I have my issues with Wikipedia, and he’s not wrong about the concentration of power amongst editors. However, fuck Elon Musk. He’s just mad that he can’t control Wikipedia himself.
he’s not wrong about the concentration of power amongst editors
The classic problem of an open-edit document like Wikipedia is the manpower it takes to manage the project properly relative to the incentives to fuck with it by malicious actors. Elon’s answer to this problem is to monetize the sinking ship to the hilt and then use the excess revenues to buy the next new thing. The Jimmy Wales approach is to build out a network of trusted administrators and semi-trusted volunteers to play wack-a-mole on this one single project forever.
Originally, the theory of Wikipedia was that you’d have far more good actors than bad. Therefore, the bulk of the encyclopedia would accumulate useful information that went largely unmolested and didn’t need to be babysat by live humans. This… hasn’t proven to be the case. So the costs of the website continue to expand as the content base does.
Automation of spammers, scammers, and malicious actors has made the problem even more difficult. And I have no doubt that Elon’s own digital vandalism efforts have taken their toll as well. There’s simply too much economic incentive to fuck with the public’s understanding of the world for a project like Wikipedia to go ignored.
I’m afraid its days are ultimately numbered, precisely because too many people trust it.
I’m proud to downvote this screed of baseless doomsaying but I’m dismayed at the fact that I’m the only one doing so.
Just goes to show that you come to Lemmy because of the potential of a federated platform, not for the reality of its current community (which is absolute garbage.)
If you think that enshittification of all platforms everywhere is completely inevitable and we should just throw up our hands and give up at the slightest threat then you’re unfortunately in good company here.
I have my issues with Wikipedia, and he’s not wrong about the concentration of power amongst editors. However, fuck Elon Musk. He’s just mad that he can’t control Wikipedia himself.
The classic problem of an open-edit document like Wikipedia is the manpower it takes to manage the project properly relative to the incentives to fuck with it by malicious actors. Elon’s answer to this problem is to monetize the sinking ship to the hilt and then use the excess revenues to buy the next new thing. The Jimmy Wales approach is to build out a network of trusted administrators and semi-trusted volunteers to play wack-a-mole on this one single project forever.
Originally, the theory of Wikipedia was that you’d have far more good actors than bad. Therefore, the bulk of the encyclopedia would accumulate useful information that went largely unmolested and didn’t need to be babysat by live humans. This… hasn’t proven to be the case. So the costs of the website continue to expand as the content base does.
Automation of spammers, scammers, and malicious actors has made the problem even more difficult. And I have no doubt that Elon’s own digital vandalism efforts have taken their toll as well. There’s simply too much economic incentive to fuck with the public’s understanding of the world for a project like Wikipedia to go ignored.
I’m afraid its days are ultimately numbered, precisely because too many people trust it.
I’m proud to downvote this screed of baseless doomsaying but I’m dismayed at the fact that I’m the only one doing so.
Just goes to show that you come to Lemmy because of the potential of a federated platform, not for the reality of its current community (which is absolute garbage.)
If you think enshittification can’t come for you, its only a matter of time before you’re proven wrong.
If you think that enshittification of all platforms everywhere is completely inevitable and we should just throw up our hands and give up at the slightest threat then you’re unfortunately in good company here.