The wonder of the online world was built by a community of eccentric volunteers. Can it survive the A.I. models it helped train?

One “very senior Wikimedian,” we are told, “came to think of the project as a ‘city built by Asperger’s.’ ”

If you get the paywall, it’s readable at http://archive.today/R2rnW

  • non_burglar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    8 hours ago

    Pirate library

    Sure, yes. Acknowledged.

    It is true that the referenced information is present in libgen, but it is not succinctly summarized for consumption, and that is the function Wikipedia fulfills for most users.

    I can understand the pitfalls of allowing updates from the public, but I think it’s widely accepted that Wikipedia does more good than bad.

    It’s really difficult to understand your point of view on this, especially when you indulge in semantics arguments.

    • antonim@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      1·
      5 hours ago

      but it is not succinctly summarized for consumption, and that is the function Wikipedia fulfills for most users

      You may have noticed that this is precisely what I’ve disagreed on with two other users in this thread, who claimed that Wikipedia should contain as much information as possible. I agree with you, it is good to have an encyclopedia that summarises the most important, and directs towards further materials for further deeper study.

      Again, the point I disagreed on with the other poster is simply on what’s the “biggest repository of human knowledge ever”. You seem to agree that the shadow libraries are bigger, and that settles it, we don’t have to disagree further. Being the biggest repository does not, of course, mean that it should be the only repository, that others are bad, or whatever else. Different repositories can fulfill different roles in the sharing of knowledge.

      I can understand the pitfalls of allowing updates from the public, but I think it’s widely accepted that Wikipedia does more good than bad.

      I don’t think I disagreed with the latter point, except when I mentioned the smaller borderline fascist wikis somewhere ITT. When it comes to English and some other large WPs I definitely don’t disagree.

      Maybe you’re just supposing that we disagree on something when we really don’t, so you can’t lead the discussion to the point where we’d finally clearly disagree. I provided some criticism of Wikipedia, that doesn’t mean I think it’s bad wholesale. Wikipedia is complicated. I’ve spent quite a while editing it, as well as using traditional encyclopedias. I just negatively reacted to some comments in this thread, the harsh dismissal of traditional encyclopedias, and the somewhat overrated view of Wikipedia.