• Dr. Coomer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    What I find amazing is that some people are so dedicated to Wikipedia that they literally and consider vandals for how much information they put in.

  • Alsephina@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    That’s what it should’ve been. In reality anything even remotely political on it is heavily biased towards imperial core and NATO countries, and against their geopolitical rivals.

    This happens because most of these “nerds” are also westerners and rate their own outlets as more reliable, thus enforcing western propaganda.

    • lemmyingly@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      You bring up an interesting point. There are opposing opinions on everything if you go deep enough into the topic, even in STEM fields too.

      It’d be interesting to see a Wikipedia that provides pages on the same topic that present each opinion. So the base/overview page on the topic states the summaries of each opinion with a link for further reading. Each opinion page states there are many opinions on the topic and it just presents one. Each page then suggests for further reading, view the base/overview page where the user can read about other opinions on the topic.

  • SanndyTheManndy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    I donated to wikipedia. Then I found out their scummy biases towards anything outside the anglosphere. Now I want my money back.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Could you specify? I’ve heard similar comments aimed against people not accepting Russian propaganda. But I imagine with the common user base, you would get some very anglocentric implicit bias just because that’s what they know.

      • SanndyTheManndy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        One would expect articles not in the anglosphere to not have much input from the anglosphere, but it ain’t so.

        One common feature is the credit given for the origin of words, even when it contradicts itself.

        For a rather silly example, take the word ‘achar’, which means ‘pickle’ in many south asian languages. It is labeled as persian in origin. The fact that old avestan is bastardized sanskrit aside, articles linked on the same page contradict this. One such is as follows:

        The article on ‘acar’, the south-east asian version of pickle, clearly states that it is directly descendent from the south-asian terminology. The time of spread is in the 200-800AD period, much before Persian spread to the Indian sub-continent with the Islamic invasions in the 1000-1300AD period.

        I have identified more than a dozen such cases of glorifying invaders from just a cursory search. Apparently, the west has trouble coming to terms with the fact that civilization can evolve natively, without contributions from disruptive external forces.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    All human advancement was created by nerds. Spears were invented by weaklings too slow to kill with their bare hands. Fire was tamed by the people who were scared of the dark

    • neptune@dmv.socialEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      I think the post makes a point important in modern capitalism: people will create “value” for free because they can, they care, they want to, it’s a challenge. Capital and/or the threat of starvation is not actually always necessary for people to be “productive”. Ego, boredom, altruism, adventure, these are also traits of humanity besides survival and greed.

    • meliaesc@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      I think fire was tamed because the food poisoning killed those without it. We are supposed to just sleep at night.

  • REEEEvolution@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
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    4 months ago

    At least that is the PR.

    It all goes out of the window as soon as politcal events are concerned, then it is just western naratives all over. With things as sources, good sources, multiple viewpoints all forgotten. What the west says is treated as gospel. While paid editors up to and including state actors rule the site. The system of nerds correcting each other is then used to prevent corrections.

  • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    4 months ago

    Just ignore the 150M a year they spend managing finances, contributors, tech, moderation, etc. Takes a lot to maintain an accurate library.

    • gwildors_gill_slits@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      150m a year doesn’t seem that much, honestly. I know people think “oh, it’s just a website” but it takes a lot of work and money in salaries and infrastructure hosting to keep a web application as popular as Wikipedia up and running.

      • nik9000@programming.devEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        I used to work for them. It was weird and wonderful and I miss it and I don’t. Lots of mission driven folks working hard to keep things going getting very little respect. But a lot of respect. But sometimes none.

        Iirc a lot of their budget is spent doing charity stuff. Encouraging contributions for tiny languages. Trying not to cave to Russia or the US or France. Trying to make it less of a boys club. Trying to get local organizations going.

        I remember once they sent an email that said “if the French government asks you to delete this page please just delete it. It’s not worth going to jail. Someone outside of France will revert the delete.”

        I wasn’t qualified for the work. No one was. But it was honest work.

        • lledrtx@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          Thank you for your work, though!

          Very curious about the page French govt wanted deleted.

            • Churbleyimyam@lemm.eeEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

              Curious to read more about that but I can’t seem to find a source for it. Do you have one?

              • No_Ones_Slick_Like_Gaston@lemmy.worldEnglish
                0·
                4 months ago

                Certainly, here are some notable instances involving French colonial forces:

                1. Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962): This was a significant and violent decolonization conflict where Algerian nationalists sought independence from French colonial rule. The French military’s efforts to suppress the independence movement resulted in large numbers of casualties, including civilians. Tactics such as the use of torture, mass executions, and the creation of internment camps were reported. The exact number of Algerian casualties is disputed, but estimates suggest that the death toll could be in the range of hundreds of thousands.

                2. The Madagascar Uprising (1947): In Madagascar, a nationalist uprising against French colonial rule was met with severe repression. French forces were accused of committing numerous atrocities in their effort to suppress the rebellion, including summary executions, village burnings, and torture. Estimates of the Malagasy deaths vary widely, with some suggesting that the number could be as high as 100,000.

                3. Indochina War (1946–1954): This conflict in French Indochina, which includes modern-day Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, was fought between French colonial forces and the Viet Minh, led by Ho Chi Minh, who sought independence. The war was marked by guerrilla warfare and significant civilian casualties, with both sides accused of atrocities. The use of forced labor, internment camps, and the bombing of civilian areas contributed to a high death toll.

                These examples reflect the complex and often brutal nature of colonial rule and the struggle for independence. They involve a wide range of actions and policies implemented by French military and colonial authorities, which led to significant loss of life and suffering among the colonized populations.

    • underisk@lemmy.mlEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      i dont think anyone is ignoring that. the meme is talking about how it was built, not hot it’s currently maintained. it definitely didn’t start off spending that much. all that spending is a consequence of it’s popularity, not the reason for it.

      • NotJustForMe@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        Some would say that most of the spending is based on greed. Individual salaries doubled to tripled in the last decade, with their head earning three quarters of a million now.

        It was a tenth 15 years ago.

        They started out right, like they all do. Then personal money catches up.

        • mriormro@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          You thinking a $750,000 salary for the CEO of one of the top ten visited websites in the world and arguably one of the most important knowledge resources we’ve probably ever created is ‘greed’ is pretty hilarious.

          • underisk@lemmy.mlEnglish
            0·
            4 months ago

            Thinking one guy deserves that much salary for the work of millions of volunteers over decades is what’s hilarious. Do you think those giant pleas that they post when they need money would be as convincing if they listed his salary?

            • dr_lobotomy@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

              What does that have to do with Wikipedia specifically?This isn’t a problem of wikipedia it’s a problem of capitalism

          • dariusj18@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            4 months ago

            I think you should consider the opportunity cost of what they would be making elsewhere. Salaries need to be competitive, otherwise you are at the mercy of those who are willing to work for less and hope that the reason is benevolent.

            • underisk@lemmy.mlEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

              That would make more sense if Wikipedia was a profit generating enterprise that needed to satisfy shareholders. It’s run like a charity through donations, though.

              Fifteen other people sit on the board of trustees that oversees wikimedia. The only person on that board who gets paid is Jimmy.

            • UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.devEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

              I don’t buy that argument at all, it just doesn’t make any sense for a position like Wikipedia. Sure, if you’re in a highly competitive and specialised industry where connections and insider information matters I would get it, but just running a “simple” organisation like Wikipedia, no way.

                • UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.devEnglish
                  0·
                  4 months ago

                  Yes? And by simple I meant in the manner that it’s not a competitive company. They aren’t there to bring in the AI revolution or invent the next iPhone. Their primary goal is to just keep the servers running, not create record profits for shareholders.

                  High six figure salaries in general seems foreign to me. A core part of the nordic model is to limit wage gap between high education jobs and low education jobs, so the entire CEO wage structure in the US seems completely backwards.

    • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyzEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      It’s definitely not 100% foolproof to misinformation, but I’ve always found wikipedia to be reliable. Why do you feel it isnt?

      • gayhitler420@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        Wikipedia’s reliability in it’s own words - check out the holocaust misinformation from last year!

        US congressional staff editing controversies as documented by and presented in wikipedia

        A ten year long hoax running until two years ago

        Wikipedia’s own list of its controversies - pay special attention here to the 2023 exposure of an administrator pretending to be a spanish folk singer as a sockpuppet of another administrator who was banned in 2015 for making “promotional edits”.

        I want to be clear: i do not feel that wikipedia isn’t reliable. I can clearly observe that wikipedia is unreliable.

        • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyzEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          Info on Wikipedia shouldn’t be taken at face value, check the sources given! A lot of the examples you gave likely didn’t have any citation. The blame for misinformation partly lies with the people accepting information with no sources given. Also, any example of known misinformation just means that it has been caught and corrected. Everyone should know wikipedia is not right 100% of the time but it is always getting better. There millions of articles and I don’t think the examples you listed should lead anyone to believe it is overall unreliable. It is good however to not blindly put your trust in whatever you read from it, and if you do come across something that isn’t correct, you have the opportunity to fix it.

          • survivalmachine@beehaw.orgEnglish
            0·
            4 months ago

            So would you now agree with the original comment that said Wikipedia is not a reliable SOURCE of accurate information? It’s a great starting point and a potential resource that can be used as a bibliography of possible sources, but it’s never a good source itself. Even as a bibliography, you have to consider whether the available references for an article are biased – they don’t always paint a fair picture.

            • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyzEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

              Yes I agree with that. I think there was an issue with establishing what “source” meant in the given context. I wouldn’t say the text of a single wikipedia article is a reliable source by itself, however that doesn’t discredit the reliability of accurate information on Wikipedia in my opinion. If you stripped a textbook of it’s listed citations and credited authors, then you can’t really verify the information in it either.

          • gayhitler420@lemm.eeEnglish
            0·
            4 months ago

            That’s wild.

            If you knew a person who shouldn’t be taken at face value and whose claims had to be verified, what word would you use to describe them? Would that word be reliable? Trustworthy?

            • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyzEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

              Wikipedia isn’t a person though. It’s a website of articles that summarizes topics and ideally lists sources that contain the info within it. I agree a person that sounds like that is untrustworthy, but that doesn’t mean anything on the topic of wikipedia.

              • gayhitler420@lemm.eeEnglish
                0·
                4 months ago

                Woah.

                So, like, if you knew of a website which shouldn’t be taken at face value and whose claims had to be verified, what word would you use to describe it? would that word be reliable? Trustworthy?

                • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyzEnglish
                  0·
                  4 months ago

                  It depends on the website. A Twitter post with no source? Untrustworthy. Wikipedia page with plenty of sources to back up the article? I would default to saying trustworthy, but of course I would still have to check the sources myself. Wikipedia is a tool. It connects you to outside sources of info. It has the reputation of being reliable enough to get trustworthy info in its summaries. As I’ve already stated before, mistakes have been made though.

            • DrSteveBrule@mander.xyzEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

              The first paragraph of the first link they posted says that wikipedia’s reliability has been generally praised over the last 10 years.

              Edit: unless you’re saying that wikipedia is so untrustworthy that it is misinformed about being untrustworthy lol

    • Scrof@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      It’s as accurate as any university textbook and way more accurate than any school textbook.

  • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    “The best way to get a correct answer online is not to post a question. It is to post the wrong answer.”

  • user134450@feddit.deEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    What makes them think that the library of Alexandria did it any other way? Nerds have existed long before the internet…

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        umm ackshually this is false, the concept of nerd originates from a viking ship that docked at Lübeck in 873, whereupon the crew got into an extended argument about the precise value of their cargo, leading to the Lübeck merchants exclaiming “Fücking Nörds!” and that quickly caught on and eventually the term started generally referring to anyone that was annoyingly pedantic but technically correct.

      • rockerface@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        You can only call then Nerds if they’re from the Nerdeaux region of France. Otherwise they’re just sparkling smartasses