He generally shows most of the signs of the misinformation accounts:
- Wants to repeatedly tell basically the same narrative and nothing else
- Narrative is fundamentally false
- Not interested in any kind of conversation or in learning that what he’s posting is backwards from the values he claims to profess
I also suspect that it’s not a coincidence that this is happening just as the Elon Musks of the world are ramping up attacks on Wikipedia, specially because it is a force for truth in the world that’s less corruptible than a lot of the others, and tends to fight back legally if someone tries to interfere with the free speech or safety of its editors.
Anyway, YSK. I reported him as misinformation, but who knows if that will lead to any result.
Edit: Number of people real salty that I’m talking about this: Lots
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I don’t trust Wikipedia, but I do think they’re a good STARTING POINT for research, the problem comes when it’s used as the end-all be-all
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Can you be specific about this misinformation so I don’t just point fingers at anyone who doesn’t worship the ground Wikipedia walks on. Like what are they saying and why isn’t it true?
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What is this false narrative? Genuine question, I’m out of the loop and might not recognize the misinformation if/when I see it.
Sorry if it’s a stupid question, couldn’t work it out from a quick scan of the comments.
Yeah, the comments have gone completely off the rails.
The false narrative is that Wikipedia is doxxing the identities of its users to the Indian government, because they kowtow to any fascist government that asks them to. The reality is that the Indian government is mad about content on Wikipedia, has taken Wikipedia to court, and they’ve been fighting in court to avoid changing the content or revealing the user identities, and have proposed a compromise where they reveal some parts of the user identity to only the judge in the case, so that some procedural things can be satisfied without compromising the privacy of their users and also without getting WP shut down in India because they’re thumbing their noses at the court.
What’s actually happening sounds reasonable to me. The way the person is presenting it sounds like Wikipedia is doing terrible things on purpose and we shouldn’t support them, and to me it looks like they’re totally uninterested in addressing the discrepancy.
Thank you!
I have heard that wikipedia makes a ton of money, way more than neccassary to run the site. The excess is getting funneled into the pockets of millionaires, in the ballpark of 300m/y. Is this not true? With this further understanding, would you be able to link a source verifying/disproving this claim?
To be clear, I have always been pro wiki, it stunned me when I read that.
I have heard that
Alright, Ill accept that my phrasing was poor. Evidently I should’ve phrased it as “a user that I am not allowed to dox posted this bit of possible misinformation.”
I figured there would be high enough reading comprehension to make my meaning clear, since I clearly framed it as possible misinformation in a thread about misinformation. Short of the comment i replied to, the thread did not actually state any of the misinformation that people were actually supposed to look out for.
It’s not true. Audited financial statements are here:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/about/financial-reports/
Their gross income for each of the last couple of years was around $160 million. I have no idea where you got the idea that there’s “ballpark” $300 million per year of “excess,” but that part definitely is totally untrue and a few minutes of checking can disprove it. I assume the rest of it is made up also. Wikipedia is one of the top ten web sites in the world. I have no real idea whether $160 million is a reasonable amount of money to use to operate the site, or whether there is “excess” someone is siphoning off, but the specific statements you’re making are disprovable, and I tend to assume they originally were made up for the same reasons as the other made-up statements I’m talking about in this post.
It does look like they don’t currently have any funding issues. They have 1.5 years of reserves and give about 15% of their income out in grants to other organizations. And like most web sites, the actual hosting costs are a relatively small part of their operation.
Very true. But what if Elon goes on a crusade against Wikipedia? Or he’ll, just continues to spread misinformation/slander against it? He wouldn’t have to spend a penny and Wikipedia would start feeling the burn, his influence is great sadly. The sheer amount o people that would cause problems for them would grow exponentially. 1.5 years is not enough when this asshole is basically the president for the next 4 years. It’s very sad things have gotten this bad. :(
Nice, appreciate it. I would assume I mistve read one of the posters you were referring to. I didnt care enough to check myself, as I have never had enough money to donate in the first place. But wikipedia is in my top 4 most used websites, so your post caught my attention and you seemed to be educated enough on the situation to simply ask you. Seemed like a pointless he said/she said without your source though, hence requesting it.
Lazy users just posting whatever 3rd hand half truth they misunderstood is a scourge. It might as well be a glue-pizza recommending AI post.
Glue pizza might actually be better. Ask yourself why anyone would need to make cheese stick to pizza. Because that’s not really a typical culinary issue. So, the answer came from practical effect strategies for a commercial cheese-stretch shot.
Now, I’m not saying that there isn’t still an issue with this type of misunderstanding. But, it’s not “hur-dur, just glue it” that everyone always paints it as.
It’s more interesting than that and raises issues about how questions are framed and how answers are digested.
it’s not “hur-dur, just glue it” that everyone always paints it as.
I agree AI hallucinations can be far more dangerous and more believable than glue on pizza. I used that reference because everyone remembers it. Pulling “answers” with no context is the problem.
Except i didnt “just post” it. I asked someone who seemed knowledgable. Pardon me for seeking correction.
Nb4 you tell me to “just google it” while putting on your signature look of superiority
Edit: better yet, i asked it in response to an incredibly vague post which offered no info on the claims actually being stated. So, what, everything posted about wikipedia is untrue? Well someone in this thread said its a good source of info, guess i need to disregard that too.
You made a claim with absolutely no references or sources then asked someone else to disprove your claim. That’s not how conversations or debates work at all. If you’re incapable of fact checking even the most basic statement conversations with you will never be productive and you’ll only be a useful idiot repeating the last thing you misread, do better.
Their own charts in your link show that web hosting expenses have flatlined over the last decade. Digging into the PDFs in the sources, you can see this was only $2,335,918 in 2019. They even spent more on travel and conferences that year. As contributions continue to grow, the spending category that is growing far faster than any other is salaries and wages. Their CEO made $789k in 2021, all while content is created by volunteers. I like Wikipedia and the content they host; however, I think any increase in contributions is just going to line the pockets of the executives.
The executives are the ones bleeding the foundation dry.
Kiss my ass. The form 990s show all salaries for developers, administrative staff, executives, and all. You picked the one year when the CEO made $789k, instead of $200-400k, and then claimed that the CEO making four times the engineer salaries is “bleeding the foundation dry” and eating up the whole $186M they brought in that year, or something. The CEO makes about double what the developers make, in most years, and the developers have competitive salaries. Good. That’s how it should be.
This is how modern social media propaganda works. One person says wikipedia is kowtowing to fascist governments and doxxing its members. That turns out to be bullshit, but during the discussion someone else says that $300 million “excess” went missing and no one knows where it went, implying that someone is skimming off money and we shouldn’t be donating because the whole thing is corrupt. That turns out to be bullshit, but during the discussion someone else says that wikipedia is slanting all its coverage to a pro-Western, pro-Israel slant and covering up the truth through a narrative enforcing task force. That turns out to be bullshit, but during the discussion, someone else combs through their financials and finds out that the CEO is making some money, and uses phrases like “bleeding the foundation dry” or “all while content is created by volunteers.”
Get the fuck out. Stop coming up with new bullshit to use to attack wikipedia. I don’t care if the CEO made $700k. I hope it doubles, and I hope they use my $10/month to make it happen. Wikipedia is doing great stuff, and the vigor with which this variety of transient Lemmy villains is popping out to use this various array of bad-faith bullshit to attack them only demonstrates to me that they’re doing something right.
Kiss my ass. Get the fuck out.
Yikes, wow! Totally not an unhinged response. You seem hyper-focused on whatever what said today and assume everything is related to it. I haven’t even read Musk’s statements because his opinions don’t mean anything to me. In reality, concerns with Wikipedia’s financials are nothing new. One of the OG posts highlighting concerns circulated in 2016 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer) and has continuously been updated with each new year’s disclosures. I believe I first saw it when the author did a Q&A on r/IAmA, 8 years ago (link). In sum, nothing has been done to change course and spending has only increased. In reality, the Wikipedia Foundation and Endowment have over $400-million in assets and core functionality should be able to continue indefinitely. I want to see Wikipedia succeed, and I think it could easily be set for lifetimes if managed appropriately. Looking at core responsibilities (internet hosting), there is no reason why Wikipedia can’t thrive on their investment income. I can only assume those encouraging Wikipedia’s current path hope for someone with a bigger checkbook to come by and bail them out (with strings attached, of course).
I can only assume those encouraging Wikipedia’s current path hope for someone with a bigger checkbook to come by and bail them out (with strings attached, of course).
Lol
Who hates Wikipedia:
- Tech bros
- Russia
- Israel
- Other generic fascists
Lemmy is too small to be a worthwhile target for musk-like campaigns. It’s usually just people escaping their echo chambers to get their rage fix. If you’re able to think for yourself, there’s really no negative impact and scrolling past is a great solution.
You just described the average Tankie around here lmao
Bro, why are you attacking people unrelated to the post’s topic?
Weird, seems like it’s completely related to me.
I am pretty convinced that .ml is legitimately used as a Russian troll training ground before they get promoted to Facebook and reddit.
Meanwhile, at .ml:
Since Pi is infinite and non-repeating, would that mean any finite sequence of non-repeating numbers should appear somewhere in Pi?
Even the most extreme extremist of echo chambers will have benign random conversations. Singling out a random blurb of conversation, without even any source link, is just cherry picking.
It’s even worse when you link to the actual comments.
https://lemmy.ml/post/24032724
They are having an extended conversation about a question which has an actual real mathematical answer. The correlation between what mathematics knows about it, and the things the lemmy.ml people are trying to say about it with a tone of voice that implies they have some knowledge and you need to listen to them, is almost nonexistent.
There are, to be fair, a bunch of highly-upvoted explanations of the real answer, which is that we don’t know. But there are also plenty of top-level comments getting lots of upvotes, which say things like:
Yes, this is implied. It’s also why many people use digits of pi as passwords and make the password hint “easy as pi”.
Yeah. This is a plot point used in a few stories, eg Carl Sagan’s “Contact”
Yes
Yes.
And if you’re thinking of a compression algorithm, nope, pigeonhole principle.
Not just any all finite number sequence appear in pi
It’s actually extremely popular, it looks like, to just come up with some kind of random nonsense and then for one of the lemmy.ml people to be telling other lemmy.ml people that your random nonsense is the answer they’re looking for. When it comes out of the realm of politics and into the realm of mathematics, it suddenly looks really jarring and weird that they’re all so committed to sitting around handing out wrong answers to each other all day.
Are we saying it’s an echo chamber, or a literal propaganda training ground commissioned by the Russian government?
I’m not sitting here saying that one random thread I spotted when I jumped over there totally disproves either of those. It’s more of an amusing counterexample. I would LOVE if people would stop doing this thing where they expect you to defend an argument you didn’t make, I feel like I’ve pointed out it on this site 3 times in as many days.
That’s actually a really good way to illustrate what is wrong with lemmy.ml.
On math stack exchange:
Let me summarize the things that have been said which are true and add one more thing.
- 𝜋 is not known to have this property, but it is expected to be true.
- This property does not follow from the fact that the decimal expansion of 𝜋 is infinite and does not repeat.
On lemmy.ml:
0.101001000100001000001 . . .
I’m infinite and non-repeating. Can you find a 2 in me?
You can’t prove that there isn’t one somewhere
Why couldn’t you?
Because you’d need to search through an infinite number of digits (unless you have access to the original formula)
And:
Not just any all finite number sequence appear in pi
And:
Yes.
And if you’re thinking of a compression algorithm, nope, pigeonhole principle.
All heavily upvoted.
IDK if you’re allowed to link to lemmy.ml here or what, but the post ID is 24032724. The response to “You can’t prove that there isn’t one somewhere” - “You can, it’s literally the way the number is defined.” - is +8/-1. Plus the original guy pointing out the 10100[…] sequence is +21/-1. What are you saying is the issue? If it’s “they’ll just upvote anything that sounds right”, I think you’re gonna find that’s true on reddit, and true here, as well.
I’m saying the issue is that on math stack exchange, the people who actually understand the issues involved are generally the ones talking and being listened to. On lemmy.ml, the guy saying you can’t prove that a sequence of 0s and 1s doesn’t contain a 2 has +5 upvotes. You can look over the comments, and even more so than for politics, it’s just really apparent that there are quite a lot of people who have no idea what they’re talking about exchanging confident proclamations to each other about what it is that’s going on.
I’m not trying to hate on anyone for not knowing something. I’m hating on them for thinking they know something, and need to teach it to everyone else, when they are mistaken and haven’t made even the basic effort beyond “I just thought for 2 seconds and decided this is how it works” to figure out what’s going on.
On
lemmy.mlpretty much all reddit-like boards.You can’t really compare a stack exchange board about a specific topic with general purpose boards.
There are plenty of Reddit-like boards which feature people who generally know what they’re talking about. Reddit used to be one, years ago, remember jokes about how the comments were a better way to learn the truth of the story than reading the article?
There are places on Lemmy that are like that, too. Weirdly enough, this comments section is a good example. The people voting are extremely capable to identify the bullshit and downvote it, it’s actually very accurate. Just have a look around. It’s not always like that. Lemmy.world, Lemmy.ml, and some of the tech-focused communities are notable places where the idiots outnumber the rest of the people, but it’s not at all a universal feature of Reddit-like general purpose forums. It just takes a little while to build the culture that way, and a lot of Lemmy is actively hostile to building it because the wrong people are so aggressive about pushing the wrongness, and it kind of chases people away unless they’re cool with that.
I was thinking earlier about how fucked we are in the U.S., that the MAGA contingent, and to a degree the Dem contingent as well, have accepted mentalities that are incorrect and actively reject correction. That people (the population in general) are being trained to reject the fundamentals of logic, and associate all opposing viewpoints with an evil “other”.
Meanwhile actually at .ml: let’s deify a murderer because he killed somebody we don’t like and he’s fucking gorgeous. Nevermind that he’s a rich antiwoke Musk-lover, murder is cool.
In the comments they go into why it’s not even true that an infinite non-repeating sequence must contain all other finite sequences (10100100010000[…] example not containing any other digits). So it would follow that they wouldn’t contain all infinite sequences either. I think.
Yeah, there’s kind of a Poe’s Law situation.
A lot of the sincere tankies, though, at least want to talk about what they’re into, and have elaborate reasons why it’s all true. The low-effort “I can’t even be bothered to try to mount a defense, I just wanted to say Wikipedia is doxing its users and kowtowing to fascist governments, and now that I’ve said it my task is done” behavior is a little more indicative of a disingenuous propaganda account in my experience.
That’s now poe’s law, it would be Occam’s razor.
The most likely scenario here is not many puppet accounts spreading sarcasm or parody but rather that there are many actors that all true believers in what they are all saying. They sound the same because they are feeding off the same talking point.
You’re right, I was misremembering Poe’s law. We need a law for “there is no point of view so idiotic that someone won’t be out there passionately proclaiming it, not because they are a propaganda troll, but because they really believe it.”
That sounds like the Dunning Kruger Effect.
Maybe we could call it Bucket’s Law
elaborate reasons why it’s all true
Usually it’s "just read these 10 hundred-year-old books that they absolutely have not read.
And if you ask them to make a point from those books, they can’t. Apparently they’re only comprehensible as a whole.
This is an excellent suggestion for how to deal with this. I can’t thank you enough.
I’m pretty sure it’s Elon.
This unactionable vaguepost is what suffices as a YSK?
Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK
Why should I know this, OP?
True, this tells us nothing
The person claiming every piece of negative information about russia and china and other similar places is a usa psyop is now quoting rules against a post trying to make people aware of misinformation?! Color me surprised.
Oh hello mr Russian-pretending-to-be-American.
You’ve never answered why you pretend to be American while at the same time clearly supporting Russia and spreading Russian propaganda.
Are you such a weak-willed American you’ve bought into Russian propaganda?
Isn’t it annoying when you can’t just delete my comment and ban me like you alway do, mr Pro-Russian?
(This guys has said things like “reality has a well known Russian propaganda bias”.)
He’s pro-Russian, and will never answer that particular question despite being ready to lie about everything else, because he knows even a clear lie of “I hate Putin” written by him in the context of him being American could be reason enough for him to accidentally fall out of a window. Because Russia is a shithole autocracy.
This guy never states shit, goes around spamming wannabe good looking lists of links of shit that’s incredibly easily shown to be utter shit, but because there’s so much, it’ll always just diverge from the actual point.
It’s got a name.
An outgrowth of Soviet propaganda techniques, the firehose of falsehood is a contemporary model for Russian propaganda under Russian President Vladimir Putin.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood
Spreading FUD everywhere.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt
All you need to do to prove this is try to get him to answer whether he’s pro-Russian or not. Not a hard question, yet he just can’t manage answering it.
I mean, you can say all of this stuff… or you could actually post links to evidence.
Look at his profile.
Then look at my post.
Then look at the modlogs from the times on the screenshots of those posts.
It’s common knowledge lemmygrad.ml and lemmy.ml are complete tankies. D’you know why?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_disinformation
One of the easiest ways to spot Russians disinfo is when they pretend to be stupid to say that Russia doesn’t use disinfo, or that at least definitely not on Lemmy, no way.
And the exact same guys absolutely refuse to answer a simple yes or no question. Are you pro-Russian or not? Are you?
While claiming they’re American. Saying Russia is doing all the right things while criticising every Russian enemy and supporting China. Literally everything is in line with Russian propaganda. Yet they can’t say whether they’re pro-Russian or not. While clearly being pro-Russian, and adamantly claiming to be American?
That isn’t enough for you to figure it out? Alrighty then, let’s do it the way he does; just spam the ever living fuck out of anything tangentially related.
https://en.zois-berlin.de/publications/russian-state-sponsored-media-and-disinformation-on-twitter
That 404’s, but it’s on the wayback machine https://web.archive.org/web/20210916150314/https://en.zois-berlin.de/publications/russian-state-sponsored-media-and-disinformation-on-twitter
In particular, it needs to be established what messages are spread on social media platforms and under what conditions, and whether disinformation is shared more widely than objective reporting. Likewise, future research should consider investigating the effects of disinformation spread by RT and Sputnik on social media platforms.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_disinformation
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_in_the_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
https://www.state.gov/russias-pillars-of-disinformation-and-propaganda-report/
What’s your theory? That he’s an America hating American who loves Russia, hates facts and has made it his life mission to emulate Russian propaganda, but is still too ashamed of it to take a stance on whether he’s pro-Russian or not? And that sounds probable to you…?
Oh okay, so I looked at the post and the posted modlog. Looks like that’s all I need to know.
I’ve never spent so much time writing paragraphs and paragraphs about one Lemmy mod, and maybe you shouldn’t, either.
So you think it’s not good to expose Russian disinformation? Or are you saying he isn’t spreading Russian disinformation?
Because you’re saying one or the other with this “you’re being sad, stop being like that, you’re writing too much”. This is a forum. People write on forums. If a text long enough to merely have paragraphs instead of pages is too long for you, then I can’t help you.
I replied to the person directly with why it isn’t true, and I reported them with an actionable report.
I wasn’t sure about the ethics of brigading or linking directly at the person, but presumably anyone who cares can find them pretty easily, and anyone who reads this and then also reads the misinformation, will be able to see the connection and make their own decision about whether I am speaking truly.
anyone who cares can find them pretty easily
I care, I have found nothing similar to what you’re discussing.
anyone who reads this and then also reads the misinformation, will be able to see the connection
I just read a post that said Wikipedia was the best website on the internet, was that the misinformation? Someone else donated, was that misinformation? People have shared a variety of thoughts around Wikipedia, most of them are positive, but some are negative.
Negative doesn’t mean wrong. Negative doesn’t mean misinformation. It might be, but it isn’t certain.
I just read a post that said Wikipedia was the best website on the internet, was that the misinformation?
No.
Someone else donated, was that misinformation?
No.
Wikipedia is only a source for truth for people that either don’t know what it’s protecting or are in the genocidal cult it is protecting.
And then I asked the person about this genocidal cult and got no response whatsoever, almost as if it was, not just a negative thing, but a wild and inaccurate thing said apparently with not even a little pretense that it corresponded to the truth. Was that misinformation? Yes!
Hope this helps.
So the “other” thread links here, so I’m going to link to them. https://lemmy.world/post/23535522
I think that thread would have been a much better thing to post. However this isn’t some secret project, this is a single account that is obviously labeled, so this whole post is just a silly.
YSK conspiracy theorists exist.
You are asking weighted nuance from Lemmy. You might as well squish rocks to get water.
This post just reads as it could have been a mod report and that’s about it. Looks like outrage for the sake of outrage
This really could be any one of thousands of people on lemmy.
This seems like an attempt at vote manipulation or brigading. Reddit doesn’t allow it, is it allowed here or something?
Wikipedia is only a source for truth for people that either don’t know what it’s protecting or are in the genocidal cult it is protecting.
Why don’t you post some of your weird Linux trolling outside your sad little echo chamber?
Lol you will get roasted even worse than here, is the answer. Some people have the saddest lives.
You know what an echo chamber is and ask that question. lol
Honestly hilarious that this is the only reply you responded to. Hit a nerve?
Aw poor little baby mad about Linux made a he-man Linux haters club. Sad no one will join it 😭
What cult? And what is Wikipedia protecting?
I’m in like 5 genocidal cults at this particular moment. You’ll need to be more specific.
Oh yeah Op was really trying to get people to go and downvote a user without even telling us who they are…
I’m not even going to touch the insane nonsense you spouted in the second half.
It just so happens that they picked things to accuse me of, for no reason at all, which overlap with things I could get banned for.
Must be a coincidence.
A single issue spam account (Linux sucks is all they post) acting dodgy?
I can’t believe that they would ever try something so underhanded.
I guess your the person OP is talking about.
are in the genocidal cult it is protecting
I’m fascinated. Explain?
The person you’re responding to has their own crazy agenda against Linux, so don’t expect a rational discussion.
They also found time to say, “Both sides of US politics are full of shit and balance each other out to distract us from our real problems.”
What a perfectly natural thing to say, in conjunction with suddenly hating on Wikipedia right at this particular moment.
“Both sides of US politics are full of shit and balance each other out to distract us from our real problems.”
If by this a person means something akin to, “No warfare except class warfare,” then I might agree. There are important differences between the Republicans and Democrats, but ultimately both take most of their funding from billionaires, and that’s at odds with what the working class needs.
If instead it’s an excuse to be disengaged from what’s happening or to excuse voting for awful people, then no, I can’t agree.
I mean Linux is fucking annoying or rather the users are annoying. Everytime the word windows gets mentioned there are dozens of people talking about Linux even if that has nothing to do with the topic
It’s funny that most of the .world posts are like
- That didn’t happen, you’re lying for internet points
- Actually let’s talk about how tAnKiEs don’t actually read theory lmao
If by “most” you mean something I’ve never seen then yeah. You just made something up cuz your butt hurts. Not surprising in the least.
2:45am but close enough
what does this mean
Reference to the “4am” username I guess.
👍 and I’m still awake when I should be asleep rn
ah. it’s 5oclock somewhere
I have been using lemmy.world for over a year. I have no clue what you’re referring to, in all honesty.
lmao or l’Mao
Ayyy L-Mao
i see, another person thought of this joke
if this was written by anyone else, I’d take it with a grain of salt.
I just don’t believe you.
“PSA I reported an account because they have bad arguments in my opinion” seems like a terrible precedent of a post for this sub. Why are people upvoting this junk.
Where’s a better place to put it, do you think?
You should just report, block, and move on. If someone is a regular offender, their instance admin can just ban them. If they operate their own instance, they can be defederated.
It’s good to identify bad actors, but there’s no shortage of people with dumb opinions (even on Lemmy), and pointing them out like this only gives them more attention—exactly the kind of thing they want.
Fuck that approach. It just shields trolls and other bad actors from consequence
Notice how I said “report” as the first action. If you want to keep seeing their bullshit, that’s your business, but the Fediverse works by not giving those people an audience.
If you want to be their own personal poltergeist, haunting their every comment, that’s your choice, but I would never recommend anyone waste their sanity and emotions on a bad actor here on Lemmy any more than they have to.
If literally everyone did what you recommend, that would be a feasible approach. But for various reasons that’s obviously not gonna happen. What does happen when people try that is the troll continues to shit up the community for everyone else and a few people reporting them once sometimes does next to nothing. Hence you get someone like linkerbaan or universalmonk shitting in the pool for months without consequence. If you don’t block them, you can continue to report them and/or call them out, which leads to shit actually happening.
Like I said, “reporting” is the thing people should be doing first. But OP is so bothered by whatever person’s bullshit that they felt the need to make a PSA about it, and that to me says they need to just block and move on with their life. I would give the same recommendation to other people who are getting fixated on individual bad actors.
Trolls don’t deserve to live in your head rent-free.
The first step to solving any problem that takes cooperation to solve is raising awareness. A single report from a person here and there is not that.
I think you’re more hung up up on analyzing the psychology of those trying to raise that awareness. You may not be reading them accurately, but even if you are I don’t see that mattering very much. It’s not your call what is mentally healthy for everyone else.
It’s good to identify bad actors
Couldn’t agree more.
Then why are you trying to be cute and not call out the username (or usernames if they are using alts)? This doesn’t identify jack, just says that someone exists doing something nonspecifically bad towards wikipedia.
As important as Wikipedia is, there are a ton of legitimate problems with the site and community moderators. Some of the drama that comes out of there is downright otherworldly. Without examples it’s hard to take what you’re saying seriously.
I think it’s useful to talk about. I’m not sure why so many people are coming out lecturing me that this should be a forbidden topic for discussion.
I’ve literally seen no one say that it’s forbidden. Maybe one of the comment chains from someone I already have blocked does, but there’s only
fourtwo of those.I see plenty of people saying this is a stupid post. A post that is uselessly vague. A post that is almost entirely purposeless.
I understand wanting to avoid brigading, but as it stands this post amounts to “You all should know that I reported someone (I won’t say who, tee hee) for posting something that I think is misinformation about Wikipedia (I won’t say what, tee hee). It’s really bad, but you’ll just have to take my word for it. This person I won’t name is just the worst. You need to know they’re the worst. But you don’t need to know who they are or what they said, that’s not important! Also I have vague consipiratorial feelings about anyone who would speak ill of Wikipedia after Musk said bad things about it, because no one could possibly have grievances or concerns with Wikipedia that are still valid despite Musk’s derangement.”
If you wanted to spread awareness, you should have named the problem user. If you wanted to force the admins into action you should have named the problem user.
If you are willing to give the admins time to handle things properly, especially during the fucking holidays where they likely have other things to do, instead of needlessly raising an alarm on something pitifully small… then you should have waited a few days for them to do something before running off to play vigilante with this post.
If you want to make people waste time trying to evaluate if you’re a nutter, thin skinned, or otherwise blowing smoke… you make a post like this one.
Either you had enough evidence to make this warning/call out post legitimately, and then you make it with names, screenshots, and fucking receipts… or you give admins time to respond and sit until they show they won’t do something.
This weak, vague post just says that you’re too impatient to let the admins work, you don’t trust them to do what you think is the right thing, but you’re also chickenshit that they might ban you for talking about it. Rather than post this from a throwaway made on another instance you make this useless thing.
TL;DR- People are telling you that this attempt to “warn” people is worthless without actionable info.
6 different people have reported my post, so presumably they think it should be forbidden, at least.
Hundreds of people have upvoted this post, so presumably they think it’s a worthwhile post. You are welcome to your opinion that it isn’t, of course.
a forbidden topic for discussion.
I’m not getting that from the responses. What I’ve seen is
- being vague is not effective
- bad opinions aren’t the same as objective misinformation
- the username checks out
- it’s pointless to platform these people
These all seem to reiterate the idea that “this is not a good post” and not “this subject is taboo”.
But, if you’re messing this up, does that jeopardize your own efforts?
Blocking shields you from seeing their comments. But others will still see them. You’ll be unable to call them out the second time they lie if you do it like that. Which is fair enough if that’s what you wanna do, but it’s not a solution to the current issue that op is describing.
And that’s why reporting is such an important step that we should all be doing. That’s why I mentioned it first. Blocking is for your benefit, but it’s not strictly necessary, and the spirit of my comment is to let the admins handle it without giving them engagement or more exposure.
So you can be a vigilante if you want, but with the number of people out there who have dumb opinions, it seems like a waste of time to try to play admin without actual admin powers.
OP doesn’t identify bad actors. They say bad actors exist which is next to useless
in the garbage
Stay scratched
In a DM to the mods.
I think a related community would be https://lemmy.ca/c/fediverselore
I specifically didn’t pick that one because it’s discouraged to post about a situation you are directly involved with there.
I couldn’t really find a good place to post about it, to be honest. This community seemed arguably okay for this kind of random stuff, and I do think it’s worth talking about this kind of thing, if we’re going to have a social network which isn’t overflowing with propaganda garbage. Also, a bunch of the people upvoting this post seem to agree with me.
Sure. I didn’t know you already put some thought into this. And I’m not in charge here. We can leave this up to the mods of YSK. If they decide to keep this post around, it’s probably alright.
I’ve run across Wikipedia hate as well on Lemmy.
I have never. You are spreading misinformation now. MAAAAADDDSSSSS!
There are major issues with wikipedia, I say this as someone with thousands of edits. But I know exactly who you are talking about and they spread pure BS.
The last time I saw them their account was called “ihatewikipedia” or “fuckwikipedia” or something like that lol and they were just spreading conspiracies. Or useless drama. Like they were going on about how wikipedia “invades your privacy”, it IP blocks people and tracks IP’s linked to editing.
it IP blocks people and tracks IP’s linked to editing
Unless something changed, this part was at least partially true at one point. But only for anonymous edits iirc. Usually happened for IPs shared by a lot of people like from a campus or some VPNs, probably due to a lot of vandalism from such IPs.
Yes it does. That was my response to them. But this is pretty acceptable to prevent vandalism.
As long as people keep in mind what Wikipedia is, there should be no issue. There’s a reason teachers never allow it as a source, but it is great as an introduction to any topic, from which point you can further your own research.
Musk is getting desperate.
