It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
@AlSweigart I wouldn't say it's really 'trustworthy'. It still has its limits and flaws. I'm a production editor at a uni press and we discourage our authors from citing it. They should, literally, be doing their own research. However, it has resisted some of the corrosion that has afflicted other media.
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@AlSweigart can't trust Wikipedia because a swathe of their editors/moderators are actively and maliciously misogynist and/or transphobic, and will reject edits and flag pages as not notable where people give women, particularly trans women, credit
yet it's still less bad than the for-profit sites
@jackeric @AlSweigart That's how crowd sourcing works. It needs people (dare I say community?) to care about it enough to fix the typos and misinformation and lack of properly cited sources. Eventually truth outs (in theory).
But it takes resources to keep everything running and detect the wreckers too. I have never enjoyed donating to an organization more. They graciously accept any amount. Single digit donations are treated exactly the same as hundreds of bucks.
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P pearl22@troet.cafe shared this topic
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
@AlSweigart “it’s a good thing Wikipedia works in practice because it sure doesn’t work in theory”
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@AlSweigart I remember researching John Wesley and the wikipedia page started out "For a good time call ###-####, also John Wesley (/ˈwɛsli/ WESS-lee;[1] 28 June [O.S. 17 June] 1703 – 2 March 1791) was an Engl..." Still more useful than AI slop.
@fiend_unpleasant @AlSweigart When I was in high school doing a paper on Al Capone, the Czech Wikipedia had this thing in the "early life" section:
Like every young boy, he liked to beat the meat.
Removing that was my first and so far only Wikipedia edit.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
"Yeah but what about public bathrooms?" The only reason private bathrooms are clean is because they exclude the 99% of the population who aren't paying customers on that day.
You might as well say capitalism is great if you're rich, or dictatorships are great if you're a crowned prince.
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@AlSweigart I wouldn't say it's really 'trustworthy'. It still has its limits and flaws. I'm a production editor at a uni press and we discourage our authors from citing it. They should, literally, be doing their own research. However, it has resisted some of the corrosion that has afflicted other media.
@maccruiskeen And the reason it's resisted that so well is because it doesn't have followers or favorites or likes or any of that engagement nonsense that social media strives for.
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"Yeah but what about public bathrooms?" The only reason private bathrooms are clean is because they exclude the 99% of the population who aren't paying customers on that day.
You might as well say capitalism is great if you're rich, or dictatorships are great if you're a crowned prince.
(And anyway, private bathrooms include gas stations, night clubs, bus stations, and stadiums.)
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@AlSweigart @hosford42 @jmjm that was a brief but passionate relationship
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(And anyway, private bathrooms include gas stations, night clubs, bus stations, and stadiums.)
@AlSweigart
The public bathrooms in the park near me are about as good as the ones in the nearest Starbucks. The only thing the Starbucks has going for it is a better hand dryer. The public park restrooms are open 24/7, which is a huge point in their favor. Maybe if more cities had clean public restrooms open 24/7, they'd have fewer problems with unhoused people with poor hygiene. -
@AlSweigart Fair, but if you still can't use a Wikipedia citation as a valid source as a freelancer. At least, no respectable freelancer would do it, least of all me.
It still exists as a fascinating open-source experiment, even if it's not exactly what anyone would describe as 100% reliable.
Turns out newspapers having a monopoly on classified ads was actually a very, very good thing for society.
@haunted_refrigerator @AlSweigart
You shouldn't cite Wikipedia because it's a secondary source. For any remotely serious work, you're supposed to go back to the primary sources Wikipedia is citing and reference them instead. -
@maccruiskeen And the reason it's resisted that so well is because it doesn't have followers or favorites or likes or any of that engagement nonsense that social media strives for.
@AlSweigart @maccruiskeen
Clout chasing is a scourge. The world would be a much better place if people weren't constantly playing to an audience. -
W wando@troet.cafe shared this topic
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
@AlSweigart Thanks for nothing capitalists!
Don't forget to donate to Wikipedia! -
Everytime I debate about socialism with people they're like "yeah but you have no solution for this very specific point, so obviously it can't work"
And I'm like... capitalism has the same issue, only not for you because you're not poor, a poc, handicaped...
The classic is "who will work in the sewers". Yeah, remind me who's doing it right now, that's right, people that have no other choice.
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@AlSweigart I wouldn't say it's really 'trustworthy'. It still has its limits and flaws. I'm a production editor at a uni press and we discourage our authors from citing it. They should, literally, be doing their own research. However, it has resisted some of the corrosion that has afflicted other media.
I'd say it has the same limitation has anything else. It's one source of information that should be compared with others, even if that source is kinda trustworthy.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
@AlSweigart It is not perfect, small details (like birthdate of celebrities) are dodgy. But the large majority of big issues have excellent detail on the facts.
A majority is not enough to use it as a reference source though.
I will be making another donation, apart from any other reason, Musk wants to destroy it (proving Wiki is telling the truth!) -
Everytime I debate about socialism with people they're like "yeah but you have no solution for this very specific point, so obviously it can't work"
And I'm like... capitalism has the same issue, only not for you because you're not poor, a poc, handicaped...
The classic is "who will work in the sewers". Yeah, remind me who's doing it right now, that's right, people that have no other choice.
I make a different argument because Im on SSI and feel like socialists and even moreso anarchists refuse to update their theory and insist on pre-welfare state thoughts that make little sense with what they are saying for someone on SSI to agree with. Like the idea my income… is not capitalist. It really isn’t at all. It requires a state.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
@AlSweigart it's worth noting that the thing it's replacing (professionally researched and edited encyclopedias) are still very trustworthy. For them, profit motive turns *access* into the problem instead.
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@AlSweigart
Wikipedia didn't change, the world around it did. Just because everything around it got worse doesn't mean that it got better even if it's now one of the more reliable sources. Checking references on Wikipedia is still an important thing.To be clear, I'm not saying Wikipedia is bad and I agree capitalism is the problem but "trust, but verify" is important to follow.
@bobkmertz @AlSweigart I can remember the early days of Wikipedia and it has definitely gotten better over time. Editors have always been more or less committed to quality, but the breadth of Wikipedia has expanded so much.
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@haunted_refrigerator @AlSweigart
You shouldn't cite Wikipedia because it's a secondary source. For any remotely serious work, you're supposed to go back to the primary sources Wikipedia is citing and reference them instead.@VATVSLPR @haunted_refrigerator @AlSweigart ok... my point was that the bottom of Wikipedia points you to their sources. From there, you can do what you will.
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@haunted_refrigerator @AlSweigart The reason Wikipedia should not be cited is because it’s an encyclopedia, not because it’s not accurate.
@ahltorp @haunted_refrigerator @AlSweigart my point was that the bottom of Wikipedia points you to their sources. From there, you can do what you will.
