#Wikimedia Foundation

[daily-public-domain]

Day 393: Mandelbulb Fractal (this image is so big I had to downscale it, full resolution is 48.97MB)

link

–This image is part of the public domain, meaning you can do anything you want with it! (you could even sell it as a shirt, poster or whatever, no need to credit it!)–

Zoom anywhere and you've got a new wallpaper!

[quark-nova]

The Wikimedia Foundation has been experimenting on the "Simple Summaries" feature, which would add an AI-generated summary before each Wikipedia article. The project has been paused due to strong opposition from the English Wikipedia community.

Here is how it was supposed to look like:

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Arno Rosenfeld at The Forward:

The Heritage Foundation plans to “identify and target” volunteer editors on Wikipedia who it says are “abusing their position” by publishing content the group believes to be antisemitic, according to documents obtained by the Forward. Employees of Heritage, the conservative think tank that produced the Project 2025 policy blueprint for the second Trump administration, said they plan to use facial recognition software and a database of hacked usernames and passwords in order to identify contributors to the online encyclopedia, who mostly work under pseudonyms. It’s not clear exactly what kind of antisemitism the Wikipedia effort, which has not been previously reported, is intended to address. But in recent months some Jewish groups have complained about a series of changes on the website relating to Israel, the war in Gaza and its repercussions. In June, a panel of Wikipedia editors declared the Anti-Defamation League a “generally unreliable” source of information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, limiting when the organization can be cited in Wikipedia articles. And there was an outcry this fall among some Jewish scholars and pro-Israel activists over edits to Wikipedia’s entry for Zionism to add references to “colonization.” [...] The Heritage Foundation sent the pitch deck outlining the Wikipedia initiative to Jewish foundations and other prospective supporters of Project Esther, its roadmap for fighting antisemitism and anti-Zionism. The slideshow says the group’s  “targeting methodologies” would include creating fake Wikipedia user accounts to try to trick editors into identifying themselves by sharing personal information or clicking on malicious tracking links that can identify people who click on them. It is unclear whether this has begun.

[...] Allegations of bias Wikipedia has long faced claims from conservatives that it has a liberal bias. Chaya Raichik, the Orthodox former real estate broker behind “Libs of TikTok,” has assailed Wikimedia’s spending on diversity programming, for example. And a June study from the right-leaning Manhattan Institute found a “mild to moderate tendency” for Wikipedia to more negatively describe some conservative public figures. Several prominent Jewish groups have also expressed concern that Wikipedia is tilted against Israel. A World Jewish Congress has released a report in March said the site’s articles about the Israel-Hamas war were biased in “terminology, framing and lack of context, one-sided sources and critical omissions,” while Aish.com, an Orthodox news website, said in November that it had been “hijacked by digital jihadists.” In May, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal ran a cover story titled “Wokepedia?” that described “seven tactics Wikipedia editors used to spread anti-Israel bias.” The article said that the term “anti-imperialism” had been added to the Hamas page as one of the Palestinian terror group’s ideologies, and the term “antisemitism” removed. Neither term is currently on the Hamas page; editors frequently discuss and change the content of controversial articles.

Radical right-wing organization The Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther is planning to identify and target Wikipedia editors as part of its project to combat antisemitism and anti-Zionism. In reality, such a campaign would serve to intimidate Wikipedia for its alleged pro-Palestinian bias.

[random-wikipedia-article-daily]

this is a gimmick blog in which one randomly selected wikipedia article is posted from the queue

mod uses any/all pronouns

probably goes without saying but the moderator for this blog is not affiliated with the wikimedia foundation

have fun :o)

(p.s. i don't usually read the articles, i kind of just grab them and run... that's what makes it fun though)

[ktempestbradford]

The person above deserves to be tossed into an oubliette for starting this nonsense...

Because, as you'll see from the article, none of the salaries are in any way out of line for the size and type of organization that is the Wikimedia Foundation. As someone on a Slack I'm in pointed out, this is likely someone who worships Elongated Muskrat and is doing whatever they can to get "approval from their god-king."

As someone responding to this nonsense pointed out:

wikipedia is one of the most visited sites on the internet… doesn't host ads, and is entirely free to browse.

Yes, it does have problems. However, Rebecca Watson rightly pointed out that Wikipedia has grown up into one of the best sites on the Internet.

Since Elongated hates Wikipedia, I think the best response to all this is to donate to it.

Piss off the billionaire that has lost the most money ever so he throws another fit and loses even more!

[gladiopsyop]

Wikimedia awareness in FCE(T), Gombe

[terribleadventuresdotcom]

Alternative: Use Firefox (even better: Librewolf) as your browser and DuckDuckGo as your search engine. The Firefox platform has a wider variety of plugins too. Closest I've ever gotten to that "classic useful internet feel".

wikipedia no longer being anywhere near the top of search results when looking up anything feels eviscerating

[retrocompmx]

Efemérides informática: 20 de junio de 2003, se funda Wikimedia

El 20 de junio de 2003, se funda Wikimedia Foundation, Organización sin fines de lucro, con Sede en San Francisco, que alberga Wikipedia y otros 14 proyectos de colaboración #retrocomputingmx #Wikimedia #Wikipedia

[nobodywasneverhere]

i love the wikimedia foundation!!!!!! i love having free access to a useful public domain system!!!!!!!!! i love free information available to everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[daily-public-domain]

Day 391: Moss frog, Rio de Janeiro

link

–This image is part of the public domain, meaning you can do anything you want with it! (you could even sell it as a shirt, poster or whatever, no need to credit it!)–

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emma Roth at The Verge:

Interim DC attorney Ed Martin has written a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation — the organization behind Wikipedia — that calls into question its status as a nonprofit entity. In the letter, which was obtained by The Free Press, Martin claims he found that Wikipedia “is engaging in a series of activities that could violate its obligations” under US law about tax-exempt organizations. Under the law (Section 501(c)(3) of Title 26), tax-exempt organizations must operate “exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes.” Martin alleges that Wikipedia is “allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda,” including by “rewriting” historical events and through “other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States.” Martin is known for thinly justified legal threats against media organizations. In recent days, Martin has sent letters to the New England Journal of Medicine, the CHEST Journal, and Obstetrics and Gynecology, accusing them of being “partisan in various scientific debates.” Martin asks the Wikimedia Foundation to respond to several questions, such as what it’s doing to “safeguard” the public from propaganda, as well as efforts to exclude “foreign influence operatives from making targeted edits” on topics that would “reshape or rewrite history.” He’s giving the Foundation until May 15th to respond.

See Also:

HuffPost: Ed Martin, Trump’s D.C. Prosecutor, Is Going After Wikipedia For Allegedly Spreading ‘Propaganda’

[random-wikipedia-article-daily]

Day 1

[ourwitching]

As discussed in the January 2024 post about our progress on the 2023-2024 Annual Plan goals...