WT:Social, New Social Network by Wikipedia

Supposedly anti-Facebook style and a more fact-based/less fake news alternative to Facebook and Twitter. Launched recently.

I don’t get it.
What’s the purpose of this WT:Social?

"On WT:Social, anyone can edit content from other users and add comments or details to the information, which is arguably a more problematic and complex model than the one used to generate conversations on Twitter and Facebook.

However, Wales told the Financial Times that he saw it as “a huge incentive for good behavior … if you say something obnoxious, someone will just delete it.”

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG

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I guess it’ll just end up as a very large blank page. Methinks Jimmy puts way, way too much faith in human nature.

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People changing each other’s posts? Is he on acid?

tenor (4)

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I’m going to join. Just to see what chaos ensues.

He has whatever amount of faith he has; I don’t see that as the main issue.

Obviously there are moderators like everywhere else in Wikiland and basically every discussion type place in all of cyberspace.

The wiki model is what it is, and it will never be perfect, but people still use it because it’s more useful than flawed. Some people will find this new province of Wikiland worth moving into, or at least worth passing through once in a while. :2cents:

Meh, I can already do that on this forum. :rofl:

I’m kidding.

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I’m joining. It can’t be any worse than Facebook.

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The interface is really bad, but it may improve.

I don’t believe every post can be edited by everyone. I think it’s just an option you can enable–which he encourages. I may be wrong, though. It’s still early days, so a lot may change.

There is now a 100k wait list. :grimacing:

How would that work for a “social network” platform, though? Facebook have attempted to moderate what goes on there, and it’s just a money-sink. They’re being forced to face up to the fact that “you can’t fix stupid” on a planetary scale.

I wasn’t criticising the Wiki model per se. I know it works. I dunno, maybe he’s cracked it, but I’m not sure if he fully appreciates that the concept of Social Media attracts the worst scum of the universe, whereas (say) an online dictionary attracts a completely different crowd who can (very broadly) be trusted not to scribble all over factual text with a metaphorical crayon.

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Facebook is kind of broken now. Just in general

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Have they really? Or have they just said that? There’s a difference.

They’re slowly letting people through. You can speed up the process if you contribute financially or if you can get others to use your invite link.

Postings on WT:Social are still pretty sparse, though. Or at least what I’ve searched on.

But Wikiland is a lot more than dictionary entries. It’s politics and religion and commerce and culture wars and everything. Certain WP articles are “protected” or “semi-protected”, and someone, somewhere decides which ones and for how long. They may have an algorithm do it now, but a human somewhere still has control of the algorithm.

The business models are different. Wikis are generally designed more for usefulness than for financial viability, and the Wiki brand thrives on the idea that as long as people do find it useful, people will support it. It’s one of the most recognizable brands in the world. They have people who do administrative work and have been doing it for years, not necessarily for money, and it stands to reason that they’re planning to keep using that model instead of imitating the “move fast and break things” model that’s been blowing up in Mark’s face for the last few years.

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Facebook is heavily moderated when and where it wants to be. Thousands of employees sitting and doing nothing but viewing videos and pictures and written content to prevent offensive material.

Working in Philippines and India for example where there are English speakers that will work cheap.

There’s some disgusting obscene terrible content that gets moderated out. I’ve seen a couple videos from a friend of a friend that worked in the Philippines. I cannot believe it and I’ve seen a lot of stuff. I never want to see it again and I’ll never probably never forget what I saw.

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While Filipinos might be doing most of the editing, Filipinos are also renowned for being the source of much of the vile stuff on Facebook (animal cruelty, terrorist executions, that sort of thing). It’s so bad someone actually did a sociology Master’s thesis on it (I’m sure you can find it by Googling, if you’re interested).

The Philippines represent’s Facebook’s highest market penetration rate (68% of the population, ie., virtually every halfway literate person over the age of 10). Let’s say the background rate of psychopaths is twice that of the human average (a conservative estimate, IMO) then there are 75M x 0.02 = 1.5M weirdos posting that sort of stuff for amusement value, which must surely keep several hundred Facebook employees occupied full-time cleaning up after them.

Sounds dumb.