Wikipedia’s editors and readers have a dangerous generational gap. Can it become something that serves younger audiences, or will it remain stuck in the past? https://spectrum.ieee.org/wikipedia-at-25?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fedica-Mastodon-Daily-Pipeline
Discussion
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This supposed "crisis" seems to be made up. For example, where the article says "Research has shown that many readers today greatly value quick overviews of any article," the link shows something completely different: an article titled "In the AI era, Wikipedia has never been more valuable", containing no such research.
@ieeespectrum Um, wow this is bad. Slopaganda in the guise of a hit piece against Wikipedia is unethical dross on multiple levels. Shame on you for publishing this.
@jaredwhite @ieeespectrum yeah, this an embarrassment. Exactly one mention of hallucinations, and no consideration of the problems when resource that strives to be authoritative introduces a technology that is known to be inaccurate. All I can say is that LLMs really appear to be dulling people's critical faculties.
@ieeespectrum ieee is what's washed up
They're going to tell us next that millennials eat too much avocado toast and that's why they still live in apartments and don't appreciate AI. Or something.
CC: @ieeespectrum@mastodon.social
@abucci @ieeespectrum i haven't forgiven them for their hit piece on louis pouzin and the OSI where the author cackled over IBM's ability to distort and break down the international collaboration. https://spectrum.ieee.org/osi-the-internet-that-wasnt they are a fundamentally immoral institution
@abucci @ieeespectrum IBM and the Holocaust was not yet published at the time
RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116059551433682789
> The volunteer community that built this encyclopedia has lately rejected a key innovation designed to serve readers.
this specifically means: they rejected covering Wikipedia in AI slop. This means a generational gap apparently. ok mate
@davidgerard keep on rejecting it guys. Too much slop as it is, let's try and have one or two places where you can be pretty sure it's a real human on the other end.
@davidgerard “Why did 2025’s Wikipedia crisis result in immediate clampdown, whereas its internal crises from 2011–2014 found more community-based debates involving discussions and plebiscites?”
Because the AI summary “innovation” is antithetical to everything Wikipedia is supposed to stand for, maybe? And the origins of LLM models are built on theft, exploitation, and are seriously damaging to our information ecosystems at large?
Fucking fuck off with this “generational gap” bullshit.
@davidgerard "Dariusz Jemielniak is a professor at Kozminski University, a faculty associate at Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, *and a board member at Campus AI* and at the European Institute for Innovation and Technology. He served for a decade on the Wikimedia Foundation Board. He recently published the books (with A. Przegalinska) *Strategizing AI in Business and Education* (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and Collaborative Society (MIT Press, 2020)."
@davidgerard I think it has to do more with this
https://mastodon.bsd.cafe/@ricardo/115906820176488716
@davidgerard They know how unpopular AI is and buried what the "innovation" actually was a full eleven paragraphs in, and even then only mentioned it very briefly before rushing onwards with the presumption that the most trusted website in the world rejecting AI slop must somehow represent some sort of crisis.
@davidgerard just scrolling through their feed tells me this is an AI shill account
@davidgerard 'You know what will make wikipedia better? Content generated by a machine woth no concept of truth being important that has been fed upon copies of wikipedia that have been regurgitated by a different machine and passed through the 'Will this please a nazi billionaire?' filter.'
@davidgerard
Not a problem. Elon Musk has already cloned a slopipedia from it. Anyone actually wanting slop is free to use that instead, regardless of their age.
@davidgerard although I agree on keeping AI out, I do think the article is a bit more nuanced.
@jeroenbosman @davidgerard A long and complex discussion by passionate volunteers is boiled down to the single word "yuck". This article is marked safe from engaging with any sort of nuance.
@avery @jeroenbosman it's straight-up advocacy with a slight nuance paint job. that's more odious, not less
@davidgerard come on, leave Wikipedia alone: if you dont like the truth then you can just go and use an already existing 100% private enterprise AI slop-ipidia; Elon Musk's very own Grokipedia (no I won't link to it).
@davidgerard
The author really needs to get in the fucking sea.
"But the volunteer base is aging. A 2010 study found the average Wikipedia contributor was in their mid-twenties; today, many of those same editors are now in their forties or fifties."
![[object Object]](https://media.mas.to/accounts/avatars/109/287/758/133/964/366/original/0f3099c0adfb36a0.png "[object Object]")
@davidgerard there’s nothing the kids crave more than LinkedIn-style chatbot slop pushed into one of the last usable websites by a professional engineering organization from 1963 they can’t afford to join
@davidgerard
the fucking gall of evoking Elinor Ostrom's work to suggest that Wikipedia should enable walled garden-erecting, anti-commons monopolists to poison Wikipedia with slop. absolutely, insultingly absurd. no notes.
@davidgerard caring about facts is being stuck in the past, got it
It is so weird that Wikipedia is a rare bastion of truth and journalism now