this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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Asklemmy
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Wikipedia has very major problems, but almost nobody is aware of them. Give this article a read to get an idea.
I don't have the time to read all of that, but everyone should know that alternative medicine is another word for not medicine.
It's bizarre that people still believe stuff like that and other pseudoscience.
All the bad conspiracy theories around ADD, ADHD, Autism, and it's various medications are really getting on my nerves.
And it feels like it will just keep on getting worse. It's insane how much (at least apparent) movement the anti vac crowd are getting.
Sorry for the rant.
Those seem to be the same criticism almost everyone levels at the org, and that are more or less intrinsic to an open platform. mainly that anyone can edit it. How does federation solve these issues, seems to me it would make them much much worse.
Dude admitted higher up that it's not the code, it's the people in charge who are the problem. So all they're really advocating for is starting their own Wikipedia. But of course, theirs will be "the real truth" when in actuality we will just end up with another version.
Relevant XKCD
Replace wikipedia with reddit, and you just discovered the reason lemmy exists. The problem is not just the people, but the code too.
Let's pretend I agree with the article. You'd still be in the same boat with a federalized wiki. It'd still be hundreds of thousands of volunteer contributors, and that's where all the corruption supposedly lies. Except now it's broken up amongst many many many places, and moderation is that much harder now. So, for the upteenth time, what exactly is Wikipedia THE PLATFORM failing at, and why is the fediverse a solution to that specific problem? What part of wikipedias code or implementation is broken and what will the equivalent federated code/setup look like to combat this? Because if you're just going to point to corrupt people, I have a whole world for you to take a look at. Corruption isn't a uniquely Wikipedia problem and isn't caused by their code.
It sounds like you didn't read the article at all, because it clearly explains how Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales himself is involved in many such cases of corruption and manipulation. The code is not the problem, but the fact that a single organization has full control over the site and can decide which contributions get accepted or rejected.
So, you STILL HAVENT ANSWERED MY QUESTION.
What part of wikipedias code or implementation is the problem? And how will the fediverse solve this?
IF dude is corrupt, what's to stop the next fediwiki from being corrupt too? After all, since it's federated, if I don't like your "facts", I can just defederate and spread my own "facts".
So maybe do some reading of your own and answer my question. What's wrong with the Wikipedia CODE that federated CODE will solve and how? Otherwise all you're really advocating for is starting your own Wikipedia, and no one is stopping you.
This is just "old thing + new buzzword".
Why are you so heated about this? Wikis are good, decentralized yet compatible services are good. This won’t destroy Wikipedia. you can just ignore it if you don’t want to use it?
I'm not heated. Just sick of people attaching whatever new buzzword is around to something with no thought beyond that. That's all this is. Just a rehash of blockchain and NFT woo woo.
I bet a year ago you would have said the exact same things about Lemmy, and yet here you are.
I understand the difference between a centralized and decentralized service. I WANT Wikipedia to be centralized. I've said that since the beginning. Objective truth has no business being splintered up.
Wikipedia is centralized, and doesn't allow collaboration by self-hosted servers. Activitypub allows this. You seem to not understand the point of the site you're using right now.
I understand the point. I also know that we're currently defederated from hexbear and a few others. So in effect, there is less openness currently in Lemmy than on Wikipedia. How exactly is being able to do that.going to give us objective truth and not just 500 echo chambers?
You completely ignored the article, because it answers your question directly.