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by consumer451 2103 days ago
> places like wikipedia and reddit. I just hate it.

All human products have issues, but are there any superior alternatives at scale?

Wikipedia is one of our civilization’s greatest achievements, isn’t it? It seems like the Library of Alexandria on steroids to me. Especially when combined with an internet archive.

It’s funny to admit it, but Reddit is also quite an achievement due to the scalable human moderation model and very useful hive mind.

For research, name a better duo.
3 comments
HeadsUpHigh 2103 days ago
No I don't have any superior alternatives at scale. For anything I can get away with, I avoid large scale places completely. Of course it's not always possible. I'm just tired of non-experts giving opinions and having the power to enforce those opinions.

I think wikipedia is as good as it can get given the constrains it has. Some kind of vetting process for experts on specific fields could potentially be useful for specific information though. But the matter of fact is that I have pretty much stopped using wikipedia for anything but the most rudimentary info check. I rarely even check the sources they provide. If I want more than the couple paragraphs wikipedia has on most subjects I go straight to books an sometimes I skip wikipedia altogether when I know that it won't be enough.

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burntoutfire 2103 days ago
> Are there any superior alternatives at scale?

Pay tens of thousands of experts to work on the encyclopedia instead. The issue isn't scale, but the cost of the labor (which, in Wikipedia's case, is free - but in many cases you get the quality you paid for).

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hirako2000 2103 days ago
This alternative has shown to produce inferior universal encyclopedia.

Encyclopedia Britanica was/is probably the most successful professional collection of knowledge, it's been superseded by Wikipedia over a decade ago.

Free contributor is a low expense for sure but what you get isn't necessarily lower value than paying contributors.

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HeadsUpHigh 2103 days ago
The problem with wikipedia is that the existing editors tend to drive away experts who are willing to edit things for free though. Like one comment here about the random editor with a beginner's textbook reverting edits with information that was not in their textbook( that were properly cited from well-known books). That's just ridiculous and I'm blown away at the level of hubris that makes you trust your own lack of knowledge more than proper citations.
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burntoutfire 2103 days ago
Were the expert-produced entries in Britannica of lower quality/accuracy than in Wikipedia?
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Const-me 2103 days ago
> For research, name a better duo.

A search engine and scihub?

Wikipedia is useful for a high-level overview. For more info, you'll be clicking on the references a lot. No reason not to start with the sources.

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consumer451 2102 days ago
> > > For research, name a better duo.

> A search engine and scihub?

> Wikipedia is useful for a high-level overview. For more info, you'll be clicking on the references a lot. No reason not to start with the sources.

Ok, you got me there. I knew using "research" with no qualifier was going to get me into trouble. I should have said "general research."

I can't wait for Sci-Hub, or better, to become legal. The fact that is not legal is pretty embarrassing for our civilization.

Regarding the search engine, for a lot of general research adding "... reddit" often improves results in my experience. It's so weird how important that site turned out to be. Now if only it could make money without unneccesary features. I feel like we should buy reddit for the commons while we can :)

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Const-me 2102 days ago
> The fact that is not legal is pretty embarrassing for our civilization.

Philosophically speaking sure, but practically it already works fine now.

I don’t think any judge is going to convict a researcher for bypassing these paywalls. if Elsevier and company will decide to prosecute, it will become a PR nightmare for them. Also likely to cause a legislative response which will undermine their ability to collect their profits. I don’t believe these people are stupid, I think they understand these consequences as well.

> adding "... reddit" often improves results in my experience

Interesting, will try next time. I have an account there for a few years, but wasn’t using it much.

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