Speaker 1: All Zone Media. Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm
Speaker 1: your host ed zetron. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia
Speaker 1: used by over a billion people a month, one that,
Speaker 1: despite being maintained entirely by an army of free and
Speaker 1: at times anonymous contributors, remains one of the most reliable
Speaker 1: sources of information on the Internet. Wikipedia's sixty two million
Speaker 1: articles are edited by over one hundred thousand contributors, and
Speaker 1: these contributors have somehow done a better job maintaining the
Speaker 1: quality and validity of the information than any of the
Speaker 1: information provided by any of the major platforms today. Wikipedia
Speaker 1: is funded entirely through the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization
Speaker 1: funded through public donations and grants, and has the staff
Speaker 1: of over seven hundred people. Yeah, and I'll thank you.
Speaker 1: Most people have absolutely no idea how intricate the webs
Speaker 1: encyclopedia is. And today I'm joined by Gorilla Warfare, a
Speaker 1: Wikipedia editor that's made over one hundred and thirty thousand
Speaker 1: edits in the span of eighteen years across two accounts.
Speaker 1: You'll likely know her better as researcher and critic Molly White,
Speaker 1: the creator of the Citation Needed newsletter and web three
Speaker 1: is going great. All right, Molly, thank you for joining me,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. So, I don't know how I
Speaker 1: was to ask this book, Why should people actually care
Speaker 1: about Wikipedia today?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think Wikipedia is one of the
Speaker 2: highest quality resources there is on the web today. I
Speaker 2: think everyone uses it sometimes without even realizing it. Given
Speaker 2: that Wikipedia data powers so much of you know, AI chat,
Speaker 2: GPT responses or home assistants that are answering your questions
Speaker 2: or sirie. So I think keeping the quality of information
Speaker 2: on Wikipedia high, or even improving it even further, is
Speaker 2: one of the most important things that we need to
Speaker 2: be focusing on.
Speaker 1: But one of the big critiques of it. And I know,
Speaker 1: and this is very much a podcast for people who
Speaker 1: might be techy, but people also who are just being
Speaker 1: exposed to tech outside of the consumer realm. How is
Speaker 1: it reliable? Because that is the big that's the big question.
Speaker 1: How is this something you can trust?
Speaker 2: Well, I think, like a lot of things, you need
Speaker 2: to take it with a grain of salt and understand
Speaker 2: that there is variation on Wikipedia between you know, some
Speaker 2: very high quality articles that have been reviewed by hundreds
Speaker 2: of people versus some that are fairly new and you know,
Speaker 2: being created still. So I think it's important to realize
Speaker 2: that there is the possibility that whatever you're reading is
Speaker 2: not reliable, and there is some onus on the reader
Speaker 2: to verify that what they're reading is correct. But I
Speaker 2: think that generally speaking, the quality control and Wikipedia is
Speaker 2: actually pretty good. There are a lot of editors who
Speaker 2: are constantly maintaining the platform, making sure that the material
Speaker 2: on there is you know, well sourced, it's coming from
Speaker 2: high quality, reputable publications, and that you know, it is
Speaker 2: meeting the criteria that Wikipedia puts in place. And I
Speaker 2: think the result of that is that the content on
Speaker 2: Wikipedia tends to be very high quality.
Speaker 1: And how does the actual moderation work, So what goes
Speaker 1: into a Wikipedia page?
Speaker 2: Well, it's a little bit ad hoc. There's not really
Speaker 2: a process in which every page has to go through
Speaker 2: a set of criteria or anything like that. Generally speaking,
Speaker 2: anyone can edit Wikipedia and you know, contribute to the
Speaker 2: best of their ability, and when someone does something that
Speaker 2: is not in line with Wikipedia's requirements, then hopefully, you know,
Speaker 2: the idea is that hopefully someone will come along and
Speaker 2: notice that, revert the change or improve it. So that
Speaker 2: it does meet the criteria. And I realize that sounds
Speaker 2: very like slap dash, and it is to some extent,
Speaker 2: but because of the sort of processes that have developed
Speaker 2: over the years, it actually works pretty well. Where most
Speaker 2: pages do you get you know, a fairly strong set
Speaker 2: of people who are you know, taking a look at
Speaker 2: the changes that are coming in, making sure that they
Speaker 2: are appropriate for the encyclopedia and you know, allowing them
Speaker 2: to remain or you know, discussing them and reverting them
Speaker 2: if necessary.
Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about that process though.
Speaker 2: What happens well someone you know, if someone goes and
Speaker 2: makes an edit to a page. Generally speaking, there are
Speaker 2: you know a fair number of people who are patrolling
Speaker 2: recent changes to the encyclopedia, you know, not necessarily even
Speaker 2: watching that page specifically, but just looking at new edits
Speaker 2: that are coming in and you know, checking them for reliability.
Speaker 2: You know, is there a source included, does the edit
Speaker 2: past this, you know, the smell check. There's also some
Speaker 2: automated processes involved that will try to filter out edits
Speaker 2: that are abusive or you know, match certain patterns. And
Speaker 2: then there's the you know, there's a lot of editors
Speaker 2: who have you know, various pages that they're interested in
Speaker 2: or they have expertise in on what's called their watch list,
Speaker 2: and so they take a look at changes to those
Speaker 2: pages every once in a while and see if you know,
Speaker 2: everything looks all right or if there needs to be
Speaker 2: improvements or edits to you know, what's been added to
Speaker 2: bring them back into line with the quality that we expect.
Speaker 1: So is there an organization? I know there's the Wikimedia Foundation,
Speaker 1: we know that, but is there is there a moderate
Speaker 1: to chat? Is there a place where people congregate or
Speaker 1: is this just entirely I don't want to say decentralized,
Speaker 1: but disorganized.
Speaker 2: Well, it's certainly disorganized there. Yeah, so there are there
Speaker 2: are actually kind of a bunch of places where people congregate,
Speaker 2: and some people use some of them and some people don't.
Speaker 2: But you know, there's there are various places on the
Speaker 2: encyclopedia that are you know, project specific pages where people
Speaker 2: discuss issues that are coming up or flag you know,
Speaker 2: things that need more attention. You know, not everyone has
Speaker 2: like the ability, for example, to block an editor who's
Speaker 2: being disruptive, So editors who can't do that themselves will
Speaker 2: report it for people who can and then there's you know,
Speaker 2: more real time places like we still use IRC, believe
Speaker 2: it or not, but there's also.
Speaker 1: For that and for listeners. By the way, IRC is
Speaker 1: what a thirty year old sharewab product.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's basically one of the first online chat protocols.
Speaker 1: I was a polarist IRC guy. But for listeners as well,
Speaker 1: discord is very very much I believe Discorde is actually
Speaker 1: somehow built on IOCA. That's a different episode thought.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it actually is or if it
Speaker 2: just interoperates well with it. But there's also a Wikipedia
Speaker 2: Discord now for people who don't want to go figure
Speaker 2: out how IRC works. So you know, there's a bunch
Speaker 2: of different places where people can chat and talk about
Speaker 2: working on the project, different formats.
Speaker 1: And there's no compensation of any kind.
Speaker 2: Correct, not unless you are, you know, an employee of
Speaker 2: the Wikimedia Foundation, who is you know, writing the actual
Speaker 2: media wiki software or you know, performing one of those tasks.
Speaker 2: But that's a very small organization in comparison to the
Speaker 2: number of people who edit the encyclopedia, the vast majority
Speaker 2: of whom do so for you know, for free. Technically,
Speaker 2: you there are some people who edit Wikipedia articles for
Speaker 2: pay as a part of like PR strategies and stuff.
Speaker 2: But that's a whole can of worms and it's somewhat controversial.
Speaker 1: Well, that's actually a good question. So I run a
Speaker 1: p off and I know that that people will come
Speaker 1: along on both sides and say, can you get me
Speaker 1: a Wikipedia page? And then others will say for this
Speaker 1: incredibly large sum of money, I can do this for you.
Speaker 1: And it feels like those people are fighting a losing battle.
Speaker 1: It's one of the rare cases where capitalism can't really win.
Speaker 1: And how is it that Wikipedia is so resistant to
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff?
Speaker 2: Right, So there's a lot of resistance from the wikimedia
Speaker 2: community towards people who are editing for promotional purposes, because,
Speaker 2: you know, the whole point of the project is it
Speaker 2: supposed to be an encyclopedia, not an advertising space, not
Speaker 2: a resume, you know, not a place to promote your
Speaker 2: business or your product. But of course people want information
Speaker 2: on Wikipedia about them, and so there are some people
Speaker 2: who are able to sort of tread that line where
Speaker 2: they understand wikimedia policies very well. They understand, you know,
Speaker 2: what is allowed as far as writing about, you know,
Speaker 2: a company without being promotional they understand what that you know,
Speaker 2: organization or company or person would need to accomplish in
Speaker 2: order to you know, achieve those notability requirements, and then
Speaker 2: they can write about them, and they do so very transparently.
Speaker 2: You know, they disclose that they are doing so for compensation,
Speaker 2: you know that they've been hired by that person or organization,
Speaker 2: and they go through the process and it's very you know,
Speaker 2: carefully orchestrated. But there are also a bunch of people
Speaker 2: who do so sort of on the you know, on
Speaker 2: the sly and they don't really disclose that they're doing
Speaker 2: it for pay. Those are often the people who will
Speaker 2: sort of cold call you, like if you've gotten emails,
Speaker 2: they're like, hey, I can make you Wikipedia page. A
Speaker 2: lot of those are sort of scammy, uh, not so
Speaker 2: reputable organizations, and you know, generally speaking, they actually have
Speaker 2: a pretty hard time doing what they claim that they
Speaker 2: can do because they don't tend to understand the policy
Speaker 2: as well. They try to shoe horn articles into Wikipedia
Speaker 2: about subjects that are not notable or that are too promotional,
Speaker 2: and so they tend to get taken down, much to
Speaker 2: the dismay of the people who pay them. Quite a
Speaker 2: lot of money. So if you're listening to this and
Speaker 2: you've heard from one of those people, I would not
Speaker 2: recommend hiring them.
Speaker 1: Just become more important, which I guess is kind of
Speaker 1: the question. How does Wikipedia actually judge notoriety? What is important?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, generally speaking, the notability requirements is, you know,
Speaker 2: it basically goes on how much coverage a subject has
Speaker 2: received in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.
Speaker 2: So you know, if a big newspaper or several newspapers
Speaker 2: write about you in detail, chances are you might be notable,
Speaker 2: en not for Wikipedia article. On the flip side, if
Speaker 2: you're just publishing press releases that's not independent of you,
Speaker 2: that probably doesn't qualify. If there's just one brief mention
Speaker 2: of you a reliable source someplays, that's probably not sufficient.
Speaker 2: So that's sort of the general guideline. There are other
Speaker 2: sort of more specific requirements for some sorts of like
Speaker 2: specific types of topics, you know, like sports players and
Speaker 2: things like that. But generally speaking, even if someone meets
Speaker 2: one of those guidelines, they've already met that general guideline,
Speaker 2: where you know, it's just about the amount of coverage
Speaker 2: in reliable sources and that can be pressed, that can
Speaker 2: be academia, can be books, you know, anything that sort
Speaker 2: of qualifies as a reliable source.
Speaker 1: Now recently seen it, one of the largest tech sites
Speaker 1: actually found itself downgraded in reliability or were you aware
Speaker 1: of that situation? Did you see that happen?
Speaker 2: I saw the conversations about it. I wasn't a participant
Speaker 2: in them, but I sort of watched it happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So for the listeners seen it has hundreds of
Speaker 1: that hundreds of millions of views a month. It's one
Speaker 1: of the most notable websites, frankly, and has been for decades.
Speaker 1: So what happened there? Why was this significant website considered
Speaker 1: less reliable by Wikipedia?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So Wikipedia has these discussions pretty frequently about different
Speaker 2: sources and whether or not those sources are generally reliable
Speaker 2: or sometimes reliable or usually not reliable. And in order
Speaker 2: to sort of prevent people from having to have that
Speaker 2: same conversation every single time they want to cite a
Speaker 2: source that's heavily cited, you know, like CE or you know,
Speaker 2: the New York Times or something like that, we have
Speaker 2: this list of very commonly discussed sources where we just discuss,
Speaker 2: you know, we outline the general reliability of that source.
Speaker 2: And what you're referring to is a recent discussion where
Speaker 2: some editors decided we really needed to revisit the general
Speaker 2: reliability of c net, which was previously considered fairly reliable
Speaker 2: for sourcing on Wikipedia, and the reason for that is
Speaker 2: that there had been a pretty noticeable change in the
Speaker 2: quality of the UH material that they were publishing, where it,
Speaker 2: you know, it no longer had the level of accuracy
Speaker 2: that it once did. You know, the articles that were
Speaker 2: being published didn't seem to be being edited well or
Speaker 2: fact checked well. And so we decided that, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're just if you're planning to use c net
Speaker 2: as a source, you should really consider this, and you know,
Speaker 2: consider that it's probably not even as reliable as it
Speaker 2: once was, and maybe use something else, because you know,
Speaker 2: they've started using AI generated content and stuff like that
Speaker 2: that has you know, noticeably affected the quality of the
Speaker 2: articles that they publish.
Speaker 1: And what is the what are the ramifications of that downgrading?
Speaker 1: What does that mean? Practically?
Speaker 2: It means that, for you know, if you're writing a
Speaker 2: new article in Wikipedia and you want to use c
Speaker 2: net as a source, you are somewhat discouraged from doing so. Now,
Speaker 2: it means that where c net has been used as
Speaker 2: a source already, editors are going to be looking to
Speaker 2: you know, improve that sourcing, generally by swapping it out
Speaker 2: with something that's more reliable. Although, you know, as notability
Speaker 2: changes in these publications, sometimes older content that was written
Speaker 2: or published prior to a change at the organization will
Speaker 2: be considered reliable, whereas newer content that's being created now
Speaker 2: and might be using you know, AI or other tools,
Speaker 2: is not considered reliable anymore. So, for example, we have
Speaker 2: a couple of sources where we'll say that, you know,
Speaker 2: anything they published before twenty fifteen is fine, but anything
Speaker 2: after that you should take with a grain of salt.
Speaker 2: So I think that's partly the case with c net
Speaker 2: now as well.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that Wikipedia is so much better
Speaker 1: at quality control than I don't know, Google, Well.
Speaker 2: I think there's a very different set of incentives at play.
Speaker 2: You know, Google is a profit driven corporation. They have
Speaker 2: other motivations besides providing the person who is using their
Speaker 2: search engine with the most relevant results. You know, that
Speaker 2: is ostensibly what they do, but they also have motivations
Speaker 2: around generating ad revenue and clicks for you know, different
Speaker 2: groups that are using their service or advertising with them.
Speaker 2: Wikipedia doesn't have those sometimes conflicting incentives. You know, the
Speaker 2: goal of Wikipedia is to deliver the highest quality information
Speaker 2: that we can, and we're not you know, there's no advertisements.
Speaker 2: We're not trying to surface some specific set of content
Speaker 2: for people based on who is paying, you know, or
Speaker 2: or not paying. It's really just that one incentive, and
Speaker 2: I think that simplifies things because we can all sort
Speaker 2: of get behind that one goal and you know, we
Speaker 2: aren't trying to juggle multiple things that are sometimes very
Speaker 2: much in conflict with one another, as I think we've
Speaker 2: seen with Google, where you know, that goal of providing
Speaker 2: the highest quality information to the search user has been
Speaker 2: very much challenged by the other incentives at play.
Speaker 1: So you've edited Wikipedia for about eighteen years. I think
Speaker 1: the simplest question is why do you still do it?
Speaker 1: Why did you start? Why do you continue? Well?
Speaker 2: I started because I was a curious kid who discovered
Speaker 2: that I could and that was exciting for me, and
Speaker 2: I have I don't know. I think there are just
Speaker 2: some people out there who have like a very specific
Speaker 2: type of brain where Wikipedia just like sort of tickles
Speaker 2: it just right, you know, and like doing that kind
Speaker 2: of editing and you know, curation just appeals to me.
Speaker 2: I find it really enjoyable. But I also think that,
Speaker 2: you know, the project is a really wonderful, uh creation,
Speaker 2: you know, and I think it provides a really important
Speaker 2: service to the people who have access to it, which
Speaker 2: is almost anyone. I mean, it's anyone with an Internet connection,
Speaker 2: and there are even ways to get access to Wikipedia
Speaker 2: without an Internet connection. And so I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: maintaining a quality source of high you know, reliability material
Speaker 2: is incredibly important and arguably getting only more important as
Speaker 2: other sources of that same type of content, you know,
Speaker 2: are becoming degraded in the way that you just described
Speaker 2: with Google for example. So you know, I'm very passionate
Speaker 2: about it. I think providing high quality information to everyone
Speaker 2: is one of the most important things that sort of
Speaker 2: humanity needs to achieve, and so I find that very
Speaker 2: strongly motivating.
Speaker 1: And is there any pressure a toll from the Wikimedia Foundation?
Speaker 1: Do they push people around a toll A not going
Speaker 1: either way. I'm just wondering what influence they have on
Speaker 1: the platform.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a kind of an unusual relationship between the
Speaker 2: Wi Community Foundation and the editing community. It's sometimes a
Speaker 2: little bit adversarial, which is sometimes a little confusing to
Speaker 2: people who are new to the project. But I would
Speaker 2: say no, the Wi Commedia Foundation generally takes a pretty
Speaker 2: hands off approach towards the projects that you know, it
Speaker 2: kind of supports. The Wikimedia Foundation almost never comes in
Speaker 2: and says, hey, you need to delete that, or you
Speaker 2: need to you know, do something very specific with the content.
Speaker 2: There are some very edge cases with like legal requests
Speaker 2: and things like that where they can sometimes do that,
Speaker 2: but they are very very conservative on when they will
Speaker 2: do that, and for the most part they take that
Speaker 2: very hands off approach. The Wi Community Foundation is mostly
Speaker 2: concerned with, you know, paying the bills, keeping the site online,
Speaker 2: developing the soft where that actually powers the encyclopedia and
Speaker 2: the editing infrastructure and all that, and then you know,
Speaker 2: trying to contribute and grow the editing community and that
Speaker 2: type of thing. But they are pretty hands off when
Speaker 2: it comes to editing, which I think is actually quite good.
Speaker 2: It allows the community to you know, organically develop its
Speaker 2: own policies and protocols and things like that, and you know,
Speaker 2: without the Wikimedia Foundation sort of putting its thumb on
Speaker 2: the scale.
Speaker 1: So more practical question, as an editor, what do you do?
Speaker 1: Is it just editing? The reason I ask this is
Speaker 1: you've provided me with your Wikipedia editor page, and there's
Speaker 1: things like on block reblog, blog thanks. What do you
Speaker 1: do as an editor? What is what are these numbers about?
Speaker 1: Because it feels like there's kind of a niche social
Speaker 1: network and inside it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot that happens behind the scenes besides
Speaker 2: just you know, opening up a page and writing something new.
Speaker 2: I do do so of that, you know, I do
Speaker 2: write pages from scratch once in a while, or I'll
Speaker 2: go in and edit something if a page is missing
Speaker 2: something or need something. But there's also a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of other sort of administrative work I guess that goes
Speaker 2: on behind the scenes, where I will sometimes you know,
Speaker 2: patrol articles. That's sort of what I had described earlier,
Speaker 2: where people will watch the recent changes to the project
Speaker 2: and try to just filter out anything that looks abusive
Speaker 2: or you know, disruptive or honestly just less than productive.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I try to, you know, go around and welcome
Speaker 2: new editors who are just joining the projects and hims
Speaker 2: they need help, and so I'll try to sort of,
Speaker 2: you know, show them the ropes a little bit. And
Speaker 2: then there's you know, the blocking and deletion and things
Speaker 2: like that, where people who are known as administrators on
Speaker 2: the project can block an editor who is regularly being
Speaker 2: disruptive or delete a page if it doesn't meet the
Speaker 2: requirements that we have defined in our policies and things
Speaker 2: like that, and so I do some of that as well.
Speaker 1: So how does one become an administrator?
Speaker 2: So there's a whole process called request for admanship where
Speaker 2: you either put yourself up, you nominate yourself as a candidate,
Speaker 2: or someone else who thinks that you would be a
Speaker 2: good administrator will do so. And then there's a long
Speaker 2: process where you answer some questions and then the wikimedia
Speaker 2: community votes pretty much on whether or not you you know,
Speaker 2: have the experience, the you know, the mindset basically, the
Speaker 2: right attitude towards contributing, and then there's a vote pretty
Speaker 2: much and if you pass the threshold, then you are
Speaker 2: nominated or you know, you become an administrator at that point.
Speaker 2: So it's something that happens, you know, fairly regularly. I
Speaker 2: did it in twenty ten, I think but you know,
Speaker 2: various people go through it pretty often.
Speaker 1: Have you seen more people joining as editors or is
Speaker 1: there more people or less people editing these days?
Speaker 2: I would say there's been sort of a slow decline
Speaker 2: in the number of people who are joining if you
Speaker 2: look at you know, people who join as like a
Speaker 2: user and then continue to edit somewhat frequently versus you know, not.
Speaker 2: I'm not just talking about people who like correct a
Speaker 2: typo once in a while, but the sort of like
Speaker 2: regular contributors is sort of yeah, it's it's either flatlining
Speaker 2: or declining to some extent. Uh, And it has been
Speaker 2: for a really long time, and so it's sort of
Speaker 2: this continual discussion that happens within Wikipedia about you know what,
Speaker 2: what do we do about that? How do we encourage
Speaker 2: more people to join, How do we make the project
Speaker 2: more welcoming to new people who want to get involved?
Speaker 2: You know, something that I try to focus on as well,
Speaker 2: just because I think it's really important to not only
Speaker 2: contribute to the encyclopedia, but make sure that other people
Speaker 2: are aware that they can and you know, doing so
Speaker 2: if they have the desire to do so.
Speaker 1: Are they training materials? Is there an onboarding process?
Speaker 2: There are. In fact, there are many of such things
Speaker 2: that different people have created, and the Wi Community Foundation
Speaker 2: themselves has gotten a little more involved in recent years
Speaker 2: and trying to make that sign up process a little
Speaker 2: bit more friendly, so you know, when you first create
Speaker 2: an account, it doesn't just drop you into the editor
Speaker 2: like good luck, you know, which is kind of what
Speaker 2: it used to do. Now there's some little widgets and
Speaker 2: things that will guide you through making your first edit
Speaker 2: and you know, finding an article that maybe needs some
Speaker 2: improvement so you can give it a shot. Those types
Speaker 2: of things are being developed, and then there's you know,
Speaker 2: community resources to try to encourage people to do the same,
Speaker 2: which are just created by different editors for various purposes.
Speaker 1: Is there any automation Yep, there's there's quite a lot.
Speaker 2: There are Wikipedia editing bots that uh perform various tasks,
Speaker 2: everything from you know, fixing vandalism to you know, introducing
Speaker 2: archive links so that if a source link goes down,
Speaker 2: you know you can still get a copy of that
Speaker 2: source material, all kinds of things like that. There's anti
Speaker 2: spam stuff, you know, where it looks for spammy links
Speaker 2: and removes it. So yeah, there's there's quite a bit
Speaker 2: of automation, both by community members. Well, so some of
Speaker 2: it's yeah, some of it's community members who who you know,
Speaker 2: create bots and maintain them. I would say it's probably
Speaker 2: the majority community members, but there you know, there's also
Speaker 2: the media Wiki software itself, which is maintained by the
Speaker 2: Wikimedia Foundation, but they don't really do much of the
Speaker 2: editing side of things, so most of the editing stuff
Speaker 2: is community based.
Speaker 1: Has there been any discussion of AI or integrating AI
Speaker 1: or anything like that.
Speaker 2: There has been quite a lot of discussion of AI,
Speaker 2: and it's mostly been around two things. The sourcing situation.
Speaker 2: So can you consider AI generated material to be a
Speaker 2: reliable source? Generally speaking? The answer has been, know that
Speaker 2: you have to be very cautious when you know, typing
Speaker 2: something into chat gpt, because a lot of times you'll
Speaker 2: get back something that is not accurate at all. And
Speaker 2: then there's also been discussion around can you use AI
Speaker 2: generated content, you know, as you know, can you tell
Speaker 2: chat gpt or something like that to go make an
Speaker 2: edit for you know, can you use content that chat
Speaker 2: gpt has written, as you know, content that you put
Speaker 2: into a Wikipedia article, And the answer there has largely
Speaker 2: been yeah, you can, but you have to be really
Speaker 2: careful about it, and you have to sort of take
Speaker 2: full responsibility for anything that you have generated and put
Speaker 2: into a Wikipedia article, because you know, it's still up
Speaker 2: to you to fact check it and things like that.
Speaker 2: As far as integrating AI into Wikipedia to try to
Speaker 2: i don't know, generate article content or something more generally,
Speaker 2: that is not something that the community has seemed particularly
Speaker 2: interested in doing, and I suspect it would introduce a
Speaker 2: lot of problems. There were some sort of past attempts
Speaker 2: at doing things sort of like that in the translation space,
Speaker 2: where the wikimedia software would try to encourage people to
Speaker 2: translate articles from one version of Wikipedia to another, and
Speaker 2: that was a largely unsuccessful experiment, I think, where too
Speaker 2: many people were just pasting in machine translation or you know,
Speaker 2: not doing the right kinds of quality control. So we
Speaker 2: have to be really cautious around that type of thing.
Speaker 1: So I think it was a year or two ago
Speaker 1: Elon Musk said he wanted to buy Wikipedia for a
Speaker 1: billion dollars. Just so well clear that is impossible.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, I mean Wikipedia is not for sale. I
Speaker 2: don't think there's any you know, genuine interest on either
Speaker 2: side for Wikipedia to be sold. I think Elon is
Speaker 2: also particularly not interested in it. He just has a
Speaker 2: long standing beef with Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: Which understandably because they tell the truth, which is not
Speaker 1: a big thing for mister Musk. Now, so you've done
Speaker 1: a lot of advocacy recently about editing and saying why
Speaker 1: people should become editors, But I kind of want to
Speaker 1: hear your sales. Why should the average person edit Wikipedia?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think, honestly, there's probably one hundred
Speaker 2: answers for that, and it depends very much on the person.
Speaker 2: You know, I do it because I love it. I
Speaker 2: find it really enjoyable. Some people do it because they
Speaker 2: think that the resource of Wikipedia is incredibly important and
Speaker 2: needs to be maintained. You know, that's also a factor
Speaker 2: for me. But I think it's okay to also just
Speaker 2: do it just for fun. You know, I think you
Speaker 2: don't have to have some big driving motivation behind it.
Speaker 2: But I do think that, you know, especially now as
Speaker 2: the web is somewhat under threat from this sort of
Speaker 2: AI generated junk that's being you know, becoming so prevalent
Speaker 2: in search results in any particular website that you go visit,
Speaker 2: it's really important to make sure that there is this
Speaker 2: you know, human reviewed material out there that is as
Speaker 2: high quality as possible and that really values you know,
Speaker 2: the quality of information, accuracy, reliability, you know, neutral point
Speaker 2: of view, those types of things above just you know,
Speaker 2: spitting out as much content as possible with little regard
Speaker 2: for its accuracy or reliability. And so I think that
Speaker 2: you know, now more than ever, projects like Wikipedia are
Speaker 2: incredibly important, and you know, maintaining them as other parts
Speaker 2: of the web begin to degrade, is going to only
Speaker 2: be become, you know, a more important thing to do.
Speaker 1: It kind of feels like as this prevalence of AI
Speaker 1: generated content grows, we kind of need user generated content well,
Speaker 1: never as it's being killed off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of ironic. I think, you know that
Speaker 2: we're starting to see this proliferation of this AI generated
Speaker 2: content that's really just quantity over quality, and in doing so,
Speaker 2: it's sort of killing the quality content that is often
Speaker 2: the source material for the AI itself. You know, we're
Speaker 2: seeing this decline in journalism, for example, where some outlets
Speaker 2: are laying off their media teams, you know, instead of
Speaker 2: instead hoping that they can use AI to just churn
Speaker 2: out articles. But you know those same AI tools that
Speaker 2: they're using were trained on journalism. They were trained on
Speaker 2: the types of stuff that is no longer being created,
Speaker 2: and so you end up with this potentially really circular
Speaker 2: situation where AI could start ingesting AI generated content and
Speaker 2: entering this really massive quality spiral.
Speaker 1: I think what Jason Sadowski calls habsburg AI. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: inbreeding about it, keep going, sorry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's a great terms. He always has great
Speaker 2: terms for things. But yeah, I mean I think that
Speaker 2: you know, we really people are very excited about AI,
Speaker 2: and they believe that AI will just continue to get
Speaker 2: better and better and better without really thinking that critically
Speaker 2: about what is required to create like a high quality,
Speaker 2: you know, large language model, and something like Wikipedia is honestly,
Speaker 2: like incredibly important to creating any quality large language model.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think every large language model out there
Speaker 2: pretty much uses Wikipedia as a source material.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Chat GPT was trained on it, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think basically all of them were.
Speaker 2: And so you know, if you enter that very circular
Speaker 2: loop where that training material gets worse and worse and worse,
Speaker 2: I think AI will get worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 2: And so making sure that there is you know, very
Speaker 2: high quality information out there that is not being in shitified.
Speaker 2: To use Corey Doctor's term, bye by this AI, you know,
Speaker 2: junk that's being created is I think very important just
Speaker 2: to you know, general knowledge, but also I think it
Speaker 2: should be very important to those people who care so
Speaker 2: much about AI.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's ironic as well because the sources of information
Speaker 1: we've come to rely upon, like Google and Being to
Speaker 1: some extent I guess, are so dependent on using generator comment.
Speaker 1: But really it just they've choked it. They're choking it
Speaker 1: as we speak. Is Wikipedia seeing less traffic or more traffic?
Speaker 1: Is it? How is this affecting it?
Speaker 2: I honestly don't know. I guess I could look at
Speaker 2: Wikipedia traffic that's my dub. Yeah, But I mean I
Speaker 2: think there is, you know, to some extent, with Google
Speaker 2: and these various software projects that ingest Wikipedia data. You know,
Speaker 2: sometimes they do draw that attention away from the source,
Speaker 2: you know, where they'll just highlight the first paragraph of
Speaker 2: Wikipedia and search results and people never click through to
Speaker 2: the Wikipedia article. That's a pretty common phenomenon. You know.
Speaker 2: News sources are sometimes upset about that also. But I
Speaker 2: think one thing that's useful about Wikipedia is that Wikipedia
Speaker 2: doesn't really have the same incentive to draw clicks as
Speaker 2: you know, an ad supported news source might, and so.
Speaker 1: To selected on search.
Speaker 2: But it is, yeah, exactly, It's like to some extent,
Speaker 2: as long as the information is getting out there, we
Speaker 2: don't really care how and so you know, I guess
Speaker 2: there's some question of like, is it actually bad for
Speaker 2: traffic to be redirected away from Wikipedia? I could probably
Speaker 2: make that argument in both directions.
Speaker 1: Well, Molly, thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1: Where can people find you?
Speaker 2: You can find me at Mollywaite dot net. I also
Speaker 2: read a newsletter at Citation Needed dot news.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Now, listeners, I'm going to do something a little bit
Speaker 1: off based, if you will. Molly and I just talked
Speaker 1: about Wikipedia, and I realize it feels weird to advocate
Speaker 1: for something on a objective media platform, though I think
Speaker 1: we all agree that I have my biases and my
Speaker 1: things that I care about more and that I'm angry about,
Speaker 1: and I think we all do. But I must state
Speaker 1: how important keeping Wikipedia alive is. This platform, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that's editable by everyone, is more reliable than Google
Speaker 1: is at the moment, it's more reliable than a lot
Speaker 1: of media publications. As we speak, the user generated Internet
Speaker 1: is being destroyed, it is being sold off for parts,
Speaker 1: it's being turned into a rot economic catastrophe. Something like
Speaker 1: Wikipedia is truly important. Really. Again, it's weird to advocate
Speaker 1: for any product or thing, but I encourage you, and
Speaker 1: I know it's weird to say, but please go and
Speaker 1: edit Wikipedia. Please sit down and edit whatever it is.
Speaker 1: Learn the ropes. This is one of the few community
Speaker 1: organized Internet things that actually exist that we can help with.
Speaker 1: It's a thing you can do today to change the Internet,
Speaker 1: to fight for what's right. And yeah, these publications are
Speaker 1: funded in part by tech publications. The Wikimedia Foundation has
Speaker 1: taken money from Google. But as you've heard from Molly,
Speaker 1: who I trust deeply and you should do, they do
Speaker 1: have a firewall between them. This is one way you
Speaker 1: can fight back, and I implore you to do so,
Speaker 1: even if it's one editor, even if it's one page.
Speaker 1: You keep an eye on, follow the training documents, join
Speaker 1: the party. Please try. I understand that it's impossible to
Speaker 1: ask for money, and I should never do so, but
Speaker 1: your time, your attention on Wikipedia is genuinely important. It
Speaker 1: sounds silly. I know we've all kind of thought it's
Speaker 1: just Wikipedia, anyone can edit it. But I'm worried. I'm
Speaker 1: worried for the Internet as it stands. I'm worried the
Speaker 1: Internet sources are going to become more centralized, more focused
Speaker 1: on the big take platforms. Please protect what's left of
Speaker 1: the good Internet. Edit Wikipedia today. I'm serious. At times,
Speaker 1: it can feel a little hopeless out there. It can
Speaker 1: feel like there's nothing we can do against these trillion
Speaker 1: dollar enterprises, and to some extent, there's nothing we can do.
Speaker 1: We really can't. We can't stop Sundar Pashai, we can't
Speaker 1: stop Sam Ortman. What we can do is help reinforce
Speaker 1: what made the Internet great. What we can do is
Speaker 1: contribute to open source. What we can do is edit Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: even a little, Even those little contributions matter. This is
Speaker 1: what made the Internet what it is today, and we
Speaker 1: can fight for it and we can protect it. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening, Thank you for listening to Better Offline.
Speaker 1: The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
Speaker 1: is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
Speaker 1: and audio projects at Matasowski dot com. M A T
Speaker 1: T O S O W s KI dot com. You
Speaker 1: can email me at easy at better offline dot com
Speaker 1: or check out better offline dot com to find my
Speaker 1: newsletter and more links to this podcast. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening. Better Offline is a production of cool
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