Wikipedia

[The Laughing Man]

http://wikipedia.org/

An encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Could this someday replace Google?

[Clark Nova]

It could easily. The search algorithm is not perfect yet but its got a lot less government restrictions on it now then google so it could catch up.

[Clark Nova]

I hardly think so. It's not a search engine. It's interesting to note how rare it is for the first search result of a topic in Google not to lead to wikipedia, though.
that started with firefox having the wikipedia search bar. it uses google to search wikipedia so its obviously going to boost its weighting.

[Dolores]

It has an internal search feature and could potentially be modified to augment the internal search with an all-web search.

[Clark Nova]

It has an internal search feature and could potentially be modified to augment the internal search with an all-web search.
The only thing there is that it would need to spider the whole net.
Lets see, with the wikipedia servers I would say they could spool up to a decent amount of sites within four months of turning it on, but they would need the storage space that google does.
It is possible, but difficult. All of wikipedia is only something like 7terra.
It comes down to 2 terra without images.

[Pterodactyl Handler]

hey I got an idea:

Wikigooglia: the search enginge anybody can edit




pretty much links every search query to goatse

[Clark Nova]

what i always hoped for was that when the wiki page comes up the disambiguation options would be displayed below the search result.

[Pterodactyl Handler]

The only thing there is that it would need to spider the whole net.
Lets see, with the wikipedia servers I would say they could spool up to a decent amount of sites within four months of turning it on, but they would need the storage space that google does.
It is possible, but difficult. All of wikipedia is only something like 7terra.
It comes down to 2 terra without images.



you're gonna be able to get a terra on a keychain any day now

[Clark Nova]

you're gonna be able to get a terra on a keychain any day now
well I got an 8 gig for 30 euro. I'm sure you CAN get a terra for a bit more.
but soon a terra stick is going to be cheap.

[Pterodactyl Handler]

I was just hunting around for a 1GB stick on ebay. I mean the technology is cheap enough that they should be in the dollar bin by now, right? I could only find novelty christmas thumb drives for some reason

I think that's a pretty good metaphor for wikipedia actually.

[Clark Nova]

I was just hunting around for a 1GB stick on ebay. I mean the technology is cheap enough that they should be in the dollar bin by now, right? I could only find novelty christmas thumb drives for some reason

I think that's a pretty good metaphor for wikipedia actually.
thats really strange.
My college shop sells 4gigs over the counter. buckets of them. Your would think they would show up on ebay.

Oh, even if you could get a few terr hd to store all of wikipedia you would want some pretty impressive hardware to query it. that would be the catch.
cant search the data quickly but you could at least have it.

[Pterodactyl Handler]

True... I bet, however, that if you stripped out all the stubs, talk pages, and a lot of the metadata, you'd have a much slimmer database. And if you stripped out pages that get barely any hits, you'd have a slimmer one, at the cost of not being able to look up the most arcane data.


Wikipedia's Categories could be a good way to organize which data you want on your device. You'd plug it into wikipedia and say "hmm, runnign out of room for the update, I'll throw Chemistry into the killfile to make room for the lastest wikinews."

that would be SO sweet

jesus we need to invest in that before somebody else makes it

[Pterodactyl Handler]

another thing I've always thought would be a cool website would be an "annotated wikipedia" - basically it just mirrors wikipedia, but adds a "Hitchiker's Guide" discussion tab which you can only see if you're viewing wikipedia through the website. Users would be able to discuss certain articles, or write comments, without adhering to wikipedia standards.

subjective anecdotal advice, for example, would be great on the Chicago page or what have you

[Dolores]

hey I got an idea:

Wikigooglia: the search enginge anybody can edit




pretty much links every search query to goatse

I already called this in the Yahoo thread.

[Clark Nova]

"I'd think a forum in wikipedia, one board for each article, would be fun."

that would kill loading times.
Each page does actually have a forum, you know that right?
when on a page and you are logged in click on "discuss this topic"

[Dolores]

I don't spend a whole lot of time on Wikipedia, but I have noticed that the overall quality of the information seems to be improving (for accuracy, rather than opinion) so something must be working right.

[Clark Nova]

Are you talking about the Talk page or something that only shows up when you're logged on? Cause you're not allowed to use the talk page as a forum.
You can use it as a forum relating to the page you are on. Talking about contained material and discussing what should go in. you cant have stuff like "i just home this weekend to see my mom doing my brother" or anything personal.

[Pterodactyl Handler]

really interesting article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia

[Clark Nova]

But you can't use it simply to discuss your personal opinion on the subject either. That's what I'd like a forum for.
True, its a good thing in the sense that it approaches it from a scientific perspective but it also allows stagnation in its user base.

[Tsar Phalanxia]

really interesting article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia

Related, so hard. (http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia)

This raises another point; is it biased to be neutral?

[Pterodactyl Handler]

Related, so hard. (http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia)

This raises another point; is it biased to be neutral?

sort of related

http://www.conservapedia.com/Essay:Examples_of_Moronic_Vandalism_by_the_%22tolerant%22

[Tsar Phalanxia]

sort of related

http://www.conservapedia.com/Essay:Examples_of_Moronic_Vandalism_by_the_%22tolerant%22

So much win :D

[Daruko]

I've always wondered if Conservapedia could be a cleverly crafted ruse.

[fomenter]

Conservapedia is the biggest joke in encyclopedia history. You'd find more accurate info on Uncyclopedia or even Encyclopedia Dramatica.


it makes for some interesting insight into the conservative "wing-nut" mind though

[Clark Nova]

Conservapedia is the biggest joke in encyclopedia history. You'd find more accurate info on Uncyclopedia or even Encyclopedia Dramatica.

Its true. Hell you would find less biased articles at Wikifur. I often wonder are its contributors actually just trolls.
I wonder about this a lot of things in real life

[fomenter]

o shit there is a wikifur? lol

trolls or suffering from the biggest wackjob has the loudest voice syndrome?

[Clark Nova]

o shit there is a wikifur? lol

trolls or suffering from the biggest wackjob has the loudest voice syndrome?
There is indeed a Furry wikipedia. Its a fortress. you might get one troll message in before they ban you.
Troll edits for regular wikipedia is far more rewarding.

[fomenter]

There is indeed a Furry wikipedia. Its a fortress. you might get one troll message in before they ban you.
Troll edits for regular wikipedia is far more rewarding.

it would need to be a fortress furry is a synonym for target..


the biggest whack job loudest voice or trolls question was actually about conservapedia.. poor post construction on my part..

[Clark Nova]

Ah yes. Well at least it sort of acts like a containment for them.
If only there was a solution for these conservatives. Some kind of final solution....

[Tsar Phalanxia]

Metapedia (http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) is a lot more subtle than Conservapedia. Whilst Conservapedia is almost funny, Metapedia is chilling.

E.g. This is their article on Treblinka. (http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Treblinka)

[sudikics]

Metapedia (http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) is a lot more subtle than Conservapedia. Whilst Conservapedia is almost funny, Metapedia is chilling.

E.g. This is their article on Treblinka. (http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Treblinka)
That is unnerving.

[Tsar Phalanxia]

Terrifying would be a better word. They're very subtle, much more so than Conservapedia.

[Qsceszxdwa]

I don't spend a whole lot of time on Wikipedia, but I have noticed that the overall quality of the information seems to be improving (for accuracy, rather than opinion) so something must be working right.

Yes it is, more admins, mods, and people who care help it.
Along with viable citations on many articles, Wikipedia is gradually becoming more and more accurate.

And, wikipedia des not compete with google so... wut?

[sudikics]

Yes it is, more admins, mods, and people who care help it.
Along with viable citations on many articles, Wikipedia is gradually becoming more and more accurate.

And, wikipedia des not compete with google so... wut?
Didn't a study come out a few years ago saying that WP was more accurate than Encyclopedia Brittanica?

[Cain]

Terrifying would be a better word. They're very subtle, much more so than Conservapedia.

To be honest, that is not hard. And as soon as anyone says "so-called" in reference to a death camp, my mind immediately starts look for other tell tale signs of holocaut denial, fascist sympathies or batshit insanity.

It would have been far better if they had presented flawed evidence in favour of it being a death camp, then knocked down the fallacious arguments with their own, or synthesized both arguments to cast doubt on its status as a death camp. Hegelian dialectics as a method of argument ftw. We should probably be glad most fascists never bother to study Marxism.

[Tsar Phalanxia]

To be honest, that is not hard. And as soon as anyone says "so-called" in reference to a death camp, my mind immediately starts look for other tell tale signs of holocaut denial, fascist sympathies or batshit insanity..

Hmm, I was thinking that. It wasn't too difficult to realise that it was a nest of Holocaust deniers. I was remarking on how in comparison to Conservapedia, the editors are as Cunning as foxes who have just been appointed Professors of Cunning at Oxford University.


It would have been far better if they had presented flawed evidence in favour of it being a death camp, then knocked down the fallacious arguments with their own, or synthesized both arguments to cast doubt on its status as a death camp. Hegelian dialectics as a method of argument ftw. We should probably be glad most fascists never bother to study Marxism.
Obviously, these guys haven't heard of the term "Know thy enemy"

Btw, I was random article-ing throough Metapedia, looking for more bat fuck insane crap, when I came across this on Jews

Many people have assumed over the years that modern Jews are descended from the Ancient Israelites, however this is not the case. Modern Ashkenazi (or Yiddish) Jews are, in fact, primarily descended from a Turko-Mongolian people, known as the Khazars, who converted to Judaism in the late 9th Century AD. According to some genetic tests, 60% of Jewish DNA is Central Asian Turkic. The remaining 40% is of Semitic, specifically Edomite, origin.
Is there any truth to that whatsoever? Because I was aware that the upper nobility of the Khazars did convert to Judaism, but I assumed that this was largely replaced with the spread of Islam, and that not enough of the population converted to Judaism for it to spread "conventionally".

[Cain]

Yeah, Conservapedia is what happens when nepotism, "Movement Conservatism" and religious insanity collide. Its almost a parody of itself.

Fascists were never good at philosophy. Hell, they had to crib ideas from Nietzsche (a man who despised German nationalism) to get any sort of metaphysical credibility. Marx and Hegel would probably make them cry.

Those ratios sound suspicious to me. According to what I know, Khazar related Jews are usually considered Ashkenazi, and Ashkenazi Jews make up the vast majority of the world Jewish population. But not all Ashkenazi are of Khazarian descent, and there don't seem to have been many large enough testing programs to definitively say what ratio of the population they may make up.

Not that it seems important, to me. You can convert to Judaism, after all. Its hard, but can be done. Fascists often confuse Jews (the ethnic group) and Jews (the religious group) due to their own ludicrous racial theories, so I wouldn't be surprised if they thought this "proved" something other than their own obsessions.

[Tsar Phalanxia]

Luckily, I don't think many people treat it seriously. As I recall, over 3/4s of the accounts are banned.

Exactly, and it's not like just by leaving in Central Asia, or the Pontic Steppe you magically get a gene that stays with you and your ancestors for ever and ever.