted voting to be more popular, there would
| be a Federal Holiday to promote it. There is no incentive
| when there are known costs...at least since the wild
| inflation of the 80s when it got prohibitive to lose a
| shift and the slow dissolution of union jobs. This is the
| result of the tyranny of indifference. Those that benefit
| continue to promote and benefit, those that do not, are
| disenfranchised. It's a common theme in history.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| >If the US wanted voting to be more popular, there would
| be a Federal Holiday to promote it.
|
| I agree but it doesn't actually matter. 97% can vote by
| mail, early, or another method besides election day
| according to this article
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/map-early-voting-mail-
| ballot-st...
|
| >There is no incentive when there are known costs... is
| the result of the tyranny of indifference.
|
| What is the cause of the Indifference in your opinion ?
| psychoslave wrote:
| Who said people are indifferent?
|
| They can still actively engage in civil life with a
| variety of actions that look more relevant and meaningful
| to them.
|
| If people are not given opportunity to actively engage in
| meaningful way like contributing to the creation of the
| laws they will have to follow, then sure they sooner than
| later they won't bother signing the blank check of void
| promises.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| >Who said people are indifferent?
|
| The person I replied to
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| stop. Voting is incredibly easy. Voting by mail is
| incredibly easy. Theres no reason you cant vote by mail.
| The reason people arent voting is because they dont want
| to/cant be assed
| Supermancho wrote:
| > stop
|
| No.
|
| > Voting by mail is incredibly easy.
|
| This missed the point entirely.
|
| This is about changing behavior and making it "easier"
| isn't the blocker. People often do not behave the way you
| expect them to due to simple socialization. Regardless of
| the specifics, making it more of a celebration (because
| that's how the vast majority of PTO is perceived) will
| make it seem like it's more important beyond the
| lipservice that, frankly, has been ineffective.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| >making it more of a celebration
|
| Then wouldn't people not want to spend hours waiting to
| vote if they could party?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Voting for the sake of voting is a horrible idea. Voting
| as a celebration seems bad too. Voting is a privilege
| that has a lot of responsibility entwined and it is ok to
| bow out if you arent sure. Politics these days is fully
| maximizing for psychological tricks so I dont think
| theres any shame in feeling overwhelmed.
|
| The issue with complaining about non existent problems is
| that it leads to everyone ignoring you. My issue with
| that is that when you hijack my political movement with
| this non issue now my movement is being ignored because
| of your dumb non issue. So basically Im ok with you
| feeling this way but dont hijack the democratic platform
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Voters who do not vote say "I'm fine with all winners",
| like "What pizza do you want?" - "I'm fine with every
| pizza".
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| According to this non-official but prestigious NPO source
| [0]
|
| Trump got 49.8% of votes for president, Harris got 48.3%.
| Vote total ~156.3 million. A rather slim 'mandate'
| methinks.
|
| [0] https://www.cfr.org/article/2024-election-numbers
| (Council on Foreign Relations)
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| [delayed]
| fguerraz wrote:
| There is no democracy without a free press, or else no one
| can make an informed decision. I doubt that the press can be
| called free when it's owned by oligarchs.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Sure, but you also voted for a system of checks & balances,
| laws, and separation of powers - whatever happened to all
| these laws and stuff from the Cold War where even a hint that
| you may have ties to Russia would get you a Visit?
| kzrdude wrote:
| Do you think it's legitimate when the administration
| transgresses constitutional limits? With legal eyes nobody
| voted for that, you can't vote inside the system to break the
| system, office holders are expected to follow the law once
| elected.
| vkou wrote:
| People also voted in a Congress that is tasked to uphold
| the law, and it seems fine with this.
|
| That was the really stupid part of that election.
| timeon wrote:
| > We voted
|
| Depends if your "democracy" have one person = one vote. Or if
| the land is included somewhere in the vote.
| keybored wrote:
| It's interesting that people who claim Americans live in a
| democracy will slam-dunk any topic based on a completely
| binary decision made every four years.
|
| No discussion beyond that point is needed.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Martin was also at the coup attempt on Jan 6 and on that day
| said "Like Mardi Gras in DC today: love, faith and joy. Ignore
| #FakeNews". https://archive.ph/jekzQ
| hjgjhyuhy wrote:
| Yeah, everything about this administration makes perfect sense
| if we assume that Trump is a Russian asset. Of course
| billionaires like Thiel and Musk have their say as well.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised to see America sell weapons to Russia,
| and provide them military support in the future when they
| launch their next invasion.
| alganet wrote:
| It sounds weird. Why does it look like a conspiracy theory?
|
| Yo dawg, I heard you like to appeal to conspiracy theory types...
|
| Why would someone introduce lots of seemingly indiscernible edits
| into important articles, fully knowing that the edit history is
| available to anyone who wants to look?
|
| It would make more sense to spread propaganda in a place that
| doesn't fully track it.
|
| Unless the exposition of such tracking edits as an obvious
| smoking gun exists to be staged to look like someone else did it.
|
| Of course, it could all be to trigger a recursive
| conspiracytheorypocallipse that further erodes any belief in
| community generated content.
|
| What should we do, Master Anakin? There's too many of them
| conspiracies.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Reason and truth are the enemy of authoritarian regimes. They
| want you to believe that truth is subjective. Truth and reason
| provide alternative legitimacy to authority. If nothing is true,
| there is no basis on which to judge those in power.
|
| There is a long legacy of authoritarian regimes attacking curious
| places, universities, historians, museums, books or any
| institution that grounds itself in reality which provides you a
| way to reasonably criticize authoritarian actions. Many
| authortarian regimes will "purge" as many of the country's
| intellectuals as they are able.
|
| Wikipedia is absolutely the enemy of this administration and
| authoritarians everywhere in the world would love to see it's
| demise or collapse into chaos.
|
| Whether the Wikipedia page for Israel says Gaza is a genocide or
| not, or that it's an ongoing debate matters. It matters because
| it influences what people think and therefore what they consent
| to or what they deem worth fighting for or applying resources to
| and that goes for just about any issue out there. If you can't
| read about the suffering that racism has caused, then how bad is
| racism really? If there are no examples of successful labor
| movements, then why would you hopelessly start one?
| emacsen wrote:
| Aren't you making their point though?
|
| The ADL and other Jewish organizations have pointed out that
| aside from articles about Israel that articles about or mention
| Jewish topics generally have been editing with disinformation
| or that made Jews out to be the aggressors.
|
| I agree with you that in order to believe in the ideals of
| liberal democracy that we must have a core belief in truth. And
| it's absolutely true that the Trump administration has taken a
| position that is deeply chilling on the issue of speech. It's
| clear they want to be the sole arbiters of what "truth" is and
| they want to use their power to manipulate the reality.
|
| All that said, I cannot as a Jew ignore the fact that Wikipedia
| is not in itself neutral, and that "more eyes" does not negate
| systemic bias. What I've seen as a Jew is what the true meaning
| of marginalized minority is, which is to say that if you are
| truly a minority and truly marginalized then in a vote of
| "truth", your reality will be dismissed if it conflicts with
| the vast majority, and that Jews are only 0.2% of the world
| population.
|
| While I brought it up, I am not debating the issue of
| antisemitic bias in Wikipedia[1] as anything other than an
| illustration of your point of objective truth being true, but
| also that we can't simply rely on the wisdom of the crowd to
| materialize that truth.
|
| To preemptively address the issue that's bound to come up when
| I post this- I'm not arguing that the evils of silencing the
| entire Wikipedia project are equal to or a fair response to
| Wikipedia's antisemitic bias. I do believe Wikipedia needs to
| address its bias problem and that's best done through internal
| reform.
|
| Two wrongs don't make a right, nor are two wrongs always of
| equal weight.
|
| [1] Firstly because my point is separate, and secondly because
| I've encountered the exact issues I've found in Wikipedia
| elsewhere, which is why I'm sure I'll be voted down.
| TRiG_Ireland wrote:
| This is the same ADL that said that Nazi salutes are fine,
| but that protesting against genocide isn't? Why do we care
| what the ADL says about anything? They're fascist
| sympathisers.
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| It was not remotely okay that they did this, and I agree
| that refusing to speak out severely hurt their credibility.
| The next time I get a fundraising email, I'm going to tell
| them they can kiss something.
| emacsen wrote:
| Demanding moral perfection from an organization in order to
| believe that discrimination exists is a standard that I
| don't believe is fair to any group.
| TRiG_Ireland wrote:
| I don't demand "moral perfection", but I draw the line at
| overt fascism. The ADL are fascist sympathisers.
| emacsen wrote:
| Did you read the statement they put out later that day
| about Musk, or the day after?
|
| I agree this was a terrible move on the ADL's part, and
| there have been others, but you're essentially labeling
| the oldest anti-hate group "fascist" because you disagree
| with one statement they made.
|
| This dismisses any concerns they raise, or if someone
| else says the same as them, then they too must be pro-
| facist.
| cma wrote:
| He also tweeted in approval of this tweet putting forward
| the "Jewish people planned it" antisemitic form of great
| replacement theory with "you have said the actual truth":
|
| > Jewish communties have been pushing the exact kind of
| dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want
| people to stop using against them.
|
| > I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now
| about western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing
| realization that those hordes of minorities that support
| flooding their country don't exactly like them too much.
|
| > You want truth said to your face, there it is.
|
| Then a bit later Musk gives the heil Hitler salute twice
| in a row, once facing the crowd, then turned around and
| gave it facing Trump.
|
| The stuff the ADL put out after the salutes was only
| after he added on jokes involving Nazi party members,
| right? Or was the one later that day before that?
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| I agree 100%. It's exhausting fighting against antisemitic
| bias, and it feels like it's everywhere these days. My
| problem with Ed Martin is that what he is doing is clearly
| wrong. Hannah Arendt wrote a book about people like him.
| emacsen wrote:
| The fact that my comment is -2 on HN is a great example of
| the problem.
|
| I'm working on a solution to the effects of this isolation,
| but it's not ready for a big announcement.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Could one of you point me to antisemitic bias on wikipedia
| just so I have a concrete example at hand?
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-
| anti-i...
|
| Read it for yourself.
| pesus wrote:
| I'm not sure the organization that defended Musk's Nazi
| salute is a reliable source on antisemitism.
| intermerda wrote:
| I tried giving it a shot. It starts with an "executive
| summary", followed by an intro to how Wikipedia works.
| The very first link to any concrete evidence is by a guy
| who has a page on PragerU with gems like "Russian
| collusion hoax" and how the "mainstream media" is "fake
| news".
|
| It's a pretty simple case of Wittgenstein's ruler for me.
| It tells me more about ADL as an org than the content.
| hackandthink wrote:
| The analysis there is not convincing.
|
| It is obvious that Wikipedia admins communicate with each
| other. The fact that Aljazeera is referenced is also
| okay.
|
| In fact, this is not the official Israeli narrative, it
| seems rather trustworthy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian
| _co...
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| Instead of posting another person's argument that
| contains your source can you be more specific?
|
| This is like citing an entire book to prove a point.
| deeThrow94 wrote:
| The ADL destroyed any credibility they had worked to
| build when they started conflating criticism of israel
| with antisemitism.
| emacsen wrote:
| Basically, almost any time Zionists are mentioned,
| they're mentioned in a negative light and with genuine
| disinformation, such as that Zionism is the belief that
| Arabs needs to be destroyed. That is like saying the
| Civil Rights movement in the US was about killing white
| people.
|
| They also position things in such a way that implies
| antisemitic things, such as saying that Zionism is only
| 200 years old, or discussing the Israel wars only or
| primarily through an Arab lens.
|
| These biases around Jewish topics are small individually
| but large in aggregate, especially in how they present
| Jews and Jewish topics.
|
| Multiple Jewish and civil rights organizations have done
| a more comprehensive job at discussing this, even
| organizations who don't usually agree on things. While
| they talk about "anti-Israel bias" Wikipedia articles on
| or mentioning Zionism (80% of Jews are Zionist) are IMHO
| just as, if not more damaging, and demonstrate the issue.
|
| Most importantly though, talk to the Jews in your life
| about this. They will tell you.
|
| https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/wikipedia-
| entrie...
|
| https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-846563
|
| https://cameraoncampus.org/blog/seven-tactics-wikipedia-
| edit...
|
| https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-
| anti-i...
|
| https://www.standwithus.com/post/it-s-time-to-correct-
| wikipe...
|
| https://www.piratewires.com/p/how-wikipedia-s-pro-hamas-
| edit...
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Most of the jews I know are through anti-genocide
| activism and they have a different view of this. I wanted
| to check because it _is_ important to me that I not
| engage in antisemitism. Thanks for the info.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| >Basically, almost any time Zionists are mentioned,
| they're mentioned in a negative light and with genuine
| disinformation,
|
| Your first statement is a sweeping generalization that
| you can't prove
| bawolff wrote:
| I don't know if that statement is true or not, but it
| certainly seems like a specific enough statement that
| could be proved or disproved given enough effort.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| Not an amount of effort in the realm of this discussion
| and that's all that matters
| const_cast wrote:
| Zionism, as a belief system and ideology, is one built on
| colonialism and manifest destiny. That's literally,
| plainly, what it is. Naturally, these have associations
| with bad things. Most colonialist movements in history
| were bad for the people getting colonized.
|
| You cannot subscribe to a belief and simultaneously
| exempt yourself from all consequences of that belief.
| What I mean is, if you are a Zionist, then you believe
| some people should be displaced in a conquest for your
| people. What happens to them? You cannot say "well, we
| can do it without displacement" or "well, I don't believe
| that".
|
| No. That is the consequence of what you belief, and you
| therefore MUST stand by it. You MUST believe you are
| entitled to the land and sovereignty of Arabs, whether
| you choose to articulate that belief or not.
|
| This is something Zionists sometimes struggle to
| comprehend. They wish to live in an alternate reality,
| where they can keep their beliefs and magically get to an
| outcome they desire without anyone getting hurt. It
| doesn't work that way. If your belief hurts people, _that
| means you want to hurt people_.
| ummonk wrote:
| At a time when students are having their visas revoked
| merely for writing Op-Eds critical of Israel, it's rather
| ridiculous to see the pro-Israel side acting like you're
| the ones being persecuted everywhere.
| bawolff wrote:
| Since when do two wrongs make a right?
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Could you point me to an example of what you have in mind on
| wikipedia? I'm admittedly not as practiced at discerning
| subtle antisemitism as I am some other forms of
| discrimination. But also usually when it's being alluded to
| in the abstract like this people mean something closer to
| "criticism of israel's actions."
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-
| anti-i...
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| OK yeah I've read that. Thanks.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| I didn't read that because the person asked for an
| example and you directed them to a 150 printed page
| article where you didn't specify which page(s)
|
| This is the equivalent of stating that dinosaurs evolved
| into birds then when asked for one piece of evidence
| directing a person to a book, by another author, on how
| dinosaurs evolved into birds
| Hikikomori wrote:
| Anti semitism or anti Zionist? Asking as the ADL doesn't seem
| to understand that there's a difference.
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| > Reason and truth are the enemy of authoritarian regimes.
| Truth and reason provide alternative legitimacy to authority.
| If nothing is true, there is no basis on which to judge those
| in power.
|
| Well said.
|
| Hannah Arendt wrote a great book about this, but it sounds like
| you might have already read it.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| I haven't. I would imagine Timothy Snyder is an avid fan of,
| if not a major historian of, Hannah Arendt and I probably got
| that through Snyder. I had actually not heard of her
| specifically yet.
|
| https://history.yale.edu/news/timothy-snyder-has-been-
| awarde...
|
| Apparently Snyder received the Hannah Arendt Prize for
| Political Thought.
|
| He quotes her here: https://slate.com/news-and-
| politics/2017/04/preparing-for-an...
|
| _After the Reichstag fire, political theorist Hannah Arendt
| wrote that "I was no longer of the opinion that one can
| simply be a bystander." Courage does not mean not fearing, or
| not grieving. It does mean recognizing and resisting terror
| management right away, from the moment of the attack,
| precisely when it seems most difficult to do so._
| txcwg002 wrote:
| According to its cofounder, Wikipedia abandoned truth long ago.
|
| https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
| laughingcurve wrote:
| It's pretty clear from this blogpost that Larry Sanger has
| abandoned a pursuit of truth and neutral point of view and
| instead does not like how reality fails to conform to his
| personal biases and preferences about the way the world is.
| ruszki wrote:
| If nothing else, the rambling about global warming and MMR
| vaccines makes it obvious. It's not neutral to spread many
| times disproven lies. Especially how he wants to spread it,
| without saying that it's not true, because that's not
| neutral. He just forgot that saying that something is true
| is also not neutral.
|
| I understand the caution, and we need to be more cautious
| in today's world. And I do in controversial topics quite
| frequently. For example, giving points for women during
| university admissions just for being women in Norway seemed
| outrageous. And when I feel that way, I immediately start
| to check its validity, especially that the article "forgot"
| to mention how many points. At the end they give out 1 or 2
| points on a scale of 50, and not to just women but also
| men, where they are underrepresented. The article just lied
| about that we should have outrage. It's a lie.
|
| Larry Sanger wants such lies on Wikipedia. He should be way
| more cautious when he's outraged. Also 100% of people who
| commented under this article on Reddit should do the same.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| What organizations, institutions, or media do you think have
| a greater commitment to truth, or even just a commitment to
| truth?
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| Organizations can't have commitments to truth. Only people
| can. And there is no mechanism that ensures that editors
| and admins have a commitment to truth.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| OK, I can't argue with that. Timothy Snyder might make a
| similar correction, "markets can't be free, only people
| participating in the market can be free" is something he
| says frequently.
|
| If only people can have commitments to truth, which
| organization, institution, or media do you think has a
| leader that seems to have a commitment to truth,
| especially truth in their institution? Who is our gold
| standard of "as good as it gets"?
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| I think for very scientific and technical matters that is
| entirely divorced from politics Wikipedia is fine, not
| great, but entirely serviceable.
|
| For everything else I won't trust it, which sadly
| includes matters of war and history, as almost all causal
| claims about the world rests on counter factuals, and
| therefore does not merely depend on what is.
|
| Politics also concerns what ought to be, not what is, and
| most editors of Wikipedia do not agree with me regarding
| what ought to be or even how one should determine what
| ought to be.
|
| Wikipedia would do better if they could figure out a way
| to manage bias rather than try to eliminate it. I don't
| want to be overly critical. Wikipedia is useful, but it's
| really very far from ideal and I would not want my tax
| money going anywhere near it.
| orwin wrote:
| Wikipedia is a great point of entry for history.
|
| Roughly ~20 years behind current academic research on
| most subjects, makes it 10 to 40 years more advanced than
| other encyclopaedia and school curriculums.
|
| But its value is on the bibliography. You have research
| papers linked, which makes it infinitely better than most
| other sources. The only way to get closer to the truth in
| history is rigorous demonstrations, and those only exist
| in academic papers.
|
| The view on Wikipedia on the French revolution are mostly
| Furet's views, which is 20 years behind, as it is the
| case in the Anglo world. Furet isn't the only one cited
| in Wikipedia though, and his point of view is nuanced
| with research from the 90s and 2000s, all with links to
| actual research. The last time I checked, research from
| JCM on the recently (late 2000s) discovered 'archives du
| comite' isn't discussed yet there, but all that makes it
| infinitely better than encyclopaedia brittanica.
| Infinitely.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Do you have any examples to show why I shouldn't trust it
| in regards to political topics or history?
|
| You also really avoided the "what's better"/"what's a
| better model" question.
|
| Social consensus, consent, and political mandate aren't
| ideas that can be hand waived away, they matter and they
| effect you and they are deeply impact by what people
| perceive to be true.
|
| So the question still stands, if you mention a topic like
| Mao's cultural revolution, where should I go to get a
| primer and verify that the way you're talking about it
| appears to be grounded in reality.
| happosai wrote:
| Imagine sharing this link unironically thinking the content
| makes great sense.
| xlinux wrote:
| So everything wiki mods believe is truth? What about those who
| never even got a chance to speak out?
|
| It's always controlled by. Winners write the history. Now
| Americans decide what's truth and fact
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| >Now Americans decide what's truth and fact
|
| what about evidence?
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Wikipedia has at least 15 million articles in languages other
| than English and around 7 million English articles.
|
| Are you asserting that it is standard that Americans are
| writing and moderating all of these articles in other
| languages?
| xlinux wrote:
| In my country, one section mentions English articles
| (written by amercans) to prove their point.
| orwin wrote:
| Then your country Wikipedia admins are idiots if they
| accept that, as Wikipedia isn't considered a primary
| source on Wikipedia.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Can you link an example?
| seydor wrote:
| an encyclopedia is supposed to be broader than any other biased
| information source, so i think your last paragraph is false.
| people are supposed to make up their own mind
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclopedia
| belorn wrote:
| Wikipedia policy is verifiability and giving the reader a first
| step. Truth is something that the reader decide for themselves.
| Wikipedia are neither the enemy nor a friend for regimes or
| political movements.
|
| It is not the role of Wikipedia to authoritative say if the war
| in Gaza is an genocide. Their role is to say what reliable
| source has reported, which in this case has so much reliable
| sources talking about it that there is a dedicated article
| about just it.
|
| There more reliable sources are talking about a subject, and
| the more the subject gain notability, the more likely it will
| be included in Wikipedia. Editors can apply some common sense,
| but they are not the arbiters of truth, nor should they ever be
| seen as such. If a readers want simple and single truths that
| they can believe in then they are better served by whichever
| news papers that can cater to their particular world views.
| matwood wrote:
| > Reason and truth are the enemy of authoritarian regimes. They
| want you to believe that truth is subjective. Truth and reason
| provide alternative legitimacy to authority. If nothing is
| true, there is no basis on which to judge those in power.
|
| I agree. Only thing I would add is that the 'seeking of truth'
| is also important. Academics get it wrong all the time, but
| self correction is built into the process. Finding and fixing
| errors is important.
| psychoslave wrote:
| Totalitarian mindset is not incompatible with the notion of
| absolute truth. It just want to be considered the single source
| of truth. You can believe whatever you want as long as it leads
| you to always comply to the government official statements,
| even in your most hidden intimacy. That, is totalitarism.
| jjmarr wrote:
| The English Wikipedia is a massive target for influence
| campaigns. I don't think there are any other communities as
| resilient as it. Just an example:
|
| There's certain individual or group that edited under the name
| "Icewhiz", was banned, and now operates endless sockpuppet
| accounts in the topic area to influence Wikipedia's coverage on
| the Middle East. One of them was an account named "Eostrix", that
| spent years making clean uncontroversial edits until one day
| going for adminship.
|
| Eostrix got 99% approval in their request for adminship. But it
| didn't matter, because an anonymous individual also spent years
| pursuing Eostrix, assembling evidence, and this resulted in
| Eostrix's block just days before they became a Wikipedia
| administrator.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investiga...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Com...
|
| It's a useful contrast to a place like Reddit, where volunteer
| moderators openly admit to spreading terrorist propaganda or
| operating fake accounts when their original one gets banned. You
| don't get to do that on Wikipedia. If you try, someone with far
| too much time on their hands _will_ catch you because Wikipedia
| doesn 't need to care about Daily Active Users and the community
| cares about protecting a neutral point of view.
|
| Not denying the existence of influence campaigns. There have been
| several major pro-Palestinian ones recently, which is probably
| why this letter has been sent. But the only reason you know about
| them is because Wikipedia openly fights them instead of covering
| them up. Most social media websites don't care and would rather
| you don't bring it to their attention. That is why Reddit banned
| /r/bannedforbeingjewish.
| LightHugger wrote:
| There are counterexamples where this has failed/continues to
| fail, the gamergate article is famously non-neutral, only
| accepting primary sources from journalists directly involved in
| the controversy. This is rather than true secondary sources
| with less extreme and biased views, like is supposed to be the
| rules there. You can switch from the english one to other
| languages and get completely different content with very
| balanced point of views because the other languages weren't
| controlled by the influence campaign.
|
| So, is it better than reddit? I agree, probably. That bar
| doesn't seem very high though.
|
| Part of the issue with gamergate discussion is that there's a
| lot of vapid perspectives along the lines of "it's just video
| game journalism who cares" which allows an infinite amount of
| bad behavior, dishonesty and manipulation in the name of an
| abstract greater good. I believe it was used as a prototype for
| future wikipedia manipulation for "more important" topics.
| acdha wrote:
| Do you have any specific examples? You mentioned the
| Gamergate article but your assertion that it doesn't
| reference non-primary sources needs some citations that all
| of the academic and media sources were directly involved.
| Since it was a harassment campaign involving journalists,
| there's a big question about what a policy would need to look
| like to prevent someone from attacking a journalist and then
| saying Wikipedia can't use their work because they're
| involuntarily involved.
| freen wrote:
| Anecdote != evidence.
|
| Also, your anecdote is specifically about a social media
| article about an attempt to use social media spaces to harass
| people.
|
| Seems extra "special case" to me.
| sedev wrote:
| > only accepting primary sources from journalists directly
| involved in the controversy
|
| This is false. The talk page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta
| lk:Gamergate_(harassment_cam... lays it out clearly: because
| of the nature of Gamergate (misogynist harassment campaign),
| the page about Gamergate is heavily scrutinized in order to
| make sure that all source cites follow the same reliable-
| source rules that are in force across all of Wikipedia.
| Please don't lie about Wikipedia.
| eGP9jDq_nw wrote:
| for those doubting this claim, the secret mailing list
| "GameJournoPros" used by journalists to collude is not even
| mentioned once, and is akin to scrubbing the holocaust
| article of the word "jew"
| rafram wrote:
| You're telling me there was a secret... listserv?! Truly,
| this conspiracy goes all the way to the top.
| immibis wrote:
| Is that like a secret Signal chat for the defense
| secretary's family?
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| One can look into Shira Klein and Jan Grabowski's report about
| how the Polish ultranationalists have distorted the Holocaust
| topic area on Wikipedia (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/1
| 0.1080/25785648.2023.2...) if they want to find a
| counterexample. To the best of my understandings so far, I
| think Icewhiz is a good guy, just that he doesn't have strong
| grasp about Wikipedia's guidelines, particularly regarding
| multiple accounts, and was the victim of sustained smear
| campaigns by Polish ultranationalists who were able to
| psychologically manipulate the admins into banning him in order
| to let their distortionist edits stick. Now he's an Emmanuel
| Goldstein figure for both the ultranationalists and the pro-
| Hamas editors who seek to deflect external scrutiny to their
| edits.
| jjmarr wrote:
| A month after that article was published (and shortly after
| the article was posted on Wikipedia), the Arbitration
| Committee opened a _sua sponte_ case to review the topic area
| despite the substance of that article being "Icewhiz was
| right".[1] It resulted in bans of Icewhiz' enemies for
| distorting the Holocaust topic area. I think moderators on
| pretty much any other website would laugh and ignore an
| article like that as being whining from a user they banned.
|
| I agree that Icewhiz is an Emmanuel Goldstein-like figure at
| this point who's used by pro-Hamas editors/ultranationalists.
| A bunch of those pro-Palestinian editors that loved to
| complain about Icewhiz to deflect from their own behaviour
| were topic-banned from Israel-Palestine area a few months ago
| in January.[2]
|
| It's challenging to deal with the Israel-Palestine conflict
| on any website that allows for user contributions. There's
| astroturfing and nation-state backed influence operations
| from probably a dozen countries. I don't think there's _any_
| website that has successfully navigated that minefield as
| well as Wikipedia.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Reques
| ts...
|
| [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Reques
| ts...
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| > I don't think there's any website that has successfully
| navigated that minefield as well as Wikipedia.
|
| There's a survivorship bias in play here as we don't have a
| good other sample or more to compare to. After Wikipedia
| went big in the 2000s it was for a very long time a de-
| facto monopoly for people seeking out reference information
| on the Internet. Even Google's Knol project, which was
| intended to be a Wikipedia competitor, faltered after a few
| years. Same goes for Everipedia as well.
| santoshalper wrote:
| But there is a survivorship bias because doing what
| Wikipedia does is almost impossible.
| krisoft wrote:
| > There's a survivorship bias in play here as we don't
| have a good other sample or more to compare to.
|
| It is not survivorship bias to point out that the
| survivor survived.
|
| > Even Google's Knol project, which was intended to be a
| Wikipedia competitor, faltered after a few years.
|
| Not "faltering after a few years" is part of "succesfully
| navigating that minefield". If you fall out of the "race"
| no matter how good your policies would be otherwise you
| won't be a reliable source of information. Because your
| can't be if you no longer exists.
|
| This is not a statement about what could have worked,
| this is a statement about what did work. And there
| survival is a necessary ingredient of success.
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| It is _indeed_ a survivorship bias since we have no good
| other sample in the form of competitor to compare to,
| like how Pepsi is to Coca-Cola. Which part of my
| statement you find difficult to understand?
| krisoft wrote:
| > Which part of my statement you find difficult to
| understand?
|
| I understand your whole statement perfectly. It is just
| wrong. My understanding is not the problem here.
|
| We are not comparing them to other samples. We say that
| out of the currently existing X they are the best.
|
| Imagine a town with 3 bakeries. Lets call them A, B, and
| C. Bakery A gets shut down by the health deparment and B
| goes bankrupt. Then we can, rightfully and without
| survivorship bias, call C the best run bakery of the
| town. Because if you get shut down by the health
| department, or you go bankrupt then by definition you are
| not the best run bakery. (Obviously it is not a high
| praise with that kind of competitions, but they still are
| the best run bakery.)
|
| Staying in the business is not some incidental part of
| "being the best run bakery". It is a core component of
| it.
|
| Imagine a marathon with 100 runners. Henry runs the
| fastest time, and 25 others do not finish. Some got lost,
| some had medical issues during the race. Is it
| survivorship bias to call Henry the fastest competitor in
| that race? Of course not. You need to finish the race to
| be even considered to be the fastest. Just because there
| are others who didn't make it, doesn't make him somehow
| not the fastest. Definietly doesn't make calling him the
| fastest "survivorship bias".
|
| Finishing the race is a core component of "being the
| fastest finisher".
|
| Similarly in the case of wikipedia. If other similar
| sites stopped operating then they by definition did not
| "successfully navigated that minefield". Their bakery is
| shut and they did not finish their marathon. That is the
| very definition of "not succesfully navigating that
| minefield".
|
| This is how rationalwiki defines survivorship bias:
| "Survivorship bias is a cognitive bias that occurs when
| focusing on entities that made it past a selection
| process, while overlooking those that didn't."
|
| We are not overlooking the failed attempts here. We are
| considering them.
|
| Bakery A and B is worse run than C. And we know that
| because they got shut down.
|
| The runners who did not finish the marathon are not
| faster than Henry. And we know that because they haven't
| finished the marathon.
|
| The abandoned community edited websites are worse at
| "successfully navigating that minefield" than the ones
| which are still operating. We know that because they are
| no longer operating. They were not overlooked.
|
| What you are missing is that the "selection process" here
| is not some independent, and unrelated thing. The
| selection process is, at least in part, is what we are
| talking about. You cannot be considered the best run
| bakery unless you are running a bakery. You cannot be
| considered the fastest racer unless you finished the
| race. And your community edited website cannot be the one
| who most succesfully navigates a minefield unless you are
| navigating the minefield at all.
|
| Please let me know if any of the above is unclear. Happy
| to go into details.
| breppp wrote:
| > I don't think there's any website that has successfully
| navigated that minefield as well as Wikipedia.
|
| I don't believe this is the case, the Israeli/Palestine are
| restricted to long-time contributors, so the articles are
| either messy and unmaintained due to lack of editors, or
| worse, edited only by members of influence campaigns who
| have scared away everyone else
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| That's right. They only survived because competitions
| were crushed out with both network effects, and the help
| of Google which reportedly prioritizes Wikipedia in
| search results while downranking any others which could
| challenge Wikipedia.
| immibis wrote:
| Link [2] doesn't appear to say what someone did wrong but
| you cite it as evidence for some people doing something
| wrong
| nulld3v wrote:
| The "Findings of Fact" section has a bunch of examples: h
| ttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requ
| es...
| immibis wrote:
| It pretty much just says people did bad stuff.
| immibis wrote:
| Can you tell us more about these pro-Hamas editors?
| bjourne wrote:
| I knew IceWhiz. You are correct that he (or rather "they")
| _eventually_ was kicked from the site. But he /they operated on
| the site for years and was the biggest PITA you can imagine. He
| must have single-handedly scared away two dozen honest
| contributors with his BS. It is very, very easy to game the
| rules on Wikipedia. Wars of attrition goes on for years. Normal
| people don't waste their time. IceWhiz and his meat puppets
| have endless patience and all the time in the world.
| gonzobonzo wrote:
| Right. The fact that someone so terrible got 99% approval and
| only one anonymous investigator was able to stop them makes
| me think that it's likely a lot of other terrible admins who
| didn't have an anonymous investigator go after them probably
| go through the process.
|
| And the times I've brought up the fact that Wikipedia can be
| unreliable before, I've had numerous editors come in and
| claim that wasn't true and that people could rely on the
| claims they find in Wikipedia. This runs counter to the claim
| that Wikipedia editors know about these influence campaigns
| and openly fight about them. A lot of the active and vocal
| editors are openly dismissing such concerns.
| chii wrote:
| I wonder if there's room in using AI to gather past edits
| of someone, as part of vetting, and use the sentiment
| analysis to check how neutral their biases are.
| sunaookami wrote:
| AI is itself biased because the training data is.
| lazide wrote:
| Neutrality != necessarily accurate or useful. And the
| most neutral thing to say is nothing.
|
| And most LLMs probably have Wikipedia as a significant
| part of their training corpus, so there is a big
| ouroboros issue too.
| card_zero wrote:
| Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a source, so "reliable" here
| has to mean "reliably presenting a full range of notable
| sources". No editor should be saying you can rely on claims
| found in Wikipedia, except in the sense of relying that the
| claims are in the sources.
|
| (Except the claim as stated isn't always in the source
| anyway. Best to check.)
| simonw wrote:
| I found Molly White's video here really useful for
| helping me understand the Reliable Sources policy:
| https://blog.mollywhite.net/become-a-wikipedian-
| transcript/
|
| > The way we determine reliability is typically based on
| the reputation for editorial oversight, and for
| factchecking and corrections. For example, if you have a
| reference book that is published by a reputable publisher
| that has an editorial board and that has edited the book
| for accuracy, if you know of a newspaper that has, again,
| an editorial team that is reviewing articles and issuing
| corrections if there are any errors, those are probably
| reliable sources.
| flexagoon wrote:
| Yeah. Also, if a specific source is used a lot, it often
| gets put on a discussion where people vote on how
| reliable it is. If it's considered unreliable, the use of
| it will be banned.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source
| s/P...
| bjourne wrote:
| Love the use of the "we" word here. :) What is counted as
| a reliable source is voted on on one of Wikipedia's meta
| pages. So "reliability" is not based on any factual
| circumstances, but on whether the vote is won or lost.
| And you can trivially game that using sock/meat puppetry.
| Notwithstanding, White's claimed policy heavily favors
| Western media giants such as The New York Times and The
| Washington Post which many editors know about. However,
| the actual information they publish are often much less
| accurate than what is published in specialized trade
| magazines or even activist blogs.
| simonw wrote:
| > So "reliability" is not based on any factual
| circumstances, but on whether the vote is won or lost.
|
| Those voters (with the exception if bad actors) are
| working on the basis of "factual circumstances", which
| they debate extensively before voting.
| pessimizer wrote:
| These debates are done in public, and we see how bad they
| are. It's wonderful that they're done in public, though.
| bjourne wrote:
| They sure do, it's still those who amass the most votes
| who gets to decide. And it leads to clownish ridiculous
| results. ADL is listed three times as green, yellow, and
| red. Comment says "There is consensus that the ADL is a
| generally unreliable source for the Israeli-Palestinian
| conflict, due to significant evidence that the ADL acts
| as a pro-Israeli advocacy group and has repeatedly
| published false and misleading statements as fact, un-
| retracted, regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
| So an organization that has "repeatedly" been caught
| spreading false and misleading statements is still a
| reliable source. LOL
| efilife wrote:
| how do you know he scared off 24 contributors?
| 20after4 wrote:
| I'd interpret it as a bit of Hyperbole, I don't think the
| specific number is significant. Perhaps "several" would be
| a better choice of a quantifier.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| The infamous "Philip Cross" always comes to mind.
|
| https://www.wikispooks.com/wiki/Philip_Cross
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| Did you read this post?
|
| https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik...
| 0xDEAFBEAD wrote:
| Did you read this post?
|
| "Reliable Sources: How Wikipedia Admin David Gerard Launders
| His Grudges Into the Public Record"
|
| https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/reliable-sources-how-wik...
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Wow! I read the entire article. It sounds like this person
| may have a mental illness. It's both their weakness and
| strength.
| hulitu wrote:
| This is the ideal picture of Wikipedia. In reality they are
| also used to spread propaganda and are happy about it as long
| as it fits certain naratives.
|
| Wikipedia is, today, a pale shade of what it once was, a source
| of information.
| lukan wrote:
| To me those links you provided, indicate a lot, of what is
| wrong for me with wikipedia.
|
| Because it is extremely hard to figure out what is going on.
| Lots of mysterious abbreviations. Unclear timeline.
|
| I still don't really know it, it seems the scandal is, that he
| had a sockpuppet account? And there is only "private" evidence
| (meaning not public)?
|
| "The Arbitration Committee has determined through private
| evidence, including evidence from the checkuser tool, that
| Eostrix (talk * contribs) (a current RfA candidate) is a
| sockpuppet of Icewhiz (talk * contribs). Accordingly, the
| Committee has resolved that Eostrix be indefinitely blocked."
|
| So having a sockpuppet account is the reason for indefinite
| ban? Or that in combination with edits he made? Really, really
| hard to figure out for someone just having a quick look into
| the topic. And this is what prevented me since the beginning to
| participate in Wikipedia. I always got this impression. I made
| some edits here and there, but I think was mostly
| reverted/deleted/ignored - but no idea, I never felt like
| making the investment to really dive into it - and that seems
| required to contribute. Casual contribution seems pointless -
| and they likely miss out a lot through this.
|
| "But the only reason you know about them is because Wikipedia
| openly fights them instead of covering them up."
|
| So it seems good if wikipedia is more open - but from this
| story I just take "private evidence" with me and lots of
| questions about the whole process.
| simonw wrote:
| "Really, really hard to figure out for someone just having a
| quick look into the topic."
|
| Sometimes things are genuinely complicated. If you want to
| understand the hardest, most elaborate forms of Wikipedia
| community management you're going to need to work really hard
| at figuring out what's going on.
|
| Community dynamics at this scale, and with this level of bad
| actors, are not something that can be explained in a few
| paragraphs.
| lukan wrote:
| Oh in general for sure, but my first (attempted?) edit for
| Wikipedia was 20 years ago so I am not a completely newb.
|
| And this is kind of like a court decision.
|
| But in a real court, I can see the verdict and the laws
| that were broken. All in complicated, but readable english.
| Which makes it clear (usually). But in wikipedia to
| understand a indefinite ban, I have to understand global
| wiki community dynamics first? I am a bit reminded of Kafka
| - The Trial.
| krisoft wrote:
| > But in a real court, I can see the verdict and the laws
| that were broken. All in complicated, but readable
| english.
|
| Thats not really true either. There is a lot to unpack to
| understand court cases. Just the hearsay rule and its
| exception would fill a book. Jurisdiction, double
| jeopardy, means rea, "reasonable man", Brady disclosure,
| fruit of poisonous tree, presumption of regularity,
| habeas corpus, SLAP, reasonable doubt, writ of mandamus,
| motion to dismiss, motion to supress, motion for change
| of venue, motion in limine, amicus curiae, consideration.
| Just to unpack the latin terms makes your head spin, and
| then you will be caught out by some term with some
| seamingly easy to understand common meaning used in
| surprising ways.
|
| One can almost say it is a whole profession to understand
| what is going on in court. We could call them lawyers or
| something if we want to be fancy about it. And then turns
| out even those specialist further specialise in narrower
| areas.
| simonw wrote:
| Right: and at least in the court system a whole lot of
| people are being paid a whole lot of money to help move
| that progress along.
|
| Almost all of Wikipedia's community administration is
| done by volunteers working for free!
| croemer wrote:
| Unavoidably, some of the administration is probably done
| by undisclosed paid editors who administer to gain
| goodwill as a defense against allegations of paid
| editing.
| Loic wrote:
| Thank you.
|
| More and more, especially in engineering, I am in contact
| with people who just want everything to be easy to
| understand in TikTok length video clips or short posts.
|
| Some things are hard to understand, dynamic systems
| especially, black or white answers do not exist.
|
| (Sorry for the slightly off-topic/meta rant. This hit a
| nerve by me.)
| lukan wrote:
| Well, I believe things with serious consequences like
| banning someone permanently - should indeed be presented
| clearly. Exactly because I know some organisations like
| to shield themself from criticism, by having a
| intransparent process.
| 20after4 wrote:
| It's pretty straightforward but nothing on Wikipedia is
| really black-and-white. Most decisions are made through a
| consensus process. It's really quite different from what
| most people are used to.
|
| A good place to start for information about how user
| blocking is done would be the following links:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guid
| eli...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry
|
| In this case I think that a sock puppet account can be
| trivially blocked without much process as long as it can
| be proved that it is operated by someone who is already
| blocked for some violation. The sock puppet is an attempt
| at evading the block that was placed on that user's other
| account.
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| That's right. Often due process is skipped even if the
| blocks turn out to be errors or collateral damages later.
| It's not going to be 100% perfect at all because
| stylometries can be obfuscated (see
| https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7345380/) and there
| are tools like VNC and residential proxy applications to
| evade IP-based tracing and detection.
| intended wrote:
| You may believe your position is: > should indeed be
| presented clearly. Exactly because I know some
| organisations like to shield themself from criticism, by
| having a intransparent process
|
| but
|
| > Because it is extremely hard to figure out what is
| going on. Lots of mysterious abbreviations. Unclear
| timeline.
|
| > But in a real court, I can see the verdict and the laws
| that were broken. All in complicated, but readable
| english. Which makes it clear (usually). But in wikipedia
| to understand a indefinite ban, I have to understand
| global wiki community dynamics first?
|
| your position aligns with someone who desires decision
| with serious consequences to be easy to understand.
| yannis wrote:
| Wikipedia is the best source of humanities "common knowledge".
| Yes there are users that abuse the system to push their own
| point of view. Many articles in Wikipedia have improved
| tremendously over the years; many times it is not unusual for
| an article to have over a hundred references. It gives you all
| the info you want to understand the subject before you delve
| further through books. Now for politics I can see the problem.
| Even on a well behaved site like HN you can get polarized
| views. Just say Israel is committing genocide or ethnic
| cleansing and you see the reaction. Ditto for Ukraine and now
| Trumpism. So yes there are pages that reflect views. Take them
| as such. Another advantage of Wikipedia is that many references
| are pushed to archive.org and saved.
|
| "DEAR AMERICAN FRIENDS IN THE ADMINISTRATION KEEP YOUR HANDS
| OFF THE WIKIPEDIA"
| BrtByte wrote:
| Wikipedia's value isn't that it's perfect, it's that it shows
| its work
| 20after4 wrote:
| On articles that are either controversial or cover some
| kind of current events, I often find more value from
| reading the edit history and the discussions than from the
| article itself.
| ArinaS wrote:
| On Wikipedia people like Icewhiz are called "long-term
| abusers", and there's a public list with more than a hundred of
| them - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:LTA.
| atombender wrote:
| That list is fascinating. Like the obscure Canadian
| illustrator [1] who for a decade has been repeatedly trying
| to put herself into Wikipedia despite being told she's a
| "non-notable" artist.
|
| I'm frankly amazed that enough people have the time to track
| this nonsense and stamp it out that it ends up being self-
| correcting. It's not just about time, either; chasing bad
| edits and prosecuting bad users must be a huge chore in terms
| of the sheer amount of work needed. I always find it amazing
| how horrible the tools are (like how almost anything,
| including having discussions, is done by editing pages; how
| can anyone have a discussion in such a disorganized way?),
| which surely must be a hindrance to productivity or to the
| ability to detect and deal with constant abuse. But seemingly
| it works. Maybe there are better tools that pro-level admins
| know about?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Long-
| term_abuse/Anan...
| rvnx wrote:
| She tried to add herself to a list called "professional
| Canadian painter", and from what I see, she is a
| professional Canadian painter for 10+ years.
| card_zero wrote:
| But not notable. Unless notable for long-term Wikipedia
| abuse. Maybe eventually she gets mentioned on a news site
| for that, and then she can finally have an article.
| 20after4 wrote:
| There are a whole bunch of little utilities like browser
| extensions and bookmarklets and even an entire in-house
| cloud infrastructure that is used for hosting various kinds
| of bots and web-based tools for automating workflows. It's
| all very ad-hoc, crude and not very well organized or
| publicized. There have been a few efforts over the years to
| create a repository for all of the little tools to help
| with exposure and some level of vetting for security risks.
| I'm not sure any of those projects were ever successful (or
| even made it past the planning stage) but there has been
| some appetite for improving that ecosystem.
| stogot wrote:
| They have excess money as an org, why don't they hire
| SWEs to improve it?
| phrotoma wrote:
| They're constantly hiring engineers.
|
| https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/jobs/#section-8
| 20after4 wrote:
| My impression has been that the project has never been
| fully scoped and kind of bounced around between teams
| with nobody ever fully dedicated to seeing it through to
| completion. Scope creep and a whole lot of competing
| ideas, on top of a genuinely hard to solve set of
| problems has caused it to get put on the back burner more
| than once.
|
| Sometimes perfect is the enemy of good enough.
| junon wrote:
| This is my favorite:
|
| > ... _also known for hoaxing at List of Crayola crayon
| colors_. Obsessed with inflatable, bursting, popping, and
| bouncing objects
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| It's going to be a Achilles heel for Wikipedia one day, mark
| my words. Those LTA pages often contains a lot of personal
| information which would violate GDPR in Europe, at least
| based on what I've heard from NOYB so far. Some editors have
| expressed their concerns about this.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Long-
| term_abuse...?
| ArinaS wrote:
| On Wikipedia, every edit can be hidden so that even admins
| can't access it.[1]
|
| Therefore, if legal problems arise with these pages, they
| probably will just delete the legally problematic info and
| hide every edit done before.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Oversight
| BrtByte wrote:
| Wikipedia isn't immune to influence campaigns - honestly, no
| open platform is - but the key difference is how seriously the
| community takes it. The amount of volunteer effort that goes
| into investigating sockpuppets, enforcing sourcing standards,
| and maintaining some kind of neutrality is incredible when you
| step back and think about it.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Neutrality? I've never seen an English language wikipedia
| article on a politically controversial topic that wasn't the
| DC establishment/State Dept official take.
|
| They listed Greyzone as an unreputable new source because
| it's pro-Palestinian. When you Google the usernames of those
| who voted to ban them pro Israeli think tanks from DC come
| up. Wikipedia is a joke when it comes to politics. If you're
| lucky you can find the real contours of an issue by seeing
| who's been censored and silenced out of the article on the
| Talk page.
| immibis wrote:
| They spent basically two years rejecting the renaming of
| "Israel-Hamas war" into "Gaza war" (it has now been
| renamed) even though the full scope of the war was apparent
| after just a few months. It was very important to maintain
| the narrative that the only victims were Hamas. They
| protected the page so you couldn't request a rename without
| being a verified user.
| ordu wrote:
| > Wikipedia is a joke when it comes to politics.
|
| What isn't a joke when it comes to politics? The only way
| to be informed about politics I have found is to regularly
| read news from several different media sites paying careful
| attention when they talk about the same issue. This way you
| learn their biases and how to interpret their news
| articles, you get the ability to guess what really happens,
| not just their takes on it.
| dlubarov wrote:
| As a long-term editor, this is pretty off base. The
| discussion [1] that led to Grayzone being deprecated had
| almost nothing to do with Israel/Palestine. Meanwhile most
| Israel/Palestine articles are driven by Al Jazeera, Middle
| East Eye, and similar sources, while many Jewish sources
| (ADL, Jewish Chronicle, NGO Monitor, etc) are banned or
| restricted.
|
| One example of a heavily debated neutrality issue was the
| opening paragraph of the Zionism article, which ended up
| like this. Surely noone would call this remotely pro-
| Israel? "Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in
| Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few
| Palestinian Arabs as possible."
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source
| s/Not...
| eqvinox wrote:
| You're saying it yourself: it's a _target_ of influence
| campaigns. The Wikimedia Foundation is not a source of them
| itself.
|
| The non-profit public benefit service they provide is the
| openly editable encyclopaedia wiki, not its contents or its
| editors. The same safe harbour provisions as with other content
| hosters should (and need to) apply as with YouTube hosting
| questionable videos.
| ksajadi wrote:
| I am not sure if I agree with the statement "the only reason we
| know about them is because Wikipedia fights them". I am sure
| there are admins and accounts on wikipedia who work hard to
| protect the sites integrity. However, I know a lot of the
| misinformation on wikipedia pages, specific to the Middle East
| were uncovered by organizations outside of the site and with
| quotes of the content that have found their way to the site, so
| in those cases, the internal checks and balances of wikipedia
| didn't work.
| TomK32 wrote:
| What a contrast to the early days: 22 years ago I was simply
| appointed admin on the German language Wikipedia when there was
| simply a lack of hands doing deletions and stuff. No voting,
| just a show of hand a lots of trust put into people only know
| by what they write and discuss on this new website.
|
| A few years of work (10k edits) and a few years of dwindling
| participation on my side someone noticed that quite a few of
| those early admins never faced a vote at all. The process had
| re-elections when 25 wikipedians asked for a vote, took them
| almost three weeks, I got that treatment as well in 2009.
| Indeed someone had enough time to dig through and find a
| discussion where I wasn't the nicest person (at the same time
| writing and discussing on Wikipedia help me a lot to develop a
| healthy social skill). Well, I didn't use the admin rights
| anymore so I rather resigned before someone dug even deeper ;)
|
| For security reasons those admin rights should be time limited
| anyways.
| lxgr wrote:
| In my experience (of also roughly 20 years ago), the German
| Wikipedia is as dysfunctional as it gets.
|
| The primary goal of the admins seemed to be to gatekeep, in
| particular to keep "unencyclopedic" content out at all cost,
| e.g. by contesting the very existence of articles on
| individual episodes of TV shows, software, or video games,
| which are all completely uncontroversial on the English one.
|
| "Just because it's relevant on en.wikipedia.org doesn't mean
| it's relevant over here" is a sentence I heard frequently.
| Keeping the number of articles down was seen as an active
| ideal.
|
| For me, it was a great motivator to improve my English, and
| I've only ever looked back when the English version didn't
| have a lot of information on some Germany-specific topic.
| Last time I checked, they only just accepted the redesign
| (the one that greatly improves legibility), after vetoing it
| for years. What a psychotic way to run an encyclopedia...
| barotalomey wrote:
| > by contesting the very existence of articles on
| individual episodes of TV shows, software, or video games,
| which are all completely uncontroversial on the English
| one.
|
| In the first year or so of the english Wikipedia, I was
| very engaged in adding content but never really tried to
| engage with the community. I started adding articles about
| my topic of interest at the time, which was New York 80s
| punk and hardcore bands. Soon, I had the lot of my articles
| deleted for "lacking relevance".
|
| I haven't been contributing much since.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| Is the eV still in that renovated building near the Chinese
| embasy, playing cards every Wednesday near the river?
| elcapitan wrote:
| The German Wikipedia is the main reason I keep my country
| setting on DDG off. That way I get en.wikipedia.org results
| first.
|
| > Last time I checked, they only just accepted the redesign
| (the one that greatly improves legibility), after vetoing
| it for years. What a psychotic way to run an encyclopedia
|
| I once asked on (then) Twitter why they kept that crappy
| design, and got the most depressing NIMBY answers on even
| making the new design optional. That really killed any rest
| of hope I had for the German Wikipedia. Glad to hear that
| at least that tiny improvement made it.
| dustingetz wrote:
| what does that have to do with tax classification
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Keri Smith, a former hardcore SJW activist, has documented how
| she and others daily targeted people through Wikipedia edits
| for preparing a cancel. It's quite fascinating the extend of
| organization and process they used.
|
| For instance, they would not directly edit the target's page,
| but start working 2 links removed from it, compromise the
| "friend of a friend of a friend", and then work towards the
| actual target and finally try to cancel the target through
| "association with " accusations.
| maigret wrote:
| What is SJW? Please avoid using unclear acronyms.
| albumen wrote:
| Social Justice Warrior. The acronym has been around for a
| long time.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| That doesn't mean what everyone is familiar with it. For
| example I've been around since internet slang first
| developed a life of its own. And yet I wasn't immediately
| familiar with SJW either.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| By the time you commented you could have at least
| searched for the acronym or asked AI.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I wasn't the one who asked.
|
| But even if I were, you're not accounting for the
| cumulative benefit saving others from having to research
| the same acronym.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Let's get real, they can search. HN doesn't have a repo
| of acronyms and this isn't a technical document where you
| need to spell out the acronym on first use
| barotalomey wrote:
| In 2025, most online users have learned how to look
| things up using.. the internet.
| maigret wrote:
| Of course, but if everyone does it, it is very
| inconvenient to read and in some case leaves unnecessary
| space for misunderstanding. Usually, acronyms are
| followed by the full wording the first time they are
| mentioned.
| barotalomey wrote:
| > Usually, acronyms are followed by the full wording the
| first time they are mentioned.
|
| I'm sure they did at the time this (SJW) acronym got
| popular. That was maybe 10-15 years ago.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| SWJ wasn't a popular acronym 10 years (let alone 15) ago
| in the online communities I hung around in. ;)
| rendaw wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SJW redirects to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice_warrior
| jijijijij wrote:
| While this is true, I don't think I have heard/read it
| once in more than a year, maybe five, actually. It's not
| used anymore. Pretty much anyone not MAGA has become
| "leftist", these days.
| maigret wrote:
| Thanks. Seems to be a US-centric word from my
| understanding then.
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| Usually hijacked and paid by quatar, russia or china. Its
| always fascinating how fast that im against injustice at
| home chute leads to "i support a monstrous regime
| abroad".
| jimmaswell wrote:
| The cognitive dissonance can be disturbing. A frightening
| number of people never grew past a child's logic of "X
| has problems -> X is the worst thing ever -> if I hate X
| then that must mean I love the opposite of X" and
| suddenly they're a trans activist (which is a good thing,
| to be clear) frothing at the mouth in absolutist terms to
| defend people who want them dead..
|
| Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but as far
| as I can appraise the situation, Israel sucks and has a
| somewhat higher incidence of committing war crimes than
| other western countries, but Palestine would suck even
| worse if you switched their places around, the only thing
| holding them back from committing much worse atrocities
| being lack of resources, going by their human rights
| record and direct statements from their leadership.
| Israel isn't executing anyone for being gay for example.
| But out of many factors, one being some left leaning
| people taking the mental shortcut that the anti-American
| option is always more intellectual and "owns the
| conservatives", we've ended up in this nonsense scenario.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Social Justice Warrior but it's worth noting that actually
| the acronym has cultural connotations that the words alone
| do not
| brookst wrote:
| The great thing about SJW is it tells you even more about
| the person using the term that the target. It's your
| grandparents' equivalent of "woke mind virus".
| jowea wrote:
| It's the word for "woke activist" from 10 years ago.
| plorg wrote:
| It's a term for anyone from a centrist liberal to a
| Greenpeace activist, with the implication that having left-
| of-median politics and understanding race and demography as
| anything other than biological essentialism makes you an
| utter loon. It is really only used by people who would
| describe themselves as "anti-woke".
|
| The person he's referencing, specifically, got really
| pilled by evangelical Christianity and believes that anyone
| advocating for liberal causes has created a religion out of
| nebulous cultural values, unmoored from god. She blames the
| "cult of SJW" for the kind of character assassination she
| claims to have done, that it was the force of rootless
| bolshevism that was responsible for her supposedly
| destroying lives and careers by making up(?) relationships
| and cultural crimes on whole webs of Wikipedia articles.
| moomin wrote:
| I'm calling Frank Abnagale on this woman until proven
| otherwise.
| andybak wrote:
| Skimming this: https://www.kerismith.net/
|
| and seeing some of the people she proudly mentions - it seems
| like she's just switched cults.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Nah she's just going where the money is. Look at how that
| page is all about telling her core market what they want to
| hear, and that she's happy to accept their money for a
| speaking engagement.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| It reminds me a bit of campus preachers. They would go to
| great lengths to describe just how fallen they were before
| they found Jesus. By inflating how fallen they were, it
| made for a more dramatic, and to some people, more
| affirming message of the power of the Gospel. I don't doubt
| the people felt transformed, but they were motivated my
| narrative purpose as much as by factual history.
| ralfd wrote:
| > But it didn't matter, because an anonymous individual also
| spent years pursuing Eostrix, assembling evidence
|
| Wait, why? If the edits were so clean and uncontroversial, what
| was suspicious?
|
| Sorry for asking, the wiki talk-page links very chaotic to
| read.
| jjmarr wrote:
| There are little behavioural nuances in your writing or the
| timezones/subjects in which you edit. Using multiple accounts
| is mostly forbidden by Wikipedia policy, unlike most
| websites, so just proving the link can be enough.
|
| Icewhiz is a bad example because a lot of the evidence is
| non-public now (there's a cabal of CheckUsers approved by the
| Wikimedia Foundation who deal non-public cases). A simpler
| one is Lieutenant of Melkor/CaradhrasAiguo. Lieutenant of
| Melkor was banned in 2014, CaradhrasAiguo was made in 2015,
| and in 2020 someone linked the two accounts:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investiga.
| ..
|
| > Editor interaction tool shows 2691 common pages. This is
| because both have been AWB power users in several same topic
| areas. However, there are numerous specific commonalities
| with extreme detail related to American cities, Chinese
| cities, weather templates and airports.
|
| > Both used navigational popups to revert edits which
| resulted in a non-standard date format in the edit summary.
|
| > LoM created many US city weatherbox templates. CA has been
| the only editor to do major updates in many of them.
|
| > Both have done major work with pushpins related to Chinese
| maps. 'Pushpin' is found in many edit summaries of both
| editors.
|
| > Both often removed bold text from non-English words. Both
| used edit-summaries with "debold" which I don't think is a
| real word.
|
| > Both updated snow days and precipitation days in US city
| infoboxes with almost identical edit summaries.
|
| > Both have an interest in classical music. CTRL+F for
| Beethoven, Mozart or Chopin in the editor interaction tool.
|
| They're also both named after Lord of the Rings characters.
| "Caradhras" is a mountain, "Melkor" was the most powerful
| Valar and later went by the name "Morgoth". Sauron, the
| antagonist of LotR, was his lieutenant.
| kranke155 wrote:
| The Portuguese Wikipedia does not allow the existence of
| details on corruption allegations against Portuguese or
| Brazilian politicians.
|
| There are moderators who take care of cleaning those up, then
| starting harassment against users who have posted these things.
|
| I've seen one particular page, when a corruption allegation was
| blown up against a politically connected individual, be set up
| for permanent deletion (the only way to remove a page so it
| can't be remade).
|
| They have all the time in the world and its clearly a full time
| job for them to do this, so its very hard to deal with as an
| individual editor. Hence the result has been that the
| Portuguese wikipedia has very little information on the
| corruption of Portuguese politicians, while the English
| language is full of it.
| virgulino wrote:
| I agree. The pages on Brazilian politics are often grotesque
| propaganda. There was even a famous case in which a
| slanderous and fraudulent edit on two journalists' pages was
| traced back to an IP address in Dilma's Presidential Palace
| (Dilma was Lula's hand-picked successor).
| kranke155 wrote:
| I saw horrendous violations to related to Bolsonaro related
| politicians. Seems like everybody does it then.
|
| In my case I saw that they even invent new rules if needed
| to remove things. Completely compromised.
| jjmarr wrote:
| Post some specific references. This happened to the Croatian
| Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation stepped in.
| donnachangstein wrote:
| Wikipedia has been captured by special interests.
|
| I recently watched The Silence of the Lambs, an Academy Award
| winning movie from the early 90s. Afterward, I skimmed the
| Wikipedia article to see if I missed any plot details.
|
| There is a whole section on how the movie is considered
| transphobic by some nobodies, how the director defends that it
| isn't, blah blah blah. Having just watched the film, the
| thought didn't even enter my mind. I realized that the entire
| section is irrelevant to someone seeking information about the
| movie and at its worst, an opinion piece or cleverly disguised
| political shit-stirring.
|
| Wikipedia is full of stuff like this. As a comparison I checked
| a 'real' encyclopedia (with editors) and of course not a
| mention of this, just the facts. Any attempt to delete
| irrelevant stuff from Wikipedia is closely guarded by self-
| appointed article gatekeepers because it has 'sources'.
| crazygringo wrote:
| That doesn't have anything to do with special interests.
|
| Literally nearly every Wikipedia page for a fictional work or
| creator will have a section on "controversies" or similar, if
| there have been any. Regardless of which political direction
| they go in. If it's been covered in the media or a book or
| whatever, it tends to be included.
|
| This is a good thing. It helps situate everything in a
| broader cultural context. When I look something up on
| Wikipedia, I want to know these things. It's not irrelevant
| and it's not an opinion piece.
|
| It's not like the articles takes sides. They just objectively
| describe the controversies which are real objective things
| which exist.
|
| I find it curious that you seem to want to be shielded from
| the existence of these controversies. Nobody is forcing you
| to read them. But many people do genuinely find them useful
| and informative.
| donnachangstein wrote:
| The problem is controversies can be embellished. In this
| case, the controversy focused on a minor detail among
| hundreds of others in a nearly two hour long film.
|
| Is there guidance on what makes a controversy 'notable', or
| can anything be listed there? E.g. "Nobody blogger and her
| Twitter army were upset about $thing" - does that qualify?
| Nearly anything can be controversial, or have fabricated
| controversies. You see this a lot on political articles.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't know what you mean by "embellished". Are you
| saying the statements in Wikipedia are false?
|
| And yes, obviously controversy will focus on the one
| controversial detail. There are hundreds of other details
| that are _not_ controversial, so they aren 't mentioned.
|
| I don't understand why this bothers you. The world is a
| controversial place. It's good to document these things.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| It's a post facto embellishment for modern times. When
| that movie came out, no one was saying that nor is it
| relevant or correct. We might as well put a controversy
| template on every Wikipedia page and wait for someone to
| invent a perceived injustice.
| donnachangstein wrote:
| If something is controversial to an insignificantly small
| number of people, is it by definition a controversy?
|
| Hypothetically speaking, let's say you were a famous or
| notable person. Your Wikipedia article would probably
| have a controversy section with a vague statement like,
| "Some people find crazygringo's feet objectionable."
|
| The citation would be a podcast where a guest told the
| host in an offhand comment, "I went on a date with
| crazygringo once and thought he had oddly-shaped feet."
|
| Any attempt to delete this statement, even by you with
| full knowledge of your own feet, would be reverted as
| 'vandalism'.
|
| This is Wikipedia in a nutshell.
|
| Articles for celebrities and political figures are full
| of this garbage, which merely 10 years ago we would
| consider exclusively tabloid fodder.
|
| I've read articles on complete nobody actresses with a
| controversy section that listed any and every political
| opinion she's ever said. It's a lame attempt to
| extrapolate (or reimagine) someone's entire personality
| from a few offhand statements made once in her life.
|
| It's low quality content like this that undermines
| Wikipedia. Unfortunately it's all over the site and
| growing by the day.
| eezing wrote:
| So don't use Wikipedia then. Problem solved.
| eezing wrote:
| Have you actually tried to tag, edit, or leave comments when
| you come across questionable content?
|
| I've found that the system works pretty well. It's not
| perfect, but I can't think of a better solution.
| thayne wrote:
| > There have been several major pro-Palestinian ones recently,
| which is probably why this letter has been sent.
|
| I suspect the real reason is more likely due to Trump not
| liking pages related to himself, including the page on the Jan
| 6 attack.
| vFunct wrote:
| Letter should be thrown in the trash. Let him bring up charges if
| they feel a crime has been committed.
| vFunct wrote:
| I have a question on non-profits in general. What exactly is the
| advantage of being incorporated as a non-profit, when all you
| have to do to not be taxed as a for-profit corporation is spend
| all your money each year and not show any profit? It seems you'd
| have more privacy as a for-profit corporation, since you don't
| have to disclose donors.
| hollerith wrote:
| If I donate to a 501(c)(3) organization, the donation gets very
| favorable treatment by the tax code, reducing my taxes
| (provided I have income that can be cancelled out by the
| donation).
| 0x457 wrote:
| hmm, please correct me if I'm wrong, but donations just
| decrease your tax liability by the amount you've donated.
| It's the same as if you donated your pre-tax dollars to
| 501(c)(3) org.
| toast0 wrote:
| The second sentence is mostly accurate, but the first
| implies something else.
|
| If your taxable income was $50,000 and you donate $10,000,
| and (some other conditions) your taxable income would now
| be $40,000; same as if you managed to move the money pre-
| tax.
|
| However. If you donate aprechiated capital assets, you get
| two benefits. Your taxable income is offset by the value of
| the asset, and the capital gains disappear. It's much
| better than selling the asset and donating the proceeds;
| and it's handy if you don't have good records for your cost
| basis.
| bluGill wrote:
| Right but you get to choose where your money goes.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| Eligibility to receive grants & tax deductible donations,
| public perception & credibility
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Charity non-profits -- 501c3 organizations -- have donations
| that are tax deductible for their donors. Other kinds of
| nonprofits have other advantages to their stakeholders, but
| usually the attention around "nonprofits" is specifically about
| 501c3 orgs.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Nonprofits have privacy too:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Alabama
|
| That said, there are a lot of operational advantages to being a
| for-profit corporation. Chan-Zuckerberg is organized this way.
| Other nonprofits try to have it both ways where the for-profit
| entity operates the business while being owned by a nonprofit.
| It has not worked out great for OpenAI. Patagonia converted to
| this model recently.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Is this the start of the shakedown by Trump to start allowing
| misinformation?
| moshegramovsky wrote:
| I fear the answer is yes. Did you hear about the "gala dinner"
| for the top 220 holders of his meme coin? I wish I was joking.
|
| Power corrupts...
| tintor wrote:
| Wikipedia needs decentralized hosting infra, away from any single
| country. It is way too important.
| imglorp wrote:
| Start backing it up now. Partisan influence could be as minor
| as forcing some edits or as major as pulling their DNS. Every
| authoritarian in the world follows this same playbook. Over
| started looking into kiwix.
|
| IA is at risk too.
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| You can download backups of Wikipedia articles at
| dumps.wikimedia.org. For the IA they had a plan to move to
| Canada back in 2017.
| bawolff wrote:
| Decentralization typically means instead of being subject to
| one crazy government you are subject to multiple and have to
| deal with all.
|
| I think wikipedia's approach of centralizing in one place but
| allowing downloading backups and making all sourcecode and
| server config public is better. If the worst happens anyone can
| setup a fork.
| dewey wrote:
| The hosting isn't important, it's easy to move or have an
| offline copy already. The access to fundraising is much more
| important and more complicated.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| I didn't immediately consider this, but I think I agree. In a
| weird way, the access and reach wikipedia has is a lot more
| valuable from that perspective. And if there is one thing
| that the US government can do is restrict that in ways that
| would effectively neuter it.
| k4rli wrote:
| One of the few truly good sites remaining. I'm afraid
| decentralization will take away the credibility even further
| but also would be very sad to see it fall.
| BrtByte wrote:
| Moving to decentralized hosting would be extremely hard without
| compromising performance, reliability, or the ability to
| moderate effectively
| pachorizons wrote:
| Remember as you read more and more news like this that many of
| the owners of Y Combinator supported this.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Their silence now is cowardly.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| In before this thread is also flagged for being "political".
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| There's a post that the FBI arrested a judge who helped an
| illegal immigrant avoid capture during a court proceeding.
|
| 900+ upvotes
|
| - it has nothing to do with tech
|
| - it's about a hot button political issue
|
| - it helps the Republican cause.
|
| Not flagged
| YZF wrote:
| I'm just curious why you think it helps the Republican
| cause? When I saw this reported in the media my feel was
| this is something Democrats are going to latch on to
| demonstrate the government is seeking to intimidate the
| judicial branch.
|
| I guess it can have different interpretation.
|
| Either way I'd really prefer not to see this stuff on
| Hacker News. We have enough things that push people
| buttons in other places.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| HN has degraded a little since I joined some years ago.
| It is still better than most of the online fora out
| there, but you can feel the change in the posts.
| Braxton1980 wrote:
| Let me help degrade it further by asking what the purpose
| of this comment is and then asking if outside changes,
| like Trump, would be a more likely explanation for the
| change in tone
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| The purpose is the help understand current state of play.
| It used to be more purposeful, useful and meaningful for
| me to be here. If things will continue with its current
| trajectory, I will simply stop. I am not saying everyone
| will. We all have different lines after all. I am not
| sure what Trump has to do with this particular
| conversation though.
| tomhow wrote:
| The only moderator action taken on this submission was to
| prevent it from being downweighted by community flags - 5
| hours ago.
| zahlman wrote:
| The sheer amount of flagged and dead comments here -
| along with the vitriol I see in some responses to flagged
| comments that were not themselves flagged - makes me
| think this was a mistake.
| concordDance wrote:
| This entire thread is worthless social media junk food.
| hackyhacky wrote:
| Who, specifically, are you referring to; and what have they
| done or said to make you believe that they support this?
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Well, the good news is that there's a very convenient link at
| the bottom of the page here on HN for the AI startup school
| [1] which is host to a bunch of people that you should
| recognize.
|
| [1] https://events.ycombinator.com/ai-sus
| hackyhacky wrote:
| Not an answer to my question.
| intermerda wrote:
| It is actually, unless you are unable to parse
| information without being spoon fed to you.
| Spivak wrote:
| Wealthy people who could be coined liberal-tarians or just
| your average tech bro political grab bag largely backed Trump
| out of financial interest and who, imo, deluded themselves
| that the administration would be unsuccessful at "the bad
| stuff" much like his 2016 run.
|
| No amount of shouting from the rooftops that this time was
| actually different convinced anyone. I can't really blame us
| collectively, we _resoundingly_ voted for this-- it 's as
| much of a mandate you're likely to ever get in the US and
| we're in the find out stage of fucking around.
|
| Looking back on old social media posts the theme is that
| _everyone_ , supporters and not, were high on copium that
| Trump would do <list of things I like | aren't so bad> and
| the <list of truly terrible things> was just obviously crazy
| and wouldn't actually happen or were a joke.
| boxed wrote:
| Who specifically was the question.
| Spivak wrote:
| This isn't really a hard list to compile.
|
| * Paul Graham
|
| * Mark Zuckerberg
|
| * The Ghost of Elon Musk before he fell down the alt
| right pipeline and now is no longer liberal-tarian.
|
| * Sundar Pichai
|
| * Jeff Bezos
|
| * Sam Altman
|
| * Jensen Huang
|
| * Tim Cook
|
| A who's who of people who felt their businesses were
| being threatened by the Biden administration with a
| starry-eyed view of how this next round might benefit
| them and being in denial of the crazy.
| sidibe wrote:
| Many of those probably wanted Biden to win but don't want
| to antagonize Trump after he won. If I had to guess there
| at least Sundar and Bezos didn't want Trump to win
|
| Elon and his loud hangers-on in the VC community have
| made SV look a lot more MAGA than it is
| hackyhacky wrote:
| Trying to psychoanalyze billionaires from afar is a
| losing game.
|
| If we're going to judge these folks, judge them by their
| words and actions.
| sidibe wrote:
| Most of them didn't have words one way or another during
| the campaign, the post I replied was suggesting they got
| what they want, I guess that was some psychoanalysis too
| tomhow wrote:
| The only YC figure who espouses any position on U.S. federal
| politics is Paul Graham, who loudly campaigns against the
| current administration almost every day on Twitter.
| frob wrote:
| Hi Tom.
|
| You're burning your credibility here fast as the new
| moderator. dang derived his respect as an admin from not
| getting into fights in the threads. It additonaly tarnishes
| your credibility as you're doing this in defense of your
| employer. You look like a rage-poster who has the same
| response copied and ready to go from thread to thread.
|
| Please take a moment to step back and examine if this is the
| image you want to be projecting as the official
| representative of YC and HN.
| 93po wrote:
| Alternatively, hi tom, you're a human being with opinions
| and you're allowed to discuss whatever you like on this
| site just like anyone else.
|
| i think dang is successful at moderation in part because he
| does have a reputation and track record of being fair and
| unbiased in his moderation, and i do agree showing bias in
| conversations can make people question moderation decisions
| more, but i'm not sure tom is showing bias by including
| information relevant to people he knows, and i think he can
| both discuss however he likes while also being transparent
| and genuine in unbiased moderation
|
| tom has and does stay out of debates and in-depth
| conversations around HN related stuff. he's simply dropping
| some information in to dispel disinformation, which i think
| is reasonable
| samtheDamned wrote:
| Administration and participation in arguments or opinion
| based debates should not coincide. Using a personal
| account for personal issues instead of using an
| administrator is more respectable in my opinion.
| pvg wrote:
| It's been better for HN for the mods to treat the people
| they interact with as people and vice versa.
| zahlman wrote:
| It is not "getting into fights", and does not "look like
| rage-posting", to politely correct a falsehood.
| lobotomizer wrote:
| That's such a weirdly blatant lie.
|
| Jared Friedman endorsing DOGE
|
| https://x.com/snowmaker/status/1886672263216504853
|
| Garry Tan hanging with a DOGE flunky
|
| https://x.com/jgebbia/status/1907181994695332295
| g-b-r wrote:
| All US organizations should seriously consider moving out of the
| country, at this point; it might become harder to do it in the
| future
| seltzered_ wrote:
| Haven't read the article in full yet, but it reminded me of this
| nice excerpt on Wikipedia and truth and the best of what we know:
|
| https://emilygorcenski.com/post/on-truth/
|
| ""But one of the most significant differences critical for moving
| from polarization to productivity, is that the Wikipedians who
| write these articles aren't actually focused on finding the
| truth. They're working for something that's a little more
| attainable, which is the best of what we can know right now. "
| sgnelson wrote:
| Serious question, after the past few months, how can anyone deny
| that America is heading in a totalitarian direction? Those of you
| who believe that all of the many actions that have happened in
| the past few weeks are "okay", please explain your perspective
| without resorting to "whataboutism" or cherry picking only one or
| two of the things that have occurred lately. Because from what
| I'm sitting, this is not behavior of a government based on
| democratic ideals.
| YZF wrote:
| I'm not an American so I'm kind of looking at this from the
| side but I'll try to engage here...
|
| What does "heading in a totalitarian direction" mean in this
| context exactly?
|
| I'm not trying to use this as a "cherry pick" but this was news
| from today: "Trump administration reverses abrupt terminations
| of foreign students' US visa registrations
|
| DOJ announced the reversal in federal court after weeks of
| intense scrutiny by courts and dozens of restraining orders
| issued by judges."
|
| How is this consistent with your theory/hypothesis?
|
| I think what's important is not to look solely at evidence
| supporting your idea. The important thing is to find things
| that disprove your idea. That's the scientific method. I.e.
| finding something that weakens your hypothesis is what you need
| to look for. If you're not able to find anything at all
| disproving your theory then we should be really worried but I
| think there are actually many things going on that are
| consistent with a functioning democracy. Keep in democracy
| doesn't necessarily mean acting in ways that you consider to be
| good. You might think it's crazy to make deep cross cuts in the
| government but if this is what people voted for then maybe that
| can play out. Yes, it seems arbitrary and maybe important
| things are being cut, which is no different than what you'll
| see when companies do layoffs. But there's also a lot of
| resilience. At least I don't think it's anti-democratic to run
| on a platform of reducing government costs and then act on it.
| If anything the opposite. It might be really bad, but
| democratic, or it might end up being a good idea. Another
| example is you probably think it's crazy for the US to abandon
| Ukraine. I don't like that either but the US government can set
| foreign policy and it was reasonably clear that's the way they
| were going to go before the elections. Is this good for the
| world? I don't think so. Is it anti-democratic. I don't think
| so either. How will it play out? Who knows.
|
| I would say that Trump is pushing the limits of presidential
| powers more than others before him. Some of the actions his
| administration is taking are borderline anti-democratic and
| borderline legal. But many of them are actually legal and some
| others will work their way through the courts. Even the Supreme
| Court which is generally right leaning has rebuked Trump and
| will likely not blindly side with him.
|
| I'm not a fan of this administration but at least so far it
| doesn't look like it's the end of democracy in America. That
| seems like fear mongering. I think the "opposition" would be
| better off trusting democracy more, highlighting how its
| policies contrast with the current government policies, the
| problems it would solve better for Americans compared with the
| current government etc. This is probably going to end up being
| better for America's democracy in the long run. The erosion of
| democracy is partly due to the incessant attacking and
| divisiveness/polarization. Focus on common ground which I think
| is actually larger than what most think and trying to let
| better ideas win vs. being critical of everything is better.
| Not that you shouldn't speak out against obviously bad actions
| but it seems we are just 100% focused on attacks.
|
| The US states also have a lot of power. The citizenry have a
| lot of power. Senate/congress. Courts. I think you guys will be
| fine but let's see how it goes. To me the bigger risk is the
| loss of common ground and polarization. If you have half the
| country basically feeling the other half is the enemy rather
| than debate policies that's something that can lead to trouble.
| soundwave106 wrote:
| If you think of authoritarianism as more of a "spread" and
| not as a black-or-white thing, you can see where the problems
| with "Trumpism" are.
|
| Using the terms of The Economist's "democracy index", I see
| the United States under Trump 2.0 as a denigrated "flawed
| democracy". There is even some danger of the United States
| backsliding towards a "hybrid regime". Hybrid regimes combine
| some aspects of electoral democracy with some aspects of
| authoritarianism. Prominent examples of hybrid regimes
| include Turkey and El Salvador.
|
| Maybe we won't get that far -- strong federalism will help
| here. But while The Economist has ranked the United States as
| a borderline "flawed democracy" for the last several years, I
| suspect 2025's rankings will be considerably lower. My "gut
| feel" is that the United States could end up ranked close to
| present-day Hungary, or Poland under PiS. In both cases from
| what I remember, democracy still was present, but
| considerable damage was done via institutional attacks on the
| press and the universities. A US attorney general arresting
| judges for what seems like a minor dispute (but one involving
| migrants) seems like a pretty big flag that some degree of
| authoritarianism has taken hold. As is the erosion of due
| process involving immigrants.
|
| Long run, I think this institutional damage being done by
| Trump is the most concerning aspect of Trump 2.0. Trump is
| actively damaging future engines of American growth (research
| science and universities). My guess, too, is that the anti-
| immigrant hostility might damage the previous paradigm where
| many of the brightest in the world came to America for both
| research and careers. There is a significant core of American
| voters that supports this stuff; the most vocal of this core
| in fact cheer on the arrest of judges and actively attack
| technologies where the conspiracies overwhelm the facts.
| (Witness the recent push of a few states to actually restrict
| mRNA vaccines for... reasons? Nothing solid that I can think
| of.) I do not think that this element will go away after
| Trump moves on.
| morkalork wrote:
| When you take a step back and look at what is happening as a
| whole, it's definitely not looking good.
|
| I was going to start listing examples but that's not the point
| now. And even if something specific is undone weeks after
| because of outcry it's still a steady two steps forward, one
| step back, progression in a nasty direction.
|
| I've read some books, seen some documentaries, learned some
| history. What's happening is very obvious and anyone who
| doesn't also see it is either ignorant or in denial.
| mindslight wrote:
| The straightforward answer is that those supporting the
| autocratic authoritarianism want autocratic authoritarianism.
| They've been primed with decades of anti-American grievance
| politics condemning our distributed societal institutions as
| being foreign attackers, and they crave the simplicity of some
| big man with a big stick to make the complex world go away.
| They've also been primed to believe that they are supporting
| "freedom" (even though it never plays out that way in
| practice), so the more these actions reek of autocratic
| authoritarianism the more aggressive they get in their
| rationalizations.
| sedev wrote:
| I am going to say a thing I say a lot: please edit Wikipedia. It
| is easier to do than you probably think! Wikipedia's biggest
| constraint is no longer money or server space, it's editor time
| (especially since LLM-based garbage is a force multiplier on
| disruptive editing that does not have a corresponding improvement
| to good-faith editing). Any topic area you know about and/or care
| about can benefit from your attention. Fixing typos is valuable.
| Adding photos is valuable. Flagging vandalism is valuable. Please
| edit Wikipedia.
| thallium205 wrote:
| Why is their editor so awful to use?
| arrowsmith wrote:
| I don't know, but it's definitely not a lack of funding.
| card_zero wrote:
| Designers happened.
| brightball wrote:
| I always wonder why certain topics are locked.
| sedev wrote:
| For most things the talk pages will explain why it is
| restricted, but if someone forgot to put a notice there,
| there's also a giant list of "the following topic areas
| reliably attract disruptive editing and get people angry, so
| admins move much more quickly to restrict editing than they
| would otherwise." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Gen
| eral_sanctions#Ac...
| moritonal wrote:
| I created a page, it got declined because the guy who two films
| have been made about didn't count as important enough. I kind
| of get it, but still, did kill the energy slightly.
| strogonoff wrote:
| If you care about a topic and want to edit Wikipedia but do
| not want to deal with the process, you can simply talk about
| what you want to change on the discussion page. Is there an
| equivalent workaround when it comes to creating new pages?
| bawolff wrote:
| I suppose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_
| for_creatio... is the closest equivalent but not really the
| same thing.
| sedev wrote:
| You can create a page as an anonymous user. The content and
| subject is much, more more important than the fact of being
| created as an anonymous user. If that's the process you
| want to avoid, there's also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W
| ikipedia:Articles_for_creatio... but that one is more
| geared towards people who are already engaged with
| Wikipedia. An outsider saying "well, someone, but not me,
| should do something about this problem," is just as welcome
| on Wikipedia as it is anywhere else.
| terribleperson wrote:
| The notability requirement is a real bane, but it also kind
| of makes sense when there's really insufficient manpower for
| the articles they already have. But then, maybe they'd have
| more manpower if they loosened the notability requirement.
| flask_manager wrote:
| I have in the past, but three things put me off doing so now;
|
| Pages where I can spot inconsistencies are often controversial,
| with long dense discussion pages, edits here are almost
| impossible beyond trivial details. I dont mind fixing trivia,
| but not if the actual improvement I think I can make is
| rejected.
|
| There is a bit of a deletionist crusade to keep some topics
| small, for example, Ive had interesting trivia about a cameras
| development process simply deleted. Maybe it is truly for the
| better, but it is not really that easy to add to the meat of
| the project, without someone else's approval.
|
| Third, the begging banners really feel a bit gross; I know the
| size of the endowment, and how long it would be able to sustain
| the project (forever essentially)... It really feels like the
| foundation is using the Wikipedia brand to funnel money to
| irrelevant pet causes. This really puts me off contributing.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| It really feels that way because that's what they're doing.
| There's a legit non-profit internet encyclopedia barnacled
| with a bunch of generic left wing political stuff, except the
| barnacle is bigger than the boat.
| arrowsmith wrote:
| Yeah I stopped donating to Wikipedia once I learned where
| the money goes.
|
| Even if it ends up supporting causes I agree with, why
| would I need the Wikimedia Foundation as an intermediary? I
| could just give money directly to the causes!
| webstrand wrote:
| I made an edit last year, it immediately got reverted and I
| got a banner on my user page for vandalism. I complained
| about that, other people agreed with me but the person who
| reverted my edits never responded. So there it sits.
| paradite wrote:
| Seems like the story of Stackoverflow.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| Would be curious to learn what you edited.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| If there's a dispute and the person you're having a dispute
| with never materialises to argue their side of the
| argument, you're fine to just revert the banner.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| How are people supposed to understand these hard to
| follow and shifting rules?
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| The base rules are actually not very complicated.
|
| But any time you try to write them down, people will come
| along and interpret them to their own advantage,
| sometimes outright in the opposite direction. That's a
| people problem, to some extent, not purely a Wikipedia
| problem.
|
| (BRD is my favorite pet-peeve)
| firesteelrain wrote:
| I am going to use this at work!
| oarsinsync wrote:
| > The base rules are actually not very complicated.
|
| > But any time you try to write them down, people will
| come along and interpret them to their own advantage,
| sometimes outright in the opposite direction.
|
| I think this a feature/bug of a (litigious) society that
| works on the letter of the law rather than the spirit of
| the law.
| technothrasher wrote:
| The only few times I tried to make small edits, typo
| corrections, or similar, they just got immediately reverted
| as vandalism. So when I found a page that is largely wrong
| about a relatively obscure historical figure that I
| actually know a lot about and have plenty of source
| material for, I didn't really feel motivated to put the
| work in to clean it up.
| stogot wrote:
| I made a small edit to fix a mistake once and it didn't
| get called vandalism but I sort of got a harsh message
| telling I did it wrong and didn't follow processes
|
| There must be some admin-level expectations of how things
| should be done but the editor flow gives you zero warning
| or indication. This was a while back so maybe they
| changed the flow
| dharmab wrote:
| I've had my edits similarly mass reverted with an unkind
| message.
| arjie wrote:
| For reasons unknown, I am much better than many at
| navigating this:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40655989
|
| https://x.com/arjie/status/1847046183342297498?s=46
|
| If you share with me what your change is I might be able to
| get it done.
| YZF wrote:
| I've also edited random things in the past. Like inaccuracies
| in Comp.Sci. topics.
|
| I used to like Wikipedia but I'm changing my mind. One thing
| amongst many others was seeing some company that competed
| with the startup I worked in basically introduce marketing
| material into the site. It just feels like it's too big and
| there are too many interests that want to distort things. I
| was surprised to see some article recently removed
| effectively rewriting history and directing to some
| alternative version. I just checked again and it's been
| restored but it just seems like the wild west.
|
| I'd need some serious convincing to restore my trust in it.
| There are still some good technical/science articles I guess.
| It kind of sucks that instead of getting more reliable
| information on the Internet we're trending towards not being
| to trust anything. It's not clear how we fix this since
| reliability can not be equal to popularity.
| bawolff wrote:
| > It just feels like it's too big and there are too many
| interests that want to distort things. I was surprised to
| see some article recently removed effectively rewriting
| history and directing to some alternative version. I just
| checked again and it's been restored but it just seems like
| the wild west.
|
| In fairness, this does mean the system is working.
| YZF wrote:
| Yeah- Maybe it's "eventually working". It's hard to trust
| when it seems so fluid. Maybe there needs to be some
| mechanics to make it harder to change. Something like
| being able to suggest changes/corrections but having
| those come out on some schedule after a review? (thinking
| software release process here). Quarterly Wikipedia
| releases? Creating some "core" of Wikipedia that is
| subject to tougher editorial standards?
|
| Not sure.
| terribleperson wrote:
| Harder to change doesn't make it more or less correct,
| just means wrong information sticks around longer.
| Because revision history is kept and changes are instant,
| it's easy to fix bad changes. For topics that see
| extensive astroturfing, they can be restricted.
| JimDabell wrote:
| It's worth remembering that the entire point of a wiki is
| that it's quick and easy to make a change (the name means
| "quick" in Hawaiian). Being quick and easy to change was
| the defining quality of Wikipedia and its advantage over
| more rigid traditional encyclopaedias. These days editing
| Wikipedia seems like you have to fight bureaucracy and
| rules lawyering, and doesn't seem very wiki-like at all.
| bawolff wrote:
| Its definitely an eventual consistency kind of model.
|
| There was some attempts at change review (called "pending
| changes") that is used on very continous articles, but it
| never really scaled that well. I think its more popular
| on german wikipedia.
|
| Wikipedia is so dominant that it has kind of smoothered
| all alternative models. Personally i feel like its kind
| of like democracy: the worst system except for all the
| other systems. All things are transient though, i'm sure
| eventually someone will come up with something superior
| that will take over, just like wikipedia took over from
| encyclopedia briticana.
| card_zero wrote:
| Mechanics like that exist for when warring over a page
| escalates. See the old essay (20 years old now!) "The
| Wrong Version":
| https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wrong_Version
| intended wrote:
| It will unnerve you to know, that this is the state of
| the art, and the information environment we run in, is
| incredibly fragile at the speeds at which it is moving.
|
| It may also hearten you to know, that small, consistent
| actions like yours, make these collective systems run.
| II2II wrote:
| > It's hard to trust when it seems so fluid.
|
| Perhaps we should trust it more _because it is fluid_ and
| that fluidity is documented (see the history and talk
| tabs for any given article). Historically, reputable
| sources depended upon, to a very large degree, the
| authority of the author. The reader typically had little
| to no insight into what was generally agreed upon and
| where there was some debate. How the Wikipedia exposes
| that may be imperfect, but it is better than nothing.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Basically every other complaint in this thread is that
| editing is impossible because everything is reverted.
| Your issue seems like an impossible one to cleanly solve
| 20after4 wrote:
| I think the "deletionist" tendency is one of the biggest
| problems with Wikipedia. At least it's the main thing that
| prevents me from making significant contributions. I say
| tendency, but maybe it really is more of a crusade. Deletion
| and rejection definitely seem to be the default
| "predisposition." I've seen a lot of examples of apparently
| well meaning contributors being pushed away by the need to
| establish "notability" for a subject and the expectation that
| all information must be referenced to a fairly limited number
| of approved reliable sources. These are norms which have been
| built over a long period of time so it would be incredibly
| difficult to change them now.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Exactly. It makes it basically impossible to get niche
| industry/trade information and history onto wikipedia
| unless it was so newsworthy it's covered everywhere.
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| Yet when I (or others) are trying to raise the issue on
| certain Reddit communities in addition to Lemmy people
| there still prefer to bury their heads in the sand. Often
| they'll simply resort to personal attacks and so on just
| to avoid facing the fact that Wikipedia is not as
| infalliable as they think at all.
|
| Example:
|
| https://lemmy.world/comment/14158030
| Animats wrote:
| That's a feature. Each article requires future attention
| and adds load.
|
| Most of the important articles were in the first 100,000.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| If that's the intention, fine. But don't be surprised
| when no one but the most committed politicians want to
| bother trying to contribute to the project.
| zbobet2012 wrote:
| I've had basic facts about mathematics which are wrong
| deleted in revisions by editors with no knowledge of the
| subject beyond having asked ChatGPT (which repeats the wrong
| shit on Wikipedia). It's hard to be worth it. Wikipedia's
| biggest problem is the editors.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| Wikipedia is really, really bad at mathematics. The tone is
| all over the place, from "plagiarized from an undergrad
| textbook" to "crackpot with an axe to grind against
| Cantor."
| tonymet wrote:
| I tried volunteering and contributed a few thousand edits, and
| ended up brigaded into hours of silly reviews by sock puppets
| and their crony admins. The bureaucracy is nuttier than a Monty
| python sketch. Endless futile debates on talk pages.
|
| It's not supposed to have many rules (according to the Jimbo
| gospel), but admins apply policy pages as law , and given how
| many inane and convoluted policies there are, you can be
| censured for practically anything with the right quote. You can
| see these sockpuppet brigades watching and pouncing on the edit
| history of any semi controversial page.
|
| It's a pathetic monoculture that lacks any self awareness or
| sense of introspection. Critical discussions are quickly shut
| down and the authors are put into a penalty box.
|
| Leadership needs to address the power dynamics, and come up
| with a better self regulating structure. Editors need to
| identify themselves and their agenda. Networks & brigades need
| to be monitored and shutdown using activity tracking.
|
| Wikipedia's social network is operating with 1990s era
| protocols but their influence via syndication on every common
| news surface means they are way too influential. Google, Alexa,
| LLMs and mainstream media all syndicate Wikipedia content as
| gospel. But the content is completely unregulated.
|
| And don't get me started on Wikimedia Foundation.
| bagels wrote:
| Why? Bots reverse every edit.
| nulld3v wrote:
| You can usually just revert the revert if your edit was
| legitimate. I think the bot will say this too in the message
| it sends you.
| t1E9mE7JTRjf wrote:
| Tried many times, nothing sticks. Lots of resistance.
| leephillips wrote:
| Please do not edit, write for, read, or cite Wikipedia. If you
| care about or know about a topic, consider writing a book or
| article about it.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Understand the sentiment. Less reasonable people that edit
| Wikipedia will continue to make it a hellscape for the rest.
| Please try to edit and create.
| Terr_ wrote:
| I tried on a completely uncontroversial page that documented a
| certain idiom and examples of where it was used.
|
| My edit was reverted, twice, because apparently there is no
| such thing as a notable source for lines from a 1980s British
| TV episode, not even a fan website that has a transcript for
| all of them. Gave up after that.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Sounds like that might have been a copyright issue? In the UK
| a transcript of a show would need permission of the
| writers/owners to be reproduced. I can see Wikipedia would be
| sensible to disallow infringing works as being bad sources.
|
| Ironically an excerpt of the script/transcript would be
| allowed by UK copyright - but a site with only excerpts would
| probably but be a good source for Wikipedia's purposes.
| card_zero wrote:
| That's an error, because episodes can be cited directly, and
| the template "cite episode" exists for this:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_episode
|
| It can be seen in use for instance on the Beavis and Butt-
| head article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beavis_and_Butt-
| Head where the citation looks like this:
|
| "Werewolves of Highland". Beavis and Butt-Head. Season 8.
| Episode 1. October 27, 2011. MTV.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > please edit Wikipedia. It is easier to do than you probably
| think!
|
| Last time I tried to do that, I flagged a citation that went to
| a book saying the opposite of what wikipedia was citing it in
| support of as "failed verification".
|
| This attracted the attention of an editor, who showed up to
| revert my flag, explaining that as long as the book exists,
| that's good enough.
|
| Wikipedia could improve noticeably by just preventing the
| existing editors from making edits.
| j4coh wrote:
| I've tried, but every article even the most inconsequential
| seems to have an angry bird in the roost enforcing whatever
| their particular vision of the article is.
| Hamuko wrote:
| It's even worse when you add a source and you get reverted
| for reasons quite clearly disproven in your source. I had to
| make a single edit three times because it got undone twice by
| two separate administrators. A less stubborn person would've
| just given up on the first baseless revert and never edited
| Wikipedia again.
| undersuit wrote:
| Edits are public so other members of the community can
| eventually make a case against or for the actions of a
| dedicated maintainer. Keep trying.
| vasco wrote:
| Sounds like stackoverflow defenders. I'm another person who
| tried about 5-7 times over the years to do larger
| improvements all for it to go to waste. Minor edits many
| times survive but even those I stopped doing because of the
| sour effect of the larger ones getting denied.
| undersuit wrote:
| Thank you for the personal anecdote.
| j4coh wrote:
| Honestly I have more valuable things to do with my time.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I've been an editor since 2004. It's getting really, really
| hard now. Like, it is really off-putting and no longer
| enjoyable.
| Paracompact wrote:
| Curious, as a longtime editor, what's gotten harder for you
| recently?
|
| As a casual, very infrequent editor, I echo everyone else's
| complaints that it's intimidating to have your additions
| reverted by the old guard who seem to have an increasingly
| particular vision of the site.
| joenot443 wrote:
| 21 years of editing, that's awesome! I'm curious though,
| what's changed? If I were to maybe guess, I'd imagine it
| coincides with the rising temperature of the online culture
| war?
| klntsky wrote:
| I don't want to contribute to this giant propaganda machine by
| making it more valuable. Structural problems must be fixed
| first.
|
| "If your solution consists of 'everyone should just X', you
| don't have a solution"
| sokoloff wrote:
| {{Citation needed}}
|
| /s
| tim333 wrote:
| People say "propaganda machine" but I have yet to see much
| example of that. The Trumpists don't like it because it fact
| checks their lies but I'm not sure it's fair to call that
| propaganda? Any examples like a link to an article or section
| that you feel is propaganda?
| Animats wrote:
| I used to edit Wikipedia actively. I was was active on the
| conflict of interest notice board and involved in pushing back
| against a few self-promotional scams. The worst one involved
| the "binary options" industry, before it was shut down. "Better
| Place", a hype-based electric car startup that went bankrupt,
| was another.
|
| A few years previous, most heavy promotion on Wikipedia was
| music-related. Then business hype dominated. Then political
| hype took over. Trying to push back in the "post truth" era is
| valuable but painful.
|
| It was worth doing for a while. But not for too long. It's
| wearing.
| noosphr wrote:
| I'll add: please edit in areas where you are an expect. Over
| the last 20 years I have racked up a few thoudand edits,
| rewrites, new articles, etc.. Don't contribute to the low
| effort noise everyone is screaming about. In a century an edit
| in transcendental number theory with a citation is going to be
| a lot more important than whatever the current culture war is.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Years ago I tried adding a weblink directing to a community, to
| an article about a game, where there were already weblinks to
| other communities, which were in no way any more official or
| proper than the community I linked to, but this edit never made
| it into the page, because someone played gatekeeper there,
| probably a person of the already linked communities. Since then
| I don't even bother editing wiki any longer. It is gatekeeping
| by people with their own agenda. What else I read about edit
| wars did not inspire confidence either.
| Matthyze wrote:
| Since so many commenters here have bad experiences, I'll
| provide a counterweight. I've made numerous edits and have run
| into little to no resistance. I'm sure asking people on a forum
| does not evoke a representative response.
| raphman wrote:
| To offer a counter-example to the many anecdotes about being
| gatekept(?) by veteran Wikipedia editors: I have the opposite
| experience.
|
| I occasionally contribute to various topics, and in many cases
| experienced editors silently fixed formatting errors I made,
| allowing me to focus on contributing to Wikipedia without
| having to keep up with the best practices.
|
| I also participated in a deletion discussion once, and -
| despite being inexperienced and in the minority position (keep)
| - the experienced editors considered my arguments and responded
| to them.
| antegamisou wrote:
| > Fixing typos is valuable. Adding photos is valuable. Flagging
| vandalism is valuable. Please edit Wikipedia.
|
| Wise that you omit adding other credible sources that do not
| agree with the main editor's views. What you're describing
| sounds like already preserving their work, no matter if it
| happens to be provide info based on multiple convergent sources
| or not.
| 3036e4 wrote:
| I edited mostly a single page many years ago. It wasn't a
| controversial subject really, just one where there is a lot of
| garbage popular history and some light revisionism that made it
| a bit of an effort to remove unreliable sources and add some
| better sources. Never any issues or fights over it, but I got
| bored eventually and just let it be.
|
| Recently I edited a page or two, then tried to edit more, but
| everything is so complex now. All the special markup and stuff
| to consider is really off-putting. Took me forever to figure
| out how to properly fix the year of death of a person and some
| other data I just ignored because it was too much red tape.
| Wish it was more simple plain text. Makes quick drive-by edits
| too much work.
| phrotoma wrote:
| I spent like 30 minutes trying to fix a busted citation link
| a while ago before giving up. I write code and markdown for a
| living. :shrug:
| tim333 wrote:
| They could maybe explain it better with some short youtube
| videos?
|
| For citations you an usually delete the old stuff and then
| click 'Templates' to insert a new one. For "cite web" you
| can just enter the url and click the magnifying glass
| symbol and it automatically fills the rest.
| Xelbair wrote:
| With how hostile userbase is on wikipedia, no - i would rather
| not. especially in my native tongue.
| immibis wrote:
| I've tried this but my edit is either auto reverted for some
| bureaucracy violation, or the article requires extended
| confirmed status to edit at all.
| myself248 wrote:
| I've done a fair bit of editing over almost 20 years. Some of
| my photos are featured in small articles, and I've only had a
| few of my edits reverted, always for sensible reasons. It's
| easy to get started, and the pitfalls (chiefly, adding
| commentary without a source) are well documented.
|
| So on that basis, I agree. Please edit. It's easy. Start small.
|
| That said, I've watched entire articles vanish under the banner
| of non-notability, which were clearly notable if one bothered
| to find some citations. The deletionists have a process and a
| timeline, while the contributions come slowly and sporadically.
| This asymmetry is a cancer. If there's a treadmill belt pushing
| articles off the site which fail to run fast enough, then it's
| impossible for small articles, which are just learning to
| crawl, to survive long enough to survive. It's not a test of
| notability, it's a test of Wiki-savvy among an article's
| supporters.
|
| The best way to make a new article actually stick around, is to
| basically build the whole thing elsewhere, which takes weeks or
| months of effort for a single person since it's not
| collaborative, then plonk it into Wikipedia fully formed, and
| maybe, just maybe, it might have enough citations to pass the
| test of notability. But this means that, from the outset, it
| represents a single author's viewpoint.
|
| Deletionists eviscerate what makes Wikipedia interesting, and
| they're the main reason I haven't edited more.
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| This needs to be talked by a lot! However per my experiences
| and those of others if you go to either the "front page of
| the internet" or Lemmy the competitor you'll get side-eyed
| and harassed by people who thinks that you're a "far-right
| obscurantist" for simply criticizing Wikipedia.
| iwontberude wrote:
| I tried to get interested in Wikipedia and the crazy level of
| gatekeeping over topics these editors had no clue about was
| frustrating to me. They don't know what is notable and they
| have no business telling people what to do in many instances
| (esp with more obscure topics).
| mystified5016 wrote:
| Every time I've tried to edit Wikipedia I've been called names
| and bullied off the platform.
| guywithahat wrote:
| It's not easy to do at all. They have extensive blacklists to
| reputable conservative papers, and I've been cussed out for
| trying to link things. There are a lot of topics that can't
| even be discussed because the pro-left bias is too strong that
| any reputable source is banned, and many non-political pages
| which are monitored so tightly by a single individual it's
| impossible to edit.
| standardUser wrote:
| Have you tried using sources that aren't explicitly
| "conservative papers"? And if so, have you considered the
| lack of evidence found outside of overtly biased sources
| might indicate the position you are defending is not
| defensible outside of a strictly partisan perspective and
| worldview, and is buoyed only by other strictly partisan
| sources?
| zahlman wrote:
| On many occasions, right-wing Internet acquaintances have
| given me a link to a story in a conservative news source; I
| would try to look up other coverage with a search engine,
| and I would find _exclusively_ conservative sources
| discussing what happened, even though it was clearly
| verifiable fact that the the thing in question had in fact
| happened.
|
| During the Rittenhouse trial, I watched trial coverage
| live, then evaluated what various news outlets were saying
| about what happened. Unironically, Fox News was objectively
| far more truthful and accurate than every left-wing source.
| I caught left-wing sources trying to push disproven and
| dubious narratives - in particular, the "taking an illegal
| firearm across state lines" bit - long after anyone had an
| excuse, even after the basic issues with that story had
| already been debunked by other left-wing sources. Shortly
| after the verdict dropped, Al Jazeera Plus put out an
| absurd, naked propaganda piece trying to paint the DA as a
| hero unjustly thwarted, with imagery showing complete
| ignorance to and/or resistance of the proven facts of the
| case.
|
| (As a reminder: this is a DA who didn't check a firearm
| personally before pointing it at the jury, in order to try
| to make a ridiculous point about how Rittenhouse might
| possibly have been holding the weapon, while clearly having
| no actual idea how to hold and aim it properly. Who then
| made a closing statement baldly asserting falsehoods about
| the basics of how firearms work that had been disproved
| immediately prior. Who had previously made _repeated,
| blatant_ attempts to violate Rittenhouse 's Fifth Amendment
| rights and introduce evidence that had been very clearly
| excluded from consideration in pre-trial hearings.)
|
| I have witnessed supposedly respected, mainstream sources
| (with a rarely acknowledged left-wing bias and an axe to
| grind) smear people I've personally met, and movements and
| groups that include people I personally know and care about
| (especially movements that have nothing to do with the
| traditional left-right axis but which certain leftists have
| decided to label as "right-wing" for their own reasons).
|
| The bias built in to Wikipedia's "reliable sources" policy
| is self-reinforcing. You can't get conservative sources
| added even if what they're saying is provably true, or
| "liberal" (an absurd abuse of the term, but that's the
| American jargon now) sources excluded even if what they're
| saying is provably false, because a) the latter agree with
| each other; b) a new source needs vetting, which generally
| involves agreeing with existing sources; c) there is no
| objective standard for accuracy or reliability.
|
| You present your comment as though you imagine that
| "sources that aren't explicitly conservative" are, thereby,
| not also "overtly biased". A lot of people seem to believe
| this, but it's not at all true. The fact that you frame
| this in terms of "defending positions" is also telling, for
| me.
|
| See also: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-
| conservativ...
| standardUser wrote:
| You actually highlight the problem very well. Any group
| of people can make their own websites, publish their own
| papers, produce their own films, cross-refencing each
| other all along the way, thereby creating the illusion
| their their alternate reality, though largely fabricated,
| is as true as the real world we all live in. But it
| isn't. The "facts" within that sphere are only supported
| by other "facts" within that same sphere, and they fail
| to connect to the larger, long-standing and global web of
| data, research and opinion that are far more diverse,
| well-documented and debated. And by failing to connect,
| or only tenuously connecting, to the larger conversation
| they are rendered irrelevant, except for their use as a
| weapon towards personal or political ends.
| zahlman wrote:
| The problem is that you tried to attribute this behaviour
| to conservative sources specifically, in order to rebuke
| someone else here, but in reality this is not a specific
| trait of conservative sources.
| xvilka wrote:
| They block VPN use that makes editing impossible for people
| from some of big countries with so called "firewalls".
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| Interesting how so many people are answering that they've had
| trouble!
|
| How about I look at some of those cases? Especially if it's
| relatively recent, I can take a look. Leave me a message here,
| or at my email address (see my HN info) , or on
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kim_Bruning
|
| I'm not very active anymore, but I'll check in the next couple
| of days and see what I can do. Really to be able to help I
| generally need links to revisions, but if you have a username,
| a page, and a reasonably short time frame (a concrete date) I
| might be able to figure out the relevant revisions from there.
|
| To onlookers: When I investigate cases like this, there's often
| a "catch." Sometimes contributors really did break Wikipedia
| policies -- and just don't mention that part when telling their
| side of the story.
|
| Now I'm certainly not saying every case is like that, so I will
| look, and if you don't get what the issue was, I'll try to
| explain. In some cases if it was recent and it somehow wasn't
| fair, I might even be able to'fix' it within the bounds of
| Wikipedia policy.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _How about I look at some of those cases?_
|
| Please note that, although there are scores of anecdotes in
| this thread, precisely _none of them_ link to any examples or
| give enough details to find them. It's _always_ like this
| with Wikipedia detractors; I don't know why, but it is.
| Complaints and horror stories galore, but _nobody_ will link
| to any of it, preventing anybody from investigating what
| actually happened.
| onli wrote:
| Because we/they have detached from the issue. It was a bad
| experience and thus it gets pushed aside. I also have my
| wikipedia deletionist story - the German wikipedia is among
| the worst there, way worse than the us-american - but it's
| not like I will keep an account active on a project with
| those awful people. So linking it isn't even all that easy.
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| You're not wrong, per-se.
|
| I'm still going to ask though! We might get lucky. Want to
| help out?
| zahlman wrote:
| >although there are scores of anecdotes in this thread,
| precisely none of them link to any examples or give enough
| details to find them
|
| In the past, when I've _tried_ to keep receipts on this
| sort of thing (which requires an extraordinary amount of
| effort, and is often only possible if you 've _anticipated_
| that there would be a need to do so - since content is
| often deleted or archived without warning, and nobody ever
| enters an argument on the Internet with the expectation of
| talking about that specific argument years later) and
| actually presented evidence, I 've been accused being
| "creepy" or various other forms of misconduct, and the
| argument is still not taken any more seriously. I've given
| up on presenting evidence of this sort of thing because
| _the people who ask for it are not being intellectually
| honest_ , in my extensive experience. They don't care if
| you can actually prove what you're saying; they will ignore
| you anyway.
| zahlman wrote:
| There are multiple entire websites out there criticizing
| Wikipedia and what they have to say tends to revolve around
| the editing process, specifically the social/cultural
| aspects. Have you attempted to research this yourself?
|
| Are you familiar with what Larry Sanger himself had to say
| about the bias that has emerged in Wikipedia
| (https://unherd.com/newsroom/wikipedia-co-founder-i-no-
| longer...)?
| mlindner wrote:
| I used to edit wikipedia until I got permanently "community
| banned" because of some poor choices of words and even my
| apologies were ignored. The site is full of people who are
| chronically online and like to witch hunt and destroy people's
| lives. That wasn't the case almost two decades ago when I
| started using the site, but now it's full of the type of people
| that passionately use reddit and bluesky and that were formerly
| on twitter. (It's worth noting that a "community ban" is a
| special type of ban that's basically a lynch mob where a bunch
| of people dog pile and if there's enough "consensus" you get
| banned, which can happen by the person proposing it simply
| calling forth all their friends. And this type of ban is
| considered "stronger" than an actual administrator ban so
| cannot be overturned by an administrator. It's mob violence at
| its finest.)
|
| I was a very active editor who'd been using the site for a very
| long time, but they don't care. One major mistake and you're
| gone forever.
|
| The site also has a huge bias toward "media" sources rather
| than actual scientific content or primary sources in general.
| They treat the media as vetters of the truth and ignore all of
| the group-think/mass delusion that is common among mainstream
| media where they all re-report each others stories. That causes
| a huge blind spot. It didn't used to be that way too, it used
| to be that most notable sources were books, but nowaydays with
| everything online and the quality of media reporting going down
| and down it's caused Wikipedia itself to decline in quality.
|
| I used to encourage people to edit Wikipedia like you, no
| longer. The site needs a hard fork, at least for the english
| speaking site.
| wormius wrote:
| I've seen such bad editing lately. Basic grammar rules being
| missed/capitalization issues, personal opinions and hearsay
| cited as "fact", lack of references. Seemingly unrelated topics
| except in whoever made an edits eyes.
|
| So yeah, you don't even have to be an expert. What's weird is
| that there IS a lot of edits by ideologues of many kind. And it
| doesn't have to be "foreign agents" and this Trump attack reeks
| so hard of yet another attempt at authoritarian control and
| NewSpeak. Biden gave in with the TikTok to Trumps initial
| games, and now it just feeds the game. We have to resist this
| sort of thing from below.
|
| I wish people had a good "sniffer" for bullshit. I'm not saying
| I'm perfect (we all have our blind spots) but after a while you
| can tell when certain things are trying to put a spin on
| something... It's especially odious when it comes to national
| identities trying to put a spin or tie either themselves or
| their enemies to a particular view point. The worst part is
| it's not necessarily obvious, to a lot of people if you don't
| have the knowledge, or the ability to critique and ask
| questions.
|
| So we need people to keep asking questions for sure, and
| sniffing out this sort of thing. But it has to not be "IN THE
| NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY" but rather "IN THE NAME OF OPEN
| KNOWLEDGE FOR ALL". Otherwise you just become a front or
| spokesthing for a given state, and that's no better than
| fucking Pravda.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| wikipedia means different things depending where you are.
| Content in English looks a lot better than browsing content in
| other languages like Spanish, French, Italian, ... Especially
| when it is about non Tech subjects in these languages, there
| seems to be a strong difference in quality, and the utility you
| get from Wikipedia varies with how many languages you speak.
|
| My biggest beef is that any contributions volunteers make will
| be stolen by sama and similar scam artists & SV dweebs so they
| can improve their AI (and while Wikipedia is free AI which
| requires login/authentication and maybe even paid subscription
| in future).
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| In the past, I have done so, and won't, again.
|
| First, my (quite correct) edits in existing pages have been
| reversed within minutes. No explanation as to why (I assume
| because I was not "known" enough). I have heard this complaint
| _numerous_ times.
|
| Second, when I tried to create a page about a system that I had
| originally authored, has become a well-known, worldwide tool,
| managed by a large team that does not include me, the page was
| rejected. I think it was because I had been involved in the
| creation of the tool.
|
| I decided that it wasn't worth it. I didn't get upset, but it
| was clear that my input wasn't wanted.
| rsingel wrote:
| Acting DC AG Martin has a history of sockpuppetry. Bought a
| sycophant a laptop and then ghostwrote Facebook posts attacking a
| judge in a case against Martin. Should have been disbarred.
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/ed-martin-trump-interim-d...
|
| It's _always_ projection with the MAGA crowd
| methuselah_in wrote:
| Well, why go after everything?
| seydor wrote:
| > "Wikipedia is one of the last places online that shows the
| promise of the internet, housing more than 65 million articles
| written to inform, not persuade," the Wikimedia Foundation said
| Friday in a statement
|
| Well that is apparently very false when it comes to american
| politics and jewish matters. On the positive side, for other
| countries and languages the biases are very different and quite
| wide ranging.
|
| Maybe this threat by the US government is a good thing, it will
| force wikipedians to take their head out of the sand and go back
| to wide-ranging NPOV , and remove all those judgemental
| adjectives and epithets that are thrown around in so many
| articles.
|
| I don't believe the idea of wikipedia can be threatened because
| it is a really resilient idea across political lines and there
| are billions who will want to recreate it.
| lclc wrote:
| The bias also exists very strongly in the German Wikipedia.
| doener wrote:
| The US are no longer a safe country for volunteer projects.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| You may want to elaborate a little ideally listing countries
| that would be a safe alternative. In short, it seems like an
| easy throwaway comment.
| IceHegel wrote:
| Curtis Yarvin has a riff that goes something like this: Liberal
| Wikipedia, Communist Wikipedia, and Fascist Wikipedia will all
| actually agree on the vast majority of topics: Physics, botany,
| the solar system, chemistry, math, statistics etc.
|
| However they'll be worlds apart on history, economics,
| anthropology, sexuality, politics, previous leaders and so on.
|
| Our Wikipedia is the world seen through the eyes of the New York
| Times + Harvard. Our Wikipedia is probably correct about Physics,
| botany...
| Fraterkes wrote:
| Yarvin putting his intellectual mediocrity on display: the
| nazis, for example, dismissed relativity as "jewish science".
| tgv wrote:
| Quoting a parvenu like Yarvin is a sign of fanaticism. He
| sounds like a teenager on weed. The only reason he's gotten
| into the limelight is because some powerful people aligned
| with Project 2025 agree with him, and needed some
| philosophical sounding blather to cover their power lust.
| IceHegel wrote:
| Interesting, why do you say quoting Yarvin is a sign of
| fanaticism?
| tgv wrote:
| He says nothing of intellectual interest, yet is
| presented as some secret fountain of wisdom by hard core,
| US, extreme right-wing cult followers. I say presented,
| because I have the vague hope they don't believe it, but
| only use it as yet another layer of deception.
| IceHegel wrote:
| Source?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Ah yes, the anti-democracy comp sci guy that is inspiring some
| of the more powerful people in Washington.
| keisborg wrote:
| Ed Martin seems like a SME when he himself has been influenced by
| foreign agencies and spoke their case.
| timonoko wrote:
| Wikipedia is dead. One fun remains, and is to ask some AI, what
| is wrong with this and that Wikipedia article.
|
| Me and Gemini actually found a major fault on one politician's
| wikipage, but decided there is no change correcting that, because
| there is no "trusted source".
|
| And the reason for that with government controlled media monopoly
| it is easy remove any references, only hearsay remains.
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| "allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread
| propaganda to the American public."
|
| How dare they? Don't they know that's our job Mr Putin?
| rahil627 wrote:
| the status of Washington Post is clear :/
|
| ...now where's my ladder..
|
| https://12ft.io/
| BrtByte wrote:
| Wikipedia definitely isn't perfect - bias in editing is real, and
| it's fair to critique how reliable it is - but threatening their
| nonprofit status over it is wild.
| nickserv wrote:
| Obviously this would happen with the current administration in
| the USA.
|
| The foundation should be moved to a country where the rule of law
| and neutrality are respected. Switzerland perhaps?
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| They'll need to delete those LTA pages first before they can
| move to Europe due to GDPR.
| gigatexal wrote:
| This admin has no shame. They're burning everything good/stable
| about the US because of an unstable, megalomaniac idiot happened
| to win the presidency.
| jfengel wrote:
| He didn't just happen to win the presidency. He brought with
| him both houses of Congress on his coattails, and he had
| previously filled the Supreme Court (already heavily laden with
| his partisans).
|
| He's not the one with no shame. It's tens of millions of
| Americans who are even now cheering this action on. Many of
| them on this web site.
|
| If we have a megalomaniac idiot, it's because it reflects who
| we are.
| CommanderData wrote:
| Similar to TikTok, ADL were effectively banned from Wikipedia.
|
| This coincidences nicely with all of this.
| CommenterPerson wrote:
| Wikipedia is a shining example of what the internet could have
| been. Before the internet was "Enshittified"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification
|
| I am going to increase my monthly contribution.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| A "NOBUS" weapon. Any system (country/gov/para-...) needs the
| right 'tools' for people-manipulation and people-programming. And
| such weapons should not be allowed to be used against 'us'. Kinda
| like devices that must accept (and malfunction) but not cause
| interference.
|
| So, for a "let people speak their mind - don't control
| information" the Trump side quickly goes to universities must
| teach only what 'WE' want, Wikipedia must mention only what 'WE'
| like. Hilarious if not pathetic and dangerous (very-very
| 1984-ish...)
|
| Side-note: it has since amused me but apparently it's not often
| told/at all.. the absolute propaganda tool for Russia/Soviet was
| "Pravda" (the "Truth"). Imagine my amusement when Trump created
| "Truth Social". You can't make that shit up....
|
| Now, as I've said before, I live in the EU and don't vote in the
| US, so you folks decide, and then we all get to 'share' the
| experience (since I do have some/plenty of SP500 and similar
| instruments).
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| Nearly everyone has a viewpoint and taking the time to contribute
| is a strong clue the viewpoint is deeply-felt. Some people
| primarily adopt the Wikipedia rules as their viewpoint, but in
| hotly debated social issues like (oh, pick one out of a hat) the
| Covid-19 crisis and origin investigation-- Wikipedia is drowned
| in other viewpoints, and, because administrators mosly are alike,
| substantive groupthink.
|
| I'm impressed by Wikipedia's efforts to root out "abuse" but in
| the end it's all a contest over truth, and Wikipedia fails in
| precisely the dynamic, high-interest, high-consequence topics
| that users seek out on the site.
| morsecodist wrote:
| I am not a lawyer but this sounds absurd. Even if everything in
| here were true it seems irrelevant to their non profit status.
| There are issue based non profits that do nothing but publishing
| information with an ideological slant. There is no restriction on
| a 501c3 being run by non-citizens let alone influenced. 501c3s
| can even engage in lobbying.
|
| I know taking it at face value isn't the point but this claim is
| particularly galling.
| thrance wrote:
| Fascists hate knowledge, as is made apparent by Trump, Musk and
| co's repeated claims that Wikipedia is "radical-left woke DEI
| propaganda". I can only hope Wikimedia considers moving the bulk
| of their servers and organization to outside of the US before it
| is stolen by the evil bunch.
| rubyfan wrote:
| So the issue is "allowing foreign actors to manipulate
| information and spread propaganda to the American public." and
| they are going after wikipedia instead of say TikTok, Instagram,
| Facebook, X?
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Wikipedia website even says your donation goes to other projects.
| As a 501c3, they are banned from making political contributions.
| They should change from 501c3 and break off their political arm
| into another appropriately categorized IRS recognized model.
|
| https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/wikimedia-foundation/recipi...
| blibble wrote:
| no, it's about using the power of the state to attack and
| hopefully silence your political opponents
|
| something commonly seen in e.g. Venezuela, South Africa, and
| now the US
| firesteelrain wrote:
| I understand the sentiment but all they have to do is create
| a PAC for political stuff not under 501c3
| LightBug1 wrote:
| "Trump appointee Ed Martin accuses the online encyclopedia of
| "allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread
| propaganda to the American public." April 25, 2025 at 6:54 p.m.
| EDT"
|
| How about these wankers turn their attention to their own
| administration ...
|
| Oh, pardon me ... what a ludicrous thing to suggest.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| A worrying thing about this, along with a few other examples such
| as the case of Harvard, is how branches of the federal government
| are using tax regulations, legal structure status and grant rules
| as mechanisms for openly threatening certain types of tendencies
| and practices in what are basically independent organizations. I
| don't know how novel it is for the feds to do this, but it's a
| chilling technique that sets dangerous regulatory precedents on
| speech control in a legal system that "supposedly" protects free
| speech.
|
| I could argue that it's ironic coming from the supposedly free
| speech-obsessed Trump government, but given how bloviatingly,
| mendaciously hypocritical that particular swine is, there's
| nothing surprising here at all.
|
| Also, nice to see the WaPo actually covering this, considering
| Jeff Bezos more recent and not so subtle sucking up to Trump.
|
| Edit: and Yes, this tendency I mention above is much more
| worrying than any idiotic authoritarian canard about "spreading
| misinformation and propaganda".
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| And why not give a contrary view to this particular and valid
| criticism, instead of downvoting like little children.
| Funes- wrote:
| It's long due that we come up with an uncensorable, decentralized
| digital encyclopedia, with different versions for every article,
| each qualified perhaps by a voting or comment system of sorts, so
| we can work out biases and make up our own minds on any subject.
| That way, it'll also be truly nonprofit, afforded by its own
| users.
| focusgroup0 wrote:
| Does this look like a non-profit to you?
|
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Foundation...
| darknavi wrote:
| I don't understand, the revenue and expenses seem relatively
| close most years and they seem to have a cash reserve for a
| little more than a year. What's not non-profit about that?
|
| I'd buy an argument if you looked at executive payout or
| something along those lines.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Yes
| GuestFAUniverse wrote:
| Yeah... this Ed Martin? -- rhetorical question! " Martin was a
| CNN contributor in 2017.[38] From 2016 to 2024, Martin appeared
| more than 150 times on RT America and Sputnik, both of which are
| Russian state-controlled news agencies.[39] None of these
| appearances was disclosed to the Senate on a Senate Judiciary
| Committee questionnaire asking for a list of all media
| interviews.[39] Nine days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine
| he said there was no evidence of military buildup on Ukraine's
| boarders and critized U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring
| Russia security concerns.[40] "
|
| Time to archive a lot of snapshots.
| deknos wrote:
| To be honest, many of the people who critize wikipedia.. just do
| not want to fork the content. it would be possible. they all like
| the work people put into it. but as soon as it does not fit the
| worldview anymore...
|
| are there manipulations? sure. then more people should watch it.
| and wikipedia should have a better process on controversal topics
| in own areas.
|
| but the whining is abysmal.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| This suggestion ignores network effects.
| const_cast wrote:
| Right, which is one of the most valuable parts about
| Wikipedia (or truly any product) and should be factored in.
|
| The information on Wikipedia is important, but the existence
| of Wikipedia and you and I both knowing about it is more
| important. This is why building up existing institutions is
| almost always more valuable than the "burn it all down"
| populist mentality we see in politics today. Just the
| existence of the current thing represents some inertia, some
| energy, some goals, and that has value.
| kurtreed2 wrote:
| Justapedia has forked English Wikipedia almost three years ago
| and is doing good so far, even if they're still ignored by
| major search engines.
| EasyMark wrote:
| He's just mad that there are references to Trump's facism on
| there. I hope Americans aren't stupid enough to think that
| nonprofits can only exist if they support MAGA propaganda and
| fascism. One such article that he has no doubt skimmed and turned
| red in the face at
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_and_fascism
| peakskill wrote:
| Wikipedia IS ideologically captured and a propaganda target. This
| is not up for debate.
|
| What it needs now is a bipartisan, sybil resistant algorithm like
| X's community notes' in order to accept/reject edits.
| munchler wrote:
| > Wikipedia IS ideologically captured and a propaganda target.
| This is not up for debate.
|
| What an absurd claim to make without any evidence. Citation
| needed.
| CommenterPerson wrote:
| Let's remove nonprofit status from all churches. Because they are
| involved in politics
| guywithahat wrote:
| Are they though? I've seen people make this claim but I've
| never seen them coherently defend it outside of a rouge priest
| fugalfervor wrote:
| I think you mean "rogue". The "rouge" priestess is a Game of
| Thrones character.
| 0xTJ wrote:
| Unrelated to the issue here, I remain disappointed with the
| Wikipedia redesign. I find it too like a mobile-first-page, and
| I'm put off whenever I go to the site in a browser where I'm not
| logged in.
| gsibble wrote:
| It's extremely biased and deserves to lose its status as a not
| for profit.
| rappatic wrote:
| I lost all desire to donate to Wikipedia when I read this thread
| a few years ago:
|
| https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1579776106034757633.html
|
| To the extent that the foundation continues to bankroll the
| culture war while being openly politicized, I believe I agree
| that its nonprofit status should be questioned.
| susiecambria wrote:
| I've edited a page about my grandfather's accounting firm that
| was bought out by some iteration of Peat Marwick (I have the
| deets somewhere, just don't recall now). Referred to
| documentation and the edit was reverted.
|
| Done some other edits, some stick, some are reverted. I don't
| have time to deal with this so as much as I'd like to contribute,
| I am doing stuff where I can actually contribute.
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