It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
Also my response to that in school when we were told not to use it for research was just to click through to the references and cite them directly making it a fantastic index and summary
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@AlSweigart Fair, but if you still can't use a Wikipedia citation as a valid source as a freelancer. At least, no respectable freelancer would do it, least of all me.
It still exists as a fascinating open-source experiment, even if it's not exactly what anyone would describe as 100% reliable.
Turns out newspapers having a monopoly on classified ads was actually a very, very good thing for society.
@haunted_refrigerator @AlSweigart professors in college back in the day would rule out wikipedia for citation. This was hilarious to me as an IT professional.
What is at the bottom of every wikipedia page?
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Also my response to that in school when we were told not to use it for research was just to click through to the references and cite them directly making it a fantastic index and summary
@AlSweigart @gbargoud That's what I do. It's also good for finding links to papers nobody seems to have handy.
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@AlSweigart Fair, but if you still can't use a Wikipedia citation as a valid source as a freelancer. At least, no respectable freelancer would do it, least of all me.
It still exists as a fascinating open-source experiment, even if it's not exactly what anyone would describe as 100% reliable.
Turns out newspapers having a monopoly on classified ads was actually a very, very good thing for society.
@haunted_refrigerator @AlSweigart The reason Wikipedia should not be cited is because it’s an encyclopedia, not because it’s not accurate.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
@AlSweigart I remember researching John Wesley and the wikipedia page started out "For a good time call ###-####, also John Wesley (/ˈwɛsli/ WESS-lee;[1] 28 June [O.S. 17 June] 1703 – 2 March 1791) was an Engl..." Still more useful than AI slop.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
I was once mocked by my cousin and his redneck friends for using Wikipedia to get... a list of US Presidents.
I didn't know how to respond to that so I just kept quiet and removed myself from the thread. I *still* don't know how I should have responded to it.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
@AlSweigart
Wikipedia didn't change, the world around it did. Just because everything around it got worse doesn't mean that it got better even if it's now one of the more reliable sources. Checking references on Wikipedia is still an important thing.To be clear, I'm not saying Wikipedia is bad and I agree capitalism is the problem but "trust, but verify" is important to follow.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
@AlSweigart I wouldn't say it's really 'trustworthy'. It still has its limits and flaws. I'm a production editor at a uni press and we discourage our authors from citing it. They should, literally, be doing their own research. However, it has resisted some of the corrosion that has afflicted other media.
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@AlSweigart can't trust Wikipedia because a swathe of their editors/moderators are actively and maliciously misogynist and/or transphobic, and will reject edits and flag pages as not notable where people give women, particularly trans women, credit
yet it's still less bad than the for-profit sites
@jackeric @AlSweigart That's how crowd sourcing works. It needs people (dare I say community?) to care about it enough to fix the typos and misinformation and lack of properly cited sources. Eventually truth outs (in theory).
But it takes resources to keep everything running and detect the wreckers too. I have never enjoyed donating to an organization more. They graciously accept any amount. Single digit donations are treated exactly the same as hundreds of bucks.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
@AlSweigart “it’s a good thing Wikipedia works in practice because it sure doesn’t work in theory”
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@AlSweigart I remember researching John Wesley and the wikipedia page started out "For a good time call ###-####, also John Wesley (/ˈwɛsli/ WESS-lee;[1] 28 June [O.S. 17 June] 1703 – 2 March 1791) was an Engl..." Still more useful than AI slop.
@fiend_unpleasant @AlSweigart When I was in high school doing a paper on Al Capone, the Czech Wikipedia had this thing in the "early life" section:
Like every young boy, he liked to beat the meat.
Removing that was my first and so far only Wikipedia edit.
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It will never stop being funny to me that the whole "you can't trust Wikipedia because anyone can edit it" scare happened and now Wikipedia is the only trustworthy website because it turns out profit motive is the reason things turn to shit.
"Yeah but what about public bathrooms?" The only reason private bathrooms are clean is because they exclude the 99% of the population who aren't paying customers on that day.
You might as well say capitalism is great if you're rich, or dictatorships are great if you're a crowned prince.
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@AlSweigart I wouldn't say it's really 'trustworthy'. It still has its limits and flaws. I'm a production editor at a uni press and we discourage our authors from citing it. They should, literally, be doing their own research. However, it has resisted some of the corrosion that has afflicted other media.
@maccruiskeen And the reason it's resisted that so well is because it doesn't have followers or favorites or likes or any of that engagement nonsense that social media strives for.
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"Yeah but what about public bathrooms?" The only reason private bathrooms are clean is because they exclude the 99% of the population who aren't paying customers on that day.
You might as well say capitalism is great if you're rich, or dictatorships are great if you're a crowned prince.
(And anyway, private bathrooms include gas stations, night clubs, bus stations, and stadiums.)
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@AlSweigart @hosford42 @jmjm that was a brief but passionate relationship
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(And anyway, private bathrooms include gas stations, night clubs, bus stations, and stadiums.)
@AlSweigart
The public bathrooms in the park near me are about as good as the ones in the nearest Starbucks. The only thing the Starbucks has going for it is a better hand dryer. The public park restrooms are open 24/7, which is a huge point in their favor. Maybe if more cities had clean public restrooms open 24/7, they'd have fewer problems with unhoused people with poor hygiene. -
@AlSweigart Fair, but if you still can't use a Wikipedia citation as a valid source as a freelancer. At least, no respectable freelancer would do it, least of all me.
It still exists as a fascinating open-source experiment, even if it's not exactly what anyone would describe as 100% reliable.
Turns out newspapers having a monopoly on classified ads was actually a very, very good thing for society.
@haunted_refrigerator @AlSweigart
You shouldn't cite Wikipedia because it's a secondary source. For any remotely serious work, you're supposed to go back to the primary sources Wikipedia is citing and reference them instead. -
@maccruiskeen And the reason it's resisted that so well is because it doesn't have followers or favorites or likes or any of that engagement nonsense that social media strives for.
@AlSweigart @maccruiskeen
Clout chasing is a scourge. The world would be a much better place if people weren't constantly playing to an audience.
