Well, the good news is that there aren't enough of these a*** to destroy it.
When Wikipedia started and even like 10-15 years ago that wasn't a common belief. Especially in Germany. "There are some assholes on earth, how could you dare to believe something voluntary and open to everyone will succeed?!?" (others already posted that it's not unfounded given real world experience)
Wikipedia though is my preferred counter example for that.
I work for Wikimedia and I have been one of the few weirdos assisting in its creation back in the early 2000's. The first time I got exposed to wikis predates Wikipedia and my stance was:
- a site editable by anyone on the internet? That is never going to fly
Few months later I followed a link to Wikipedia and that clicked, we can definitely build an encyclopedia online and the hope (I was in my early 20's) or bet was that more people were wiling to write article than people willing to deface it. I guess we won that bet by a large margin :-]
Even if I was younger, I was not clueless. I was well aware some people would deface it and it did happen. I have also been involved in two very long and tedious fights with editors having a political agenda, which diverting me from actually writing articles. I think that is the real danger: shifting the focus of people from writing articles toward pointless long discussions.
That burning up of resources of the good guys is exactly why a lot of stuff eventually derails. Just like the fight against the online crime rings that hold people's data ransom and that deface and destroy: the defenders have to succeed all the time, the attackers only have to succeed part of the time to be successful. So over a long enough run the attackers have an edge. Wikipedia is an exception, so far. Enough people cherish it that they are willing to put in the effort. But the day enough of them blink at the same time the assholes will take over. I hope that day will never come, but I'm not sure it will not. On a human scale Wikipedia is still very young.
Except that everything regarding contemporary politics in English Wikipedia is biased beyond any belief.
And they seem to be adamant about titling the article about Kalashnikov rifle "AK-47", which is simply wrong (there were only handful of actual units of model AK-47 produced, and the mass armament of Soviet army with AKs has started with AKM), and their justification for that is "but that's how AK called in the media" - I thought Wikipedia is there to debunk media myths, not amplify them.
That's not the full story. If you read into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47, it's clearly written as an article about _both_ AK-47 and AKM. So, all sentences like "100 million belong to the Kalashnikov family, three-quarters of which are AK-47s" and "Việt Cộng soldier armed with an AK-47" - they are simply wrong. The funniest thing is, they openly admit it in the article (deep down the article! not in the lead):
Most licensed and unlicensed productions of the Kalashnikov assault rifle abroad were of the AKM variant, partially due to the much easier production of the stamped receiver. This model is the most commonly encountered, having been produced in much greater quantities. All rifles based on the Kalashnikov design are often colloquially referred to as "AK-47s" in the West and some parts of Asia, although this is only correct when applied to rifles based on the original three receiver types
And sometimes by "AK-47" the article means the whole AK family - there's a list "manufacturing countries of AK-47", and then the list of countries follow that produce all kinds of AK-type rifles _but_ AK-47. So it's clearly a total mess.
In fact, I'm not the only one that complained about it in the past, there's plenty of complaints on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:AK-47/Archive_6 And the response always was like "we use the most common name, we're not interested in being correct here, get out".
I was undecided on this topic, but the comment you linked convinced me of Wikipedias stance. The linked guidelines about using commonly recognizable names[0] have great examples for why this naming scheme makes a lot of sense:
I have no problem with calling Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton. He called that himself.
I have some problem with calling someone/thing with a name that was pushed from the outside, and was not endorsed by that someone or the creators of that some thing. Say, Wikipedia does not call photocopiers "xeroxes", it mentions "xerox" once in the lead of the "Photocopier" article, and afterwards, photocopiers are only called photocopiers. (And so when you google "xerox", it'll tell you about Xerox the company, not the type of machines.)
And I'm strictly against of calling a thing with a name of a similar thing, which was not even endorsed. That's not useful at all. That's confusing. Perhaps I wouldn't be too wrong if I called that "relabeling" of AK with "AK-47" in the Wikipedia article, a lie. Because that's the thing with lies, they are often hard to keep straight. So throughout the article, its editors can't even figure out - what exactly do they call "AK-47"? The real thing, what Kalashnikov called AK-47, and all its different issues? Or that, and AKM? Or the whole AK family? The answer to that can change in different points in the article.
And I totally understand that people want to call it AK-47. I wouldn't even bring that up if they explained that in the article's lead. Like, "this is an article about AK-47, but what you probably wanted to read about, is actually AKM, here's why". But they don't even do that - not in the lead, at least. Why?
Perhaps because Wikipedia article's leads are used for Google search. Google is actually a major contributor to the Wikimedia Foundation. These leads are shown in SERPs, and they are probably used for Google's machine learning shenanigans elsewhere. Wikipedia is the biggest array of structured, easily-readable information in the world, and Google uses it.
Perhaps, that also was one of motivations behind the "use the common name" rule in Wikipedia, and the adamancy of the Wikipedia editors to use it in this particular case, even when it doesn't make much sense. Because when the average user googles about "ak-47", he doesn't want to be lectured about the differences between AK-47 and AKM and whatnot. He only wants to know about that thing that, as the myth in the media goes, was made by Kalashnikov in 1947, was all sold throughout the world, and has not changed ever since. And it's also on Mozambique's flag.
Because lecturing users is bad for Google's business. So maybe, this is an example how Google's interests made Wikipedia lie.
great examples for why this naming scheme makes a lot of sense
Great example when doing according to the letter just makes more stupid. Sure, in English (which one, btw? US English? UK English? Global Universal English?) it's commonly named such, but you are reading that article on the site what poses itself as encyclopedia, more so as encyclopedia which strictly relies on other documentation for the article texts and data. Anyone sane would just add a remark at the start of the article about usage of that name in English, because that's quite important thing all and all.
But not only there are no such remark, but those people actively refuse to add one.
And finally, in the article:
> The Kalashnikov Museum (also called the AK-47 museum) opened on 4 November 2004 in Izhevsk, Udmurt Republic
.. but it's not called 'AK-47 museum'! It's 'The Kalashnikov Museum and Exhibition Complex of Small Arms'!
So they just blatantly 'renamed' the museum to fit their shenanigans, completely ignoring their own principles of encyclopedia.
I’m still peeved that they don’t follow that guideline for the Sears Tower, and instead call it the “Willis Tower”. Just because the signage was changed doesn’t mean anybody actually calls it that.
Comments
Well, the good news is that there aren't enough of these a*** to destroy it.
When Wikipedia started and even like 10-15 years ago that wasn't a common belief. Especially in Germany. "There are some assholes on earth, how could you dare to believe something voluntary and open to everyone will succeed?!?" (others already posted that it's not unfounded given real world experience)
Wikipedia though is my preferred counter example for that.
I work for Wikimedia and I have been one of the few weirdos assisting in its creation back in the early 2000's. The first time I got exposed to wikis predates Wikipedia and my stance was:
- a site editable by anyone on the internet? That is never going to fly
Few months later I followed a link to Wikipedia and that clicked, we can definitely build an encyclopedia online and the hope (I was in my early 20's) or bet was that more people were wiling to write article than people willing to deface it. I guess we won that bet by a large margin :-]
Even if I was younger, I was not clueless. I was well aware some people would deface it and it did happen. I have also been involved in two very long and tedious fights with editors having a political agenda, which diverting me from actually writing articles. I think that is the real danger: shifting the focus of people from writing articles toward pointless long discussions.
That burning up of resources of the good guys is exactly why a lot of stuff eventually derails. Just like the fight against the online crime rings that hold people's data ransom and that deface and destroy: the defenders have to succeed all the time, the attackers only have to succeed part of the time to be successful. So over a long enough run the attackers have an edge. Wikipedia is an exception, so far. Enough people cherish it that they are willing to put in the effort. But the day enough of them blink at the same time the assholes will take over. I hope that day will never come, but I'm not sure it will not. On a human scale Wikipedia is still very young.
Except that everything regarding contemporary politics in English Wikipedia is biased beyond any belief.
And they seem to be adamant about titling the article about Kalashnikov rifle "AK-47", which is simply wrong (there were only handful of actual units of model AK-47 produced, and the mass armament of Soviet army with AKs has started with AKM), and their justification for that is "but that's how AK called in the media" - I thought Wikipedia is there to debunk media myths, not amplify them.
Other than that, yes, Wikipedia is a miracle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalashnikov_rifle
links to the English page about the Kalashnikov rifle family.
It's titled Kalashnikov Rifle.
The first image is of an AK-74.
There's a comparative table of about 20+ different members of the family. Each of the types has a seperate page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-108
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AKM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47
etc.
Perhaps you went directly to the AK-47 page and assumed that was all that was there?
That's not the full story. If you read into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47, it's clearly written as an article about _both_ AK-47 and AKM. So, all sentences like "100 million belong to the Kalashnikov family, three-quarters of which are AK-47s" and "Việt Cộng soldier armed with an AK-47" - they are simply wrong. The funniest thing is, they openly admit it in the article (deep down the article! not in the lead):
And sometimes by "AK-47" the article means the whole AK family - there's a list "manufacturing countries of AK-47", and then the list of countries follow that produce all kinds of AK-type rifles _but_ AK-47. So it's clearly a total mess.
In fact, I'm not the only one that complained about it in the past, there's plenty of complaints on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:AK-47/Archive_6 And the response always was like "we use the most common name, we're not interested in being correct here, get out".
I was undecided on this topic, but the comment you linked convinced me of Wikipedias stance. The linked guidelines about using commonly recognizable names[0] have great examples for why this naming scheme makes a lot of sense:
- Mahatma Gandhi (not: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi)
- Bill Clinton (not: William Jefferson Clinton)
- Aspirin (not: acetylsalicylic acid)
- Sailor Moon (character) (not: Usagi Tsukino)
All of these are technically incorrect, yet they are much more useful than the "correct" names.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_titles#Use_c...
I have no problem with calling Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton. He called that himself.
I have some problem with calling someone/thing with a name that was pushed from the outside, and was not endorsed by that someone or the creators of that some thing. Say, Wikipedia does not call photocopiers "xeroxes", it mentions "xerox" once in the lead of the "Photocopier" article, and afterwards, photocopiers are only called photocopiers. (And so when you google "xerox", it'll tell you about Xerox the company, not the type of machines.)
And I'm strictly against of calling a thing with a name of a similar thing, which was not even endorsed. That's not useful at all. That's confusing. Perhaps I wouldn't be too wrong if I called that "relabeling" of AK with "AK-47" in the Wikipedia article, a lie. Because that's the thing with lies, they are often hard to keep straight. So throughout the article, its editors can't even figure out - what exactly do they call "AK-47"? The real thing, what Kalashnikov called AK-47, and all its different issues? Or that, and AKM? Or the whole AK family? The answer to that can change in different points in the article.
And I totally understand that people want to call it AK-47. I wouldn't even bring that up if they explained that in the article's lead. Like, "this is an article about AK-47, but what you probably wanted to read about, is actually AKM, here's why". But they don't even do that - not in the lead, at least. Why?
Perhaps because Wikipedia article's leads are used for Google search. Google is actually a major contributor to the Wikimedia Foundation. These leads are shown in SERPs, and they are probably used for Google's machine learning shenanigans elsewhere. Wikipedia is the biggest array of structured, easily-readable information in the world, and Google uses it.
Perhaps, that also was one of motivations behind the "use the common name" rule in Wikipedia, and the adamancy of the Wikipedia editors to use it in this particular case, even when it doesn't make much sense. Because when the average user googles about "ak-47", he doesn't want to be lectured about the differences between AK-47 and AKM and whatnot. He only wants to know about that thing that, as the myth in the media goes, was made by Kalashnikov in 1947, was all sold throughout the world, and has not changed ever since. And it's also on Mozambique's flag.
Because lecturing users is bad for Google's business. So maybe, this is an example how Google's interests made Wikipedia lie.
Great example when doing according to the letter just makes more stupid. Sure, in English (which one, btw? US English? UK English? Global Universal English?) it's commonly named such, but you are reading that article on the site what poses itself as encyclopedia, more so as encyclopedia which strictly relies on other documentation for the article texts and data. Anyone sane would just add a remark at the start of the article about usage of that name in English, because that's quite important thing all and all.
But not only there are no such remark, but those people actively refuse to add one.
And finally, in the article:
.. but it's not called 'AK-47 museum'! It's 'The Kalashnikov Museum and Exhibition Complex of Small Arms'!
So they just blatantly 'renamed' the museum to fit their shenanigans, completely ignoring their own principles of encyclopedia.
https://en.museum-mtk.ru/
I’m still peeved that they don’t follow that guideline for the Sears Tower, and instead call it the “Willis Tower”. Just because the signage was changed doesn’t mean anybody actually calls it that.
It doesn't take a large number of assholes to undo the work of a much larger number of good people.