this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
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Showerthoughts

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Had this thought the other day and tbh it's horrifying to think about the implications of one, or God forbid all, of them going down.
Stackoverflow too but that only applies to nerds haha

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

You can’t rely on YouTube videos staying up over time.

Better download what you want might want to look up again

[–] [email protected] 8 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Can't count on the library of Alexandria staying up over time either

[–] [email protected] 1 points 14 hours ago

I think we also overestimate the valve if what would have been at Alexandria.

Considering everything would have been hand copied/transcribed back then, and his expensive that would have been, the selection bias would be massive.

I doubt it could compare to Wikipedia.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

If we're going to stick to ancient Greek references, one of these is closer to the modern day Augean stables.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

AnnasArchive.org is good at backing up knowledge on a large scale. They also have torrents to spread it around a bit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

I wish that the Internet Archive would focus on allowing the public to store data. Distribute the network over the world.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

In theory this could be true. In practice, data would be ripe for poisoning. It's like the idea of turning every router into a last mile CDN with a 20TB hard drive.

Then you have to think about security and not letting the data change from what was originally given. Idk. I'm sure something is possible, but without a real 'omph' nothing big happens.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

Nah, that's the easy part. Checksum technology has been around for many decades

https://www.lifewire.com/what-does-checksum-mean-2625825

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago

Blockchain? Prolly not a perfect solution by far, but

[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Huh? The public can store data on IA just fine. I've uploaded dozens of public-domain books there.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

But all the data is on IA's servers. In the event their servers go down for good, that's it. There's no way to self host parts of the Archive fediverse style.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

That's true, but organising and managing such a distributed form of IA would probably be a nightmare of a job. I've seen many people suggest that to IA, but they seem to be very very reluctant about the idea.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago

Distributed systems have come a long way. It would be possible

[–] [email protected] 11 points 22 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -1 points 21 hours ago

.ml

ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

One of them isn't like the others.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Is it still around? I though they were arrested by Interpol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah it’s got loads of domains. It’s never been gone.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

Then who is behind it? The original people are in prison

Keep in mind it could be a honey pot. When using Tor make sure you turn off JavaScript.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

It’s not like other services. Books are only a couple mb so it’s really easy to reupload the entire website.

Check out the piracy lemmy community megathread.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 day ago

I would add Project Gutenberg and Open Street Map to your list.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I think it’s a bit ironic that Wikipedia hasn’t succumbed to the modern era of misinformation the way other information sources have, particularly given the warnings about it that have been given in the past. Not saying those warnings aren’t warranted, just that the way things have played out is counter to said expectations.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

It definitely has, just not to as large a scale.

In practice it’s ran like a heirarchical aristocracy, where a admins control articles they care about and are very picky about the changes they allow.

One article about an illness contains false information related to alternative medicine “treatments” and I edited it, this was removed by the person who made most of the page. I got into an argument with them, and turns out they have the same username and come from the same country as an account on other platforms selling alternative medicine products, which are subtly advertised on the page they control. They also are a wikipedia admin.

Anyways I reported this to the admin team, and my report was immediately deleted by the admin I was reporting, and I got a three year ban. Mind you I have over a thousand wikipedia edits and have made some big contributions so this was quite annoying.

And this is far from the only incident. The people who are most likely to edit wikipedia pages are those who really care about, or could really benefit from the topic. So you end up having situations where companies hire agencies to improve their image by changing the wikipedia article about them and their products, same thing for celebrities.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Interesting anecdote. Though to judge by your username, it seems you may have an agenda yourself.

So you end up having situations where companies hire agencies to improve their image by changing the wikipedia article about them and their products, same thing for celebrities

This is a major problem that takes up a lot of time for the editors. It explains some of their trigger-happiness.

That said, you have a valid point. I once tried to water down what I considered to be excessively POV language in an article about diet. This earned me an official warning for "extremism" or "conspiracism" or whatever. My impressive account pedigree also counted for nothing. So there's definitely a bit of the political bias, the power-tripping and gatekeeping that you see in any online community. But it's a bit of a conundrum too, because they are fighting an uphill battle against people with strong incentives and sometimes money too.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Interesting anecdote. Though to judge by your username, it seems you may have an agenda yourself.

This wasn’t the ME/CFS article (the illness I am personally disabled by) and anyways all this happened before I became disabled.

Anyways my ban is over now, but I can’t get myself to edit wikipedia anymore. It was a pretty shitty experience and I don’t wanna go back.

And it wasn’t the only one. So much NPOV-violating stuff on most the fringe articles and whenever you edit to make more neutral tone or you remove something unsupported by citations you end up in an insufferable straw man argument chain on the talk page.

The main fun part is filling out abandoned articles and making new articles yourself. But anything showing problems in other people’s work becomes really tiring really quick with all the talk page nonsense and endless reverts.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 22 hours ago

What's a shame. No way to report him higher in hierarchy?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago

There's an obvious reason for that. Wikipedia is owned by a nonprofit foundation and does not accept advertising.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

There is people who watch most popular articles,its not rlly misinformation.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 day ago

Let's help PeerTube replace YouTube.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 1 day ago (1 children)

One of those is not a non-profit foundation, and that's a Problem.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

And that one is not really comparable to the library of Alexandria.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

i was thinking about how much human effort has gone into making instructional videos on how to do things and how all that content exists almost solely in the hands of Alphabet Corp

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago (1 children)

But it would probably be the most interesting to future archeologists. At least all the noncommercial videos people make about their lives. The "you" part of YouTube.

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