Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-11-29/In the media

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• Smallbones, you are not the best person to write about Russia, are you? ∯WBG^converse 15:01, 30 November 2019 (UTC)o
• Smallbones, this is a really helpful investigation & summary into all of the efforts to manipulate & protect Wikipedia. I'd seen some of these in the news, but there's a lot more that I need to read. Also, kudos for carrying the Beatles all the way to the end. :) -- Toughpigs (talk) 20:53, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks @Toughpigs:. This one started with the song, which has been popping up in my head for about a third of all articles I added to this review for the past several months. Looking back at the article draft history it looks like it just hit me over the head with the China story and Jimmy's social network. Of course this is about the manipulation of Wikipedia, but it's not just manipulation, everybody's doing it. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, but your goose is going to get cooked. My only remaining question is whether the slow version or the fast version is better. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:51, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Um, obviously the fast version. The guitar is so much meaner :) -Indy beetle (talk) 02:52, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but I'm a sucker for "dooby doo wahs" Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:58, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

As my poetry teacher back in college once put it, "sometimes the Muse hands you a cookie." -- llywrch (talk) 23:21, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

• While I will admit that, based on over 18 years contributing to Wikipedia, Wikipedia has numerous faults, some of which are critical, nevertheless it always seems that almost anything Larry Sanger writes about Wikipedia is just another serving of sour grapes. And if you've sampled one sour grape, you know what they taste like. -- llywrch (talk) 20:00, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

• I'm finding Larry's rants absolutely hilarious given that his first "I'll show you how to make a damned encyclopedia" project was the exact opposite of what he is proposing now. The plan, if I understand it correctly, is to take all available articles on a given subject and make them fight it out until one is determined to be the "correct" version. The fact that he is openly courting the alt-right crowd to assist him in this venture does not inspire confidence in it's ability to find truth. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:33, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that WT:Social does not actually have that many users. It's pay-to-play or they put you on a waitlist and let you in when they feel like it... or something like that. So there's a bunch of people on a list, but only those who have paid up are actually using it. I can't imagine that charging for what all other platforms give away for free is a sustainable model that will take even a modest chink of the social media market. Competing with Facebook is something even Google failed at, and WikiTribune sure isn't Google. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:37, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I think User:Beeblebrox you just need to invite someone else and you are let in. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:37, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree - there's pretty extreme difference between Citizendium and Everipedia. This new encyclosphere things seems to be more towards the evripedia end but there were a couple of (slightly incongruous) mention of experts in his 18 min video. Sadly, I 'd expect the system he's proposing will be the equivalent of the echo chambers and bubbles that social media and online news have tended to enhance. The idea of basically being able to browse an encyclopedia where each article is chosen from a wide set in order to best match your ideology sounds pretty dire. T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)^talk 04:11, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that. Larry has long had inclusionist tendencies, I don't have any diffs off-hand but if you go many years back into his edit history you'll see what I mean. Certainly if you read the comments in his announcement he sees no contradiction; there's a back and forth with Carrite among others. It seems what he wants is an encyclopedia about everything edited by experts. Since that is obviously not happening, he's hit upon a different solution of placing all internet encyclopedia articles together to be rated for quality side-by-side with the idea being that the best will eventually win out. YMMV on whether this is a good idea, I certainly have my doubts. 47.23.142.18 (talk) 00:48, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

• @Peaceray, are the University of Washington edit-a-thon results logged somewhere? Didn't see in the WikiEdu dashboard. czar 00:34, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

@Czar: Editing as Activism, Edit-A-Thon to Correct Systemic Bias in Wikipedia — Programs & Events Dashboard: Articles Edited Peaceray (talk) 03:44, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

• About the Jimmy Kimmel licensing thing: The ShareAlike doesn't work that way. The license permits stuff otherwise prohibited by copyright law on certain conditions. It doesn't automatically attach the same license to derivative works. Rather, someone releasing a derivative work that doesn't abide by the license terms is infringing copyright--just like nearly everything else on YouTube. Ntsimp (talk) 17:25, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

• Baidu Baike's layout is a bit confusing compared to Mediawiki, even the ads are sometimes more prominent than the content itself. Can see why users prefer the zhwiki over Baike (along with the reasons mentioned in the article). Gotitbro (talk) 22:47, 17 December 2019 (UTC)