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by gptgpp 1236 days ago
I mean... There are lots of ways to browse Wikipedia offline without having your IP recorded, absent using something simpler like a VPN.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download

I can understand if this is just too much effort to put into an online discussion though, I probably wouldn't bother myself.

And yeah there have been lots of scandals with Wikipedia. This one was pretty infamous:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/26/shock-an-aw-...

Ironically I think your attitude probably protects Wikipedia quite a bit, and from that perspective I'd like to see more of it. The less people see it as a good source of information, the less incentive there is for all of the agenda-pushing you've described (which also definitely happens).

I still think the bulk of it is pretty decent though, on non/less-polarizing subjects, which describes most of IMO.

My main issue is that most articles are an inch deep. I find myself using textbooks and journal articles more often these days, while sailing the open seas as this would otherwise be cost prohibitive.

1 comments

If we look at the Vulture Bee article, it cites a couple semi-relevant journal articles (which do exist but are not exactly on point for a general citation), but then it inflates the number of citations pointlessly by citing multiple pop news articles that all cite one of the previously cited research papers, and some of which just blogspam link to the other useless popular science magazine citations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulture_bee

In many history articles, there are random citations to web pages without any provenance that claim to be translated documents. Sometimes this is done despite the existence of reliable public databases of such documents available through universities, foundations, and governments. Then there is the link rot problem which gets worse over time.

The link rot problem is real but Wikipedia editors have _diligently_ institutionalized automated use of the Internet Archive and other snapshotting sites (but the IA is the best one & deserves donation support). So compared to the average among other sites, Wikipedia has much less of a link rot problem.