Gregory's Server@RonSupportsYou @gleick IIUC, it's not so much donations that they need, but actual contributions in the form of edits
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37 comments
@RonSupportsYou @monnier @gleick @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick  @Konfettispaghetti @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick agreed that it's not ideal and could be better. But not a reason to destroy it either... @f4grx @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick @Konfettispaghetti @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick but it's the right thing to address this issue. I also wish wikipedia governance was better. @Konfettispaghetti @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick Anyone who isn't a male cishet, really. I remember some years ago NB voice actor Casey Monguillo had their page remove for "irrelevance" despite voicing the main lead in several high profile animes and videogames, just because some fan of Spike Spencer (another VA) was butthurt about Casey's Shinji Ikari and filed the article for irrelevance repeteadly until it got deleted. @Jurarigo_ @Konfettispaghetti @monnier @gleick I understand and sympathize with the Wikipedia decision that Monguillo has not yet reached the level of fame that would justify a Wikipedia entry. These decisions are debatable but I side with Wikipedia on this one. @RonSupportsYou @Konfettispaghetti @monnier @gleick You kidding, right? First of all, the decision was revoked merely days later, because it was exclusively requested and taken on the basis that Casey as Shinji wasn't as notorious as Spike Spencer. Second, not only Casey have quite the impressive body of work, they're being at it since 2006 and the article cite 57 external sources proving it. @Konfettispaghetti @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick ...Wikipedia is biased but that's simply because any written document or article has bias in some form. Wikipedia has however managed to create an inter-subjective reality we can agree upon for most parts, ofcourse parts of Wikipedia will stay controversial/contested but that's okay. @ErikJonker @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick @Konfettispaghetti @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick ...maybe but it's the best we have, without Wikipedia the situation would be worse and everyone can volunteer to become editor ! @ErikJonker @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick @Konfettispaghetti @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick ..could be true, I don't know frankly, but I do know the management of (partly) volunteer organizations like this is very hard. Wikipedia has it's share of problems for sure. @Konfettispaghetti @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick More generally, it’s strongly biased towards folks with strong opinions, lots of spare time and often an oddly skewed / out of date / just wrong view of the subject matter. Notable women are an aspect of that layered on top of the unexamined misogyny. At least, it’s that way for the subjects I’m an expert in. Maybe others are different. I have better things to do with my life than engage in edit wars with those people. @Konfettispaghetti @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick Anything can always become worse. Wikipedia itself, or its competitor. We risk a hard fork of information and science. One for the reactionary right and one for the rest of us. Can see the basic properties of CO2 being contested, for example. And any scientific breakthroughs made by women and non-whites. @Konfettispaghetti there's also a cultural bias especially when comparing different languages. @Konfettispaghetti From an anarchoframe, wikipedia suffers from what all hill orderings suffers from. Those on top cannot possibly govern in the interests of millions. In the long run, we need to find orderings that enables more spread of power on the web. For instance let schools and libraries be the hubs of the web. We also need to design search engines to optimize for this kind of structure, think search.marginalia.nu.  @Konfettispaghetti @monnier @RonSupportsYou I'm not blind to this problem. I wrote about it a decade ago. It still exists. @RonSupportsYou @gleick @Konfettispaghetti @monnier #Wikipedia is great for many non-controversial things. On controversial topics, it’s at least starting point. But the problems are there. The gender imbalance among contributors and subjects of articles is one big problem. That’s why I really noticed the work of @PennamitePLR. She’s created MANY articles about notable women. I hope others can follow her example. @RonSupportsYou @Konfettispaghetti @PennamitePLR @gleick @monnier I believe this is the latest article by Penny (@PennamitePLR). There’s even an #Iowa connection (which, as an Iowan, I am duty-bound to point out🙂). @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick German Wikipedia had a huge problem with bossy and overzealous admins for some time which made me and many others stop contributing. No part time editor can keep up with a deleter-in-chief. 🤷♀️ @cg @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick That's why I always donated to wikimedia.org, but when I tried that a few weeks ago it was rejected (PayPal). @mnf @cg @monnier @gleick Wikipedia says it is still short of its fundraising goal. Wikipedia lists different ways to give here: https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give @Sirablopp @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick @cg @Sirablopp @monnier @gleick An organization such as Wikipedia has to have some standards, otherwise people will have pages for their spouses, even if a spouse did nothing other than get married to arguably deserve a page. @RonSupportsYou @Sirablopp @monnier @gleick @cg @Sirablopp @monnier @gleick I do not know the decision makers at Wikipedia. I did not know of your experience until you mentioned it to me. My experience with them is positive. They perform a useful function. There is always room for improvement. @RonSupportsYou @cg @monnier @gleick I assure you the topics and lists involved in the discussions I know about were not "pages for their spouses" and I'm sure neither were the ones Christoph mentioned. Here is one famous example: https://www.sciencealert.com/in-may-wikipedia-rejected-an-entry-on-a-physics-nobel-laureate-because-she-wasn-t-famous-enough But sure, just make up a fake argument nobody even brought up to feel good arguing against it, if that makes you happy. :) @Sirablopp @cg @monnier @gleick There is now a Wikipedia page for Donna Theo Strickland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Strickland proving that Wikipedia is not perfect but it is getting better. @Sirablopp @RonSupportsYou @monnier @gleick @cg @monnier @RonSupportsYou @gleick Sounds a little bit like how we Germans deal with (too many) things. |
@monnier @gleick Wikipedia asked for donations of cash, and I decided to help them in this way this month.