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this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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Asklemmy
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As it stands now, you can download all of Wikipedia for offline viewing. It's not restricted in any way. And since Wikipedia is looking for objective truth, not opinions, I'm not sure what benefit federation would do. You want it centralized, not broken up. What happens when two instances decide that their version is the only correct one?
I just don't see any benefit. This feels like when everyone was slapping "blockchain" on things because it was the current buzzword. What is Wikipedia failing at currently that decentralizing it would make better?
It doesnt have to be a federated “wikipedia” it can be a federated wiki. Look at the fandom controversy right now where a bunch of games are now moving to their own wikis. A federated wiki software would let all those game wiki host their own wikis but still contribute to eachother without making an account on each wiki.
I want to subscribe to the minecraft and the terraria wikis from my garrys mod wiki account to get notifications on new pages and i want to contribute to them without making an account on each. Federated wikis would be cool
Also i DEFINITELY want a full fledged wiki page available on lemmy so each community can have a wiki with multiple pages and nice linking and a WYSISWYG editor like wikipedia
This isn't talking about "wikis". This is talking about an online encyclopedia of knowledge. I don't want 15 versions of the "physics wiki". I want one centralized source. So again, what does Wikipedia currently fail at that decentralizing it would solve? No one is stopping you from making an account right now and making edits.
What you're describing about seeing updates is just an RSS feed.
This is just slapping "federization" on something that doesn't need it because cool new thing.
Agreed, a decentralised wiki wouldn't make much sense.
How would it even work?
Do you join one wiki and that wiki federated with other wikis to make one bigger wiki?
Would you then have to choose which version of duplicate articles you want to read.
I imagine vandalism would be much easier if moderation is spread over many independent servers.
No, it just seems like a pain.
Someone mentioned a wiki which uses something like pull requests instead of edits and that seems much better.
Because Wikipedia is also so incredibly big, I feel like it would be very hard to get people to use the wiki if you actually want it to have only objective and provable facts. You could probably attract a crowd that likes alternative facts. Like: alternative medicine, flat earth, pseudoscience. Basically, I think it would be hard to attract people unless you make it ConspiracyWiki, which would obviously be a bad idea.
Just like reddit (and many other services), its a centralized US-based service, has a history of scandals and conflicts of interest, has ties to the US state department, and is dominated by a small group of editors (despite its perception as being a universal unbiased knowledge store).
There's definitely a need to decentralize knowledge, move it away from US control, and allow the collaboration that activitypub provides.
I agree, that's a big issue. The US regime hires people to influence the Wikipedia organization, they choose the "reliable news sources", mark some news outlets as fake news, and they edit articles about wars and so on to disseminate their propaganda. Also, the PATRIOT Act... As I wrote a couple months ago, we should end digital colonialism.
Scientific articles about math and stuff like that are fine.
Federation, by it's very nature, is "if I don't like you, I can just make my own instance and do whatever I want". How will you find objective truth when people can't even agree within their own country? You really think we won't just end up with LeftyWiki and RightyWiki and CommieWiki and FacistWiki? Because federated code would encourage this. You're literally adding problems when your problem is people based, not code based.
Why is having alternative sources of information that can collaborate a bad thing?
Why are you even on lemmy, rather than reddit, if you'd rather have a single isolated source of communication?
There are plenty of Wikipedia articles which are not objective, particularly when it comes to politics or history. Of course federation means there would be many different wikis. That makes sense, for example different countries should have their own independent wikis, instead of using one controlled by a different nation.
Yes, we can have a US wiki, a Russia Wiki, a China Wiki, a North Korea Wiki, and none of them will agree with each other and you will have reduced an encyclopedia into worthless anecdotes and opinions.
It is Wikipedia then.
What benefit would federation provide in that case, as people can currently make their own wikis if they want
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.