Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-05-31/In the media

Great Russia Encyclopedia was an obvious scam to grab some state money. All Russian encyclopedias and dictionaries are online already. It only remains to write a bot to aggregate all in one and keep a maintenance crew. But I am sure there was lots of politics and academic burocrats to grab a piece of pie as "scientific consultants" Staszek Lem (talk) 05:54, 1 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Equally importantly, Chekists simply don't need to waste any time or money building any new zones to flood with shit, because the world already offers them many existing zones to flood and doesn't bother to be wary of the flooding, not duly understanding that "the history of our sewage disposal system" hasn't ended but only evolved into another era. Karmanatory (talk) 01:51, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, their idea was to combat anglosaxon shit (in their understanding). And I do not know many zones for their shit besides a couple govt-owned media. Dont tell me about utube : the amount of shit there overfloods the russian one big time. Staszek Lem (talk) 04:00, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * You don't know what "flodding the zone" refers to. It means pumping massive disinformation flow into existing zones of public discourse. Here are some explanations:, Karmanatory (talk) 13:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Sanger is actually a sad case. Besides the obvious blinkers on his choice of topics, with a narrow focus on US current affairs and its concerns, his piece shows a clear ignorance of WP:SUMMARY and its effects. Summary style has been around since 2004 (some time after Sanger left WP) and to call the top-level Hillary Clinton article a whitewash because controversies are detailed in articles hanging off it is to miss the point entirely. That approach is not "bias": it is encyclopedic, and conflating its effects with issues of prominence is barking up the wrong tree. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:46, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Summary style certainly does come with its issues, and certainly it could be tweaked to mitigate the issues re prominence/"buried" info, but it's just not viable these days (indeed, 2004 would make sense, since it hasn't been for a very long time). Nosebagbear (talk)
 * As I've commented elsewhere, Sanger needs to forget about Wikipedia & move on with his life. I used to think of him (better analogy than another I've mentioned) of being Wikipedia's Pete Best, but time & again his efforts to prove he knew better than anyone here how to create an encyclopedia have failed. An uncharitable person might say that Wikipedia succeeded because he wasn't involved any longer. And with those words, I hereby promise not to discuss the man again. -- llywrch (talk) 18:29, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * His partnering up with Everipedia, where you can pay to have your preferred version of an article protected, is really what did it for me. He is "correct" about bias issues, but he has no leg to stand on in terms of his personal credibility. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:12, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Sanger is not disclosing his own bias and his vested interests in that article. That's its major flaw.--Pgallert (talk) 07:49, 2 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I do like Godwin's op-ed (disclosure, I almost always like Godwin), with particular reference to his example/analogy of a third common use-case - the bookshops/libraries example where a content neutral model isn't needed but they still aren't liable for their offerings' words. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:42, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * That Slate article is actually a fascinating point. As has been said many times, one of Wikipedia's greatest strengths is its radical transparency - everything is recorded and saved. Somehow it never occurred to me how valuable that would be for historians! Ganesha811 (talk) 15:29, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Funny how reporting facts has become "left-wing". Kaldari (talk) 18:41, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Unfunny. Not that the complaint was of any merit, but one may report facts selectively. Or use only sources with a particular bias branding the "other side" as "partisan" and "unreliable", that's just what sanger did :-) Staszek Lem (talk) 19:14, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I am happy to continue ignoring the opinions of an "ex-founder" who has essentially been irrelevant to the project for almost two decades. I'm sure I can catch up on his views through his latest failed project Citizendum... InfoBitt?... Everipedia?... the Knowledge Standards Foundation that is "defining tech standards for encyclopedias"? or was it Encyclosphere? It's hard to keep track. I think it is best if Mr. Sanger moves on and stops worrying about the project that got away. Nihlus  03:59, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
 * He'll never be able to move on. He already blew through his 15 minutes of fame. Forevermore, he will be "that guy who co-founded Wikipedia, but Didn't Get It." This is unfortunate, of course, but considering Citizendium etc., I think it's not something he can change at this point. He now has a very public history of repeatedly Not Getting It, and it's probably too late to change that now. -- N Y  Kevin   21:31, 8 June 2020 (UTC)