Wikipedia extolled as an aide for getting history correct

Wikipedia extolled as an aide for getting history correct

[Akira Urushibata]

An article appeared in Washington Post's opinion section praising
Wikipedia's service to democracy by providing objective information
on the history of Russia and Ukraine and related issues.

Russian President Vladimir has made claims that Ukraine is run by
Nazists and they need to be eradicated.  He also believes that
Ukraine should not be independent from Moscow.  Upon hearing such
statements many people in democratic societies headed to Wikipedia
to examine their veracity.  Relevant articles saw a sharp increase
in page views.

---

Wikipedia acts as a check on Putin's false view of history
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/05/31/wikipedia-hitler-putin-lavrov/
Perspective by Noam Cohen

  ...

  Since the Russian invasion, the English Wikipedia articles about the
  historical figures and topics Putin invoked have been racking up
  pop-star numbers. The article about Stepan Bandera, a far-right leader
  of Ukrainian nationalists before and during World War II - whom Putin
  sees as an evil force guiding Ukraine even today - has been viewed a
  million times since the invasion. The one about the Ukrainian Soviet
  Socialist Republic, an obscure entity within the Union of Soviet
  Socialist Republics that Putin sees as having enabled Ukraine's
  current separate political identity, has had more than a half-million
  views since the invasion. Also with Bandera-type numbers is the
  article about Kievan Rus' (just under a million views), the ancient
  kingdom led by Vladimir the Great (225,000).

  ...

---

A world with an impartial source of information is far healthier than
one in which only disparate narratives from two competing entities are
heard.

However, my personal observation of Wikipedia makes me doubt whether
it deserves as much praise as Noam Cohen suggests.

Occasionally I take a look at the Wikipedia article on the "Linux"
operating system.  It is constantly edited.  At times I have seen
efforts to eradicate or minimize the role of GNU.  Here are the
first two paragraphs of the current version of the article:

   Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based
   on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on
   September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged
   in a Linux distribution.

   Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system
   software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU
   Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their
   name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name "GNU/Linux" to
   emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

It is true that FSF uses the name "GNU/Linux" but the way it is
phrased gives people the impression that FSF is but an isolated voice
among computer specialists.  This is a factual error.  For example
there is "Debian GNU/Linux" developed by an organization independent
from FSF.  Moreover in numerous technical documents I encounter the
term "GNU/Linux" used by people who are obviously not affiliated to
FSF, in contexts where it is necessary to distinguish between the
kernel and the operating system.  Wikipedia, while putting emphasis on
the desires of FSF, fails to make clear that people have practical
reasons for saying "GNU/Linux."  Failure to say that not everybody who
says "GNU/Linux" is prodded by FSF is a factual error.  Failure to
mention that people need to distinguish the kernel from the OS is
yet another.

Wikipedia may have helped thwart Russian President Putin's efforts to
rewrite history but it has been less successful in getting operating
system history straight.

I know of other instances of questionable quality.  Certain articles
on WW2 subjects exhibit stark differences in the Japanese page and the
English page.  It is easy to imagine this happening where disputes
surround the subject matter.  But I have also seen contradictions in
figures for which controversy is not known to exist.  Japanese and
English Wikipedia pages on Japanese capital warships at times disagree
on the number of casualties at the time of sinking.  For the Shinano,
the world's largest aircraft carrier at the time, the difference is
644.

Nowadays machine translation is widely available and Wikipedia encourages
its use.  If people who edit Wikipedia articles don't always check
the facts with the help of machine translation, it may well be that
they do not examine available references either.

---

Discussions of free software often presume that promotion is a good
thing.  The eagerness to promote may shove other aspects aside.

Even in a world with no proprietary software, people may suffer from
lack of freedom.  Computers are useful because they are accurate.
When fed false data, computers produce misleading output.

Imagine the captain of a sinking ship who is not sure how many
passengers are on board, or the capacity of each lifeboat.  Delays in
evacuation may put lives at risk.  An accurate computer running free
software won't help the captain if he does not have faith in the data
therein.  And when a person dies, loss of freedom is total and
irreversible.  The survivors are better off but also suffer from
dimininished freedom caused by physical and mental injuries and loss
of belongings.

Now consider an industrial setting.  False figures lead to defects.
Money, effort and time are spent dealing them instead of production
or development.  False figures take away the organization's freedom.

As important as the promotion of free software are efforts to ensure
that false facts and figures are not supplied as input to the systems.

---

Has anybody been monitoring the Wikipedia article on the "Linux"
operating system?  As stated above I notice that it is constantly
evolving.  I see the need to examine the article and the "GNU/Linux"
naming ordeal from an objective perspective.



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Re: Wikipedia extolled as an aide for getting history correct

[Greg Farough]

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On Fri, Jun 17 2022, Akira Urushibata <afu@wta.att.ne.jp> wrote:

> Has anybody been monitoring the Wikipedia article on the "Linux"
> operating system?  As stated above I notice that it is constantly
> evolving.  I see the need to examine the article and the "GNU/Linux"
> naming ordeal from an objective perspective.

I seem to remember Jimmy Wales getting involved in the naming
controversy on Wikipedia, saying somewhere that almost every instance
of "Linux" on Wikipedia should be GNU/Linux instead. This was a number
of years ago.

Did I make that up? I can't find any references for it anymore.

-g

-- 
Greg Farough // Campaigns Manager
Free Software Foundation

Join the FSF and help us defend software freedom: https://my.fsf.org

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Re: Wikipedia extolled as an aide for getting history correct

[Davis Remmel via libreplanet-discuss]

On 6/17/22 18:36, Greg Farough wrote:
> I seem to remember Jimmy Wales getting involved in the naming
> controversy on Wikipedia, saying somewhere that almost every instance
> of "Linux" on Wikipedia should be GNU/Linux instead. This was a number
> of years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:GNU/Linux_naming_controversy/Archive_8#Jimbo's_opinion_on_naming_convention

-- 
Davis


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Re: Wikipedia extolled as an aide for getting history correct

[J Leslie Turriff]

	Indeed, the failure of Wikipedia to differentiate references to the kernel (Linux) and
OSs that depend on it (GNU/Linux et al) is unfortunate.  Many people, including those who
actually use Linux-based systems, are wont to use 'Linux' as a short-hand for GNU/Linux*;
and there are many who aren't aware of the distinction at all, which is where this
shortcoming of the Wikipedia article is particularly unfortunate.

Leslie

*Me too.

On 2022-06-16 16:46:42 Akira Urushibata wrote:
> An article appeared in Washington Post's opinion section praising
> Wikipedia's service to democracy by providing objective information
> on the history of Russia and Ukraine and related issues.
>
> Russian President Vladimir has made claims that Ukraine is run by
> Nazists and they need to be eradicated.  He also believes that
> Ukraine should not be independent from Moscow.  Upon hearing such
> statements many people in democratic societies headed to Wikipedia
> to examine their veracity.  Relevant articles saw a sharp increase
> in page views.
>
> ---
>
> Wikipedia acts as a check on Putin's false view of history
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/05/31/wikipedia-hitler-putin-la
>vrov/ Perspective by Noam Cohen
>
>   ...
>
>   Since the Russian invasion, the English Wikipedia articles about the
>   historical figures and topics Putin invoked have been racking up
>   pop-star numbers. The article about Stepan Bandera, a far-right leader
>   of Ukrainian nationalists before and during World War II - whom Putin
>   sees as an evil force guiding Ukraine even today - has been viewed a
>   million times since the invasion. The one about the Ukrainian Soviet
>   Socialist Republic, an obscure entity within the Union of Soviet
>   Socialist Republics that Putin sees as having enabled Ukraine's
>   current separate political identity, has had more than a half-million
>   views since the invasion. Also with Bandera-type numbers is the
>   article about Kievan Rus' (just under a million views), the ancient
>   kingdom led by Vladimir the Great (225,000).
>
>   ...
>
> ---
>
> A world with an impartial source of information is far healthier than
> one in which only disparate narratives from two competing entities are
> heard.
>
> However, my personal observation of Wikipedia makes me doubt whether
> it deserves as much praise as Noam Cohen suggests.
>
> Occasionally I take a look at the Wikipedia article on the "Linux"
> operating system.  It is constantly edited.  At times I have seen
> efforts to eradicate or minimize the role of GNU.  Here are the
> first two paragraphs of the current version of the article:
>
>    Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based
>    on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on
>    September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged
>    in a Linux distribution.
>
>    Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system
>    software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU
>    Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their
>    name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name "GNU/Linux" to
>    emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
>
> It is true that FSF uses the name "GNU/Linux" but the way it is
> phrased gives people the impression that FSF is but an isolated voice
> among computer specialists.  This is a factual error.  For example
> there is "Debian GNU/Linux" developed by an organization independent
> from FSF.  Moreover in numerous technical documents I encounter the
> term "GNU/Linux" used by people who are obviously not affiliated to
> FSF, in contexts where it is necessary to distinguish between the
> kernel and the operating system.  Wikipedia, while putting emphasis on
> the desires of FSF, fails to make clear that people have practical
> reasons for saying "GNU/Linux."  Failure to say that not everybody who
> says "GNU/Linux" is prodded by FSF is a factual error.  Failure to
> mention that people need to distinguish the kernel from the OS is
> yet another.
>
> Wikipedia may have helped thwart Russian President Putin's efforts to
> rewrite history but it has been less successful in getting operating
> system history straight.
>
> I know of other instances of questionable quality.  Certain articles
> on WW2 subjects exhibit stark differences in the Japanese page and the
> English page.  It is easy to imagine this happening where disputes
> surround the subject matter.  But I have also seen contradictions in
> figures for which controversy is not known to exist.  Japanese and
> English Wikipedia pages on Japanese capital warships at times disagree
> on the number of casualties at the time of sinking.  For the Shinano,
> the world's largest aircraft carrier at the time, the difference is
> 644.
>
> Nowadays machine translation is widely available and Wikipedia encourages
> its use.  If people who edit Wikipedia articles don't always check
> the facts with the help of machine translation, it may well be that
> they do not examine available references either.
>
> ---
>
> Discussions of free software often presume that promotion is a good
> thing.  The eagerness to promote may shove other aspects aside.
>
> Even in a world with no proprietary software, people may suffer from
> lack of freedom.  Computers are useful because they are accurate.
> When fed false data, computers produce misleading output.
>
> Imagine the captain of a sinking ship who is not sure how many
> passengers are on board, or the capacity of each lifeboat.  Delays in
> evacuation may put lives at risk.  An accurate computer running free
> software won't help the captain if he does not have faith in the data
> therein.  And when a person dies, loss of freedom is total and
> irreversible.  The survivors are better off but also suffer from
> dimininished freedom caused by physical and mental injuries and loss
> of belongings.
>
> Now consider an industrial setting.  False figures lead to defects.
> Money, effort and time are spent dealing them instead of production
> or development.  False figures take away the organization's freedom.
>
> As important as the promotion of free software are efforts to ensure
> that false facts and figures are not supplied as input to the systems.
>
> ---
>
> Has anybody been monitoring the Wikipedia article on the "Linux"
> operating system?  As stated above I notice that it is constantly
> evolving.  I see the need to examine the article and the "GNU/Linux"
> naming ordeal from an objective perspective.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> libreplanet-discuss mailing list
> libreplanet-discuss@libreplanet.org
> https://lists.libreplanet.org/mailman/listinfo/libreplanet-discuss
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Re: Wikipedia extolled as an aide for getting history correct

[Lars Noodén]

On 6/17/22 00:46, Akira Urushibata wrote:
[snip]
> Has anybody been monitoring the Wikipedia article on the "Linux"
> operating system?  As stated above I notice that it is constantly
> evolving.  I see the need to examine the article and the "GNU/Linux"
> naming ordeal from an objective perspective.

Back in the day, I and others at the now defunct OpenDocument Fellowship
did try to follow the various Wikipedia articles on Open Standards and
in particular the OpenDocument Format¹ and even related, non-standard
formats like OOXML².

I haven't looked at those particular pages for very many years but when
I last did there was still an ongoing fight between those trying to keep
the articles concise and filled with accurate information and those
working to delete them or obfuscate the information.  I presume the
latter were paid at least indirectly by Microsoft since they were so
active and persistent.

The tactics they used consistently at that time were:

1. saturate the open standards articles with excessive verbiage
2. diffuse the concepts and reword concepts as vaguely as possible
3. split the then long article into multiple pages
4. remove key concepts and information from the original article
5. confuse the material in the subarticles
6. shrink the subarticles to almost nothing for "precision"
7. call for deletion of the subsequently short subarticles

In that way they were able to remove, delete, or obfuscate a lot of key
information about the format and about open standards in general.

Remember, if open file formats³ are so well supported that programs can
be used interchangeably, then that aspect of vendor lock-in would
completely go away, along with most non-political barriers to FOSS
applications and operating systems on the desktop.

tldr; I would expect that these days you would have to look out for the
abuse of similar tactics, but perhaps more refined and subtle, in
regards to the relevant Wikipedia articles on software and operating
systems.

/Lars

¹ Standardized as ISO/IEC 26300
	https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/
	https://www.iso.org/standard/66363.html
	https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000247.shtml

² Which, to this day, no programs actually use.  None.

³ One that is:
	1. maintained by an independent non-profit
	2. published and available free-of-charge
	3. usable royalty-free
	4. has no constraints on re-use

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Re: Wikipedia extolled as an aide for getting history correct

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Jun 16, 2022, Akira Urushibata <afu@wta.att.ne.jp> wrote:

> Occasionally I take a look at the Wikipedia article on the "Linux"
> operating system.  It is constantly edited.  At times I have seen
> efforts to eradicate or minimize the role of GNU.

*nod*.  I've witnessed several such efforts, from an editor who denied
and suppressed references to blobs in Linux, even after being given hard
evidence of it, to various efforts to reject writings that referred to
GNU/Linux as such (rather than just Linux), and to remove wikipedia
entries for 100% free distros.  It's definitely not neutral ground.


> Wikipedia may have helped thwart Russian President Putin's efforts to
> rewrite history

while helping others rewrite history to their liking :-/


But then, despite all of its failings, Wikipedia, like democracy, sucks,
though they suck less than the known alternatives.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva, happy hacker                https://FSFLA.org/blogs/lxo/
   Free Software Activist                       GNU Toolchain Engineer
Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice
but very few check the facts.  Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>

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Re: Wikipedia extolled as an aide for getting history correct

[J.B. Nicholson]

Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> [Wikipedia is] definitely not neutral ground.

I concur; there are different groups interested in presenting a particular view of 
things via Wikipedia articles. As I understand it, whose view is seen by many comes 
down to either who is connected to Wikipedia admins or who spends time reverting 
challenging edits.

> But then, despite all of its failings, Wikipedia, like democracy, sucks,
> though they suck less than the known alternatives.

And, much like Firefox, Wikipedia articles are licensed such that if one wants to one 
could base a new work by copying something that went before and making changes to it. 
Firefox, for all of its problems, is still free software and thus very well-suited 
for being the base for other browsers. TorBrowser is an example of that.

Perhaps someone has done something comparable for Wikipedia as well?

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Re: Wikipedia extolled as an aide for getting history correct

[Ade Malsasa Akbar]

Hello respected LibrePlanet people,

On 18/06/22 13.06, J Leslie Turriff wrote:
> 	Indeed, the failure of Wikipedia to differentiate references to the kernel (Linux) and
> OSs that depend on it (GNU/Linux et al) is unfortunate.  Many people, including those who
> actually use Linux-based systems, are wont to use 'Linux' as a short-hand for GNU/Linux*;
> and there are many who aren't aware of the distinction at all, which is where this
> shortcoming of the Wikipedia article is particularly unfortunate.
>
> Leslie
>
> *Me too.

I am glad apparently I am not the only one who think this way.

I 'd love to add that I myself had once fallen to misunderstanding of 
GNU/Linux naming, and so did many of people in my country, because 
Wikipedia taught us to call it "Linux" instead of GNU/Linux. This is 
very unfortunate. Once I learned my favorite article, GNU Users Who Have 
Never Heard of GNU [0], I understand it was a mistake and started to 
call it GNU/Linux.


On 21/06/22 09.57, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> *nod*.  I've witnessed several such efforts, from an editor who denied
> and suppressed references to blobs in Linux, even after being given hard
> evidence of it, to various efforts to reject writings that referred to
> GNU/Linux as such (rather than just Linux), and to remove wikipedia
> entries for 100% free distros.  It's definitely not neutral ground.

I know similar thing about this in real life. That, in my place, many 
people seem to systematically erase the presence of GNU Operating System 
in every chance they talk about GNU/Linux --regardless they did that 
consciously or not--. It is obvious to me that "something" taught them 
to not talk about GNU at all, or significantly decrease its role in the 
Free Software Community. This occurs for years up to today. And now I 
can see that Wikipedia perhaps one among that "something".


For that reason I really like The GNU Project website www.gnu.org.


Sincerely yours,

Ade Malsasa Akbar

----------

[0] https://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-users-never-heard-of-gnu.en.html





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