YSK There’s someone running around Lemmy posting misinformation against Wikipedia

1. 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

2. 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?

Who hates Wikipedia:

• Tech bros
• Russia
• Israel
• Other generic fascists

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.

Wikipedia is just another website run by some privileged dickheads and their mods.

I'm not bothering to argue whether it's better or worse than other websites.

But only a fool would trust it or believe that it's inherently "good".

The entire 485 word intro to his Wikipedia page is unsourced:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

I'm pretty sure it's Elon.

DOWNLOAD A COPY OF WIKIPEDIA NOW. RIGHT NOW. DO NOT WAIT.

WIKIPEDIA WILL BE RUINED IN (just guessing) THREE MONTHS (I hope I’m wrong)

People posting misinformation? On Lemmy? No. It can't be.

I heard the guy who wrote Lemmy ate a GMO tomato, and enjoyed it.

Misinformation… you mean lies?

The misinfo crowd has been twiddling their collective thumbs since the election and trump winning. Can’t make up bs about egg and gas prices anymore. They’re half-ass trying to incite intergenerational conflict between X, Z, millenials, etc. Guess they found a new target. Exact same MO. Repeat the claim ad nauseam, refuse to acknowledge any contrary argument, their argument is objectively false.

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.

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.

On lemmy, this is far more likely to be some weird tankie shit about western propaganda. Though it is definitely noteworthy that the far right and far left seem to push a lot of the same misinformation on here.

Also, in general lemmy trolls are super easy to spot because they don't do anything else. All they do is whine about democrats or post Russian propaganda and never engage on any other topics.

There's an option to donate on their website here: https://donate.wikipedia.org/ I'm starting monthly at $5 and possibly bumping up to $10 later on.

It's likely this is a bot if it's wide spread. And Lemmy is INCREDIBLY ill suited to handle even the dumbest of bots from 10+ years ago. Nevermind social media bots today.

Interesting all this WP news I'm hearing today. Last week I downloaded the entirety of Wikipedia. Anyone can do it, the base archive (no pictures) is only about 25G, although the torrent is slow AF, took me... almost 2 weeks to download it.

I did this because I feel like this might be the last chance to get a version of it that has any vestige of the old order in it, the old order being "trying to stick to ideals and express truth rather than rewriting history to the fascists' specifications."

I'd love to be wrong, but if I'm not, I feel like it will potentially be a good reference in the future if needed.

Wikipedia is an alien plot to get Earthlings to read more. DON'T FALL FOR IT!!!!! . . . ./s

Please donate to Wikipedia if you can.

You just described the average Tankie around here lmao

Is it space karen?

Could you be anymore vague

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.

Musk is getting desperate.

Examples? Links?

This really could be any one of thousands of people on lemmy.

In addition to that person, you should also know about me. I'm awesome!

Bots running on LLMs are probably being unleashed.

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?

There's a lot of people posting lies and acting weird on Lemmy at the moment unfortunately. There's been a sudden shift from evidence based to being an echo chamber

A few months ago you could have a discussion and people would exchange evidence. Now evidence no longer matters. People here have started acting the same as places like truth social unfortunately. It's a pity and I do miss the real discussions here I used to have.

In fact, it's part of the reason I've started to move back to Reddit.

Are you there universal monk?

Mod here. Everyone, please report any users, posts, or comments you see that are guilty of this. I'm pretty diligent in dealing with this nonsense. I can't speak for the whole of Lemmy, but I definitely remove and ban them from this community.

On the contrary, seems like a lot of disinformation accounts are trying to elevate Wikipedia as a credible source. Seems to be coming from the same people pushing pro-western narratives. Which isn’t surprising, as western governments have been caught funding mass editing to promote western narratives.

https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-state-sponsored-disinformation/

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the effort to elevate Wikipedia as “credible” has been ramped up during this genocide. The Zionists teach classes to their people on how to manipulate the site for their narrative.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/18/wikipedia-editing-zionist-groups

Who cares? If anything this just amplifes the misinformation.

Wikipedia source of truth?

That's pretty bold.

It’s funny that most of the .world posts are like

1. That didn’t happen, you’re lying for internet points
2. Actually let’s talk about how tAnKiEs don’t actually read theory lmao

I don't know exactly what is going on with WikiPedia right this moment, mostly because I am neither glued to the news nor to WikiPedia, and I have no idea who this user you talk about is or what they are saying. However, WikiPedia isnt exactly a 100% trustworthy source, and it never really was.

Calling WikiPedia a "force for truth" is kind of silly, in my opinion. It can be helpful with basic information or finding potential sources, but it is definitely not something you should just immediately take everything on the site at face value. Within the last maybe 10 years or so, the credibility of its sources have started to come into question, at least on some of their recently authored/edited articles. It certainly doesnt help that literally anyone can edit most pages, and that WikiPedia is not a verifiably neutral information source on most things. What I mean by this is that, WikiPedia might list both positive and negative reception about a certain film or video game, for example, but they usually wont mention whether the negative points are outliers or whether there is overwhelmingly more positive reception except if there is a controversy section. This gives a surface appearance of being neutral, but actually skews toward whichever side is the dissenting opinion. For video games and film, they at least list reviews which can kind of mitigate this, but on articles regarding history or art, you cant exactly put reviews on historian/artist opinions. This can lead (and has lead) to some instances of sources quoting themselves (which I think is against WikiPedia rules?) and other hilarity.

That's a one issue account just report him and leave comments calling out the behavior.

The issue will fix it self.

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.

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.