I’m rather sceptical that this can work as a good alternative to Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s content moderation system is in my opinion both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. To create a better Wikipedia, you would have to somehow innovate in that regard. I don’t think federation helps in any way with this problem.
I do though see potential in Ibis for niche wikis which are currently mostly hosted on fandom.org. If you could create distinct wiki’s for different topics and allow them to interconnect when it makes sense, Ibis might have a chance there.
I’m going to use your comment to tell people to download Indie Wiki Buddy. It’s a plug-in for your browser that redirects Fandom to independent alternatives. I highly recommend it.
No I think it would actually be great. You could peek at two opposing views on the same article, for example. I’m sure some “instances” would be ripe with disinformation but what’s it to you? Idiots are already lapping up disinformation like candy. It’s not like wikipedia isn’t filled with it already…
Not only is the noise ratio low, this seems like a good lesson in “encyclopedias are not primary sources nor arbiters nor authorities on information.” Yes, people use Wikipedia that way anyway. No, baking in an even lower trust system does not seem like it’s actually a fix to any of Wikipedia’s problems.
Imagine it’s post-2001 and George Bush is saying we need to take away Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). You hear there is a controversy around this topic, so you look it up on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia article may not even mention the controversy because it came from “fringe sources” or unreliable media, instead its rules mean they only share the message from approved media sources, and that means the article says Iraq definitely has WMDs and something must be done.
This is how it works now, and always had.
When I was in college in the second half of the 2000s, we were banned from using Wikipedia as a source due to the way it is built. Many complained but given how many controversies Wikipedia has found itself involved in which includes paid editors, state actors, only being able to use biased journalistic coverage to construct articles, refusing to use other media sources such as established bloggers…
Trusting Wikipedia at any point was the mistake. It’s not even the Wikimedia foundation that is the issue, it’s the structure of the site. If no approved journalists will speak the truth, your article will be nothing but lies and Wikipedia editors will dutifully write those lies down and lock down the article if you attempt to correct them using sources they personally dislike.
I’m rather sceptical that this can work as a good alternative to Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s content moderation system is in my opinion both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. To create a better Wikipedia, you would have to somehow innovate in that regard. I don’t think federation helps in any way with this problem. I do though see potential in Ibis for niche wikis which are currently mostly hosted on fandom.org. If you could create distinct wiki’s for different topics and allow them to interconnect when it makes sense, Ibis might have a chance there.
I’m going to use your comment to tell people to download Indie Wiki Buddy. It’s a plug-in for your browser that redirects Fandom to independent alternatives. I highly recommend it.
@manucode @nutomic The thing is Wikipedia is losing user’ trust because their decisions aren’t always clear and some members are clearly tyrannic.
Maybe it won’t replace Wikipedia, but maybe it will send a message to improve.
If you think a centralized organization governed by legalism is opaque, just wait until you see a thousand islands of anarchy.
No I think it would actually be great. You could peek at two opposing views on the same article, for example. I’m sure some “instances” would be ripe with disinformation but what’s it to you? Idiots are already lapping up disinformation like candy. It’s not like wikipedia isn’t filled with it already…
Post-truth as a service.
If you read through this page you might even conclude that Wikipedia itself is “post-truth”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedia_controversies
At any point in time you could be reading a defaced or propagandized version of an article.
Not only is the noise ratio low, this seems like a good lesson in “encyclopedias are not primary sources nor arbiters nor authorities on information.” Yes, people use Wikipedia that way anyway. No, baking in an even lower trust system does not seem like it’s actually a fix to any of Wikipedia’s problems.
Considering some of the ungodly biased wikipedia alternatives I see tossed around on Lemmy, I’m not too confident Ibis will end up any better.
Besides, first I’m hearing of Wikipedia losing trust.
Imagine it’s post-2001 and George Bush is saying we need to take away Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). You hear there is a controversy around this topic, so you look it up on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia article may not even mention the controversy because it came from “fringe sources” or unreliable media, instead its rules mean they only share the message from approved media sources, and that means the article says Iraq definitely has WMDs and something must be done.
This is how it works now, and always had.
When I was in college in the second half of the 2000s, we were banned from using Wikipedia as a source due to the way it is built. Many complained but given how many controversies Wikipedia has found itself involved in which includes paid editors, state actors, only being able to use biased journalistic coverage to construct articles, refusing to use other media sources such as established bloggers…
Trusting Wikipedia at any point was the mistake. It’s not even the Wikimedia foundation that is the issue, it’s the structure of the site. If no approved journalists will speak the truth, your article will be nothing but lies and Wikipedia editors will dutifully write those lies down and lock down the article if you attempt to correct them using sources they personally dislike.