I remember someone shared a federated alternative to Wikipedia here and I don’t remember the name of the project. Perplexity, Google and alternativeto.net are no good in finding it. Does anybody know its name?
I remember someone shared a federated alternative to Wikipedia here and I don’t remember the name of the project. Perplexity, Google and alternativeto.net are no good in finding it. Does anybody know its name?
What benefit would there be to federation? You can already download all of Wikipedia, and you can host your own wiki.
Also, it just occurred to me using the Lemmy “Search” function to look for it. It is there. The name is “Ibis”.
First of all, there is the problem of senior editors being in control and if you do anything, they just revert it, or delete it. There are reasons why there are already many different wikis and not just one.
Then as the other commenter shared, they have the goal of a neutral point of view, but that’s an idealistic goal that can’t be reached. The neutrality with which something is presented is sometimes a problem. For example in political spheres it can make more sense to read two very biased articles from opposing sides, than one that tries to present both sides objectively.
So it would be really helpful to see side by side comparisons or disambiguation pages that lead to different perspectives.
And you can sort of do this already, but the point of federation is also that it’s more tightly integrated than “you can have your own forum” which was true before as well.
Neutrality, and they just say massacres maybe happened 1984 sikh one says like 10 ppl died
It wouldn’t be controlled by one foundation, so agewalls couldn’t be enforced
As a website or service, sure. But the Wikipedia has been available to download for offline use since basically its inception. This is how users in places with poor internet connections can still benefit from the Wikipedia. Certainly, the idea of distributing Wikipedia on disc is a bit odd.
But whether it be smuggling books across the Iron Curtain, downloading swaths of paywalled scientific papers from an MIT computer, or accessing information about abortion, the pursuit of knowledge is a chiefly human trait and one not easily suppressed. But if all those, the Wikipedia has the best track record for being openly available and free (as in speech, and as in beer).
Anyone – not just the Wikimedia Foundation – can protest a proposed age restriction against Wikipedia by sending out enough Wikipedia CDs that would rival AOL’s 1990s campaigns. So too could one print a physical volume, just to prove the point that anti-proliferation of information is a lost-cause.
All people could contribute to the different instances and create a web of knowledge. If someone thinks a certain instance opinion of Robert F. Kennedy is wrong, they can contribute to another instance on the same topic giving references (even if different) as well.
I really think this is a better way of contribution. In this way, everyone gets to have their opinions preserved and at the same time contributing together. And to Truth, no less.
These instances would be connected by the ActivityPub or other.
Anyway, I’m sure there is a project like that out there already, and I’m also sure someone posted it here. I just don’t remember the name.
Not everyone’s opinion deserves a platform.
We don’t need more relativisation of facts, we need the exact opposite. Contrary to a way too widespread belief, opinions are not automatically something to respect and are not all equal, there can be shitty opinions based on shitty facts.
People tend to disagree about everything, even the shape of the earth and the effectiveness of vaccines, as mad as that may sound. As a result, a federated encyclopedia would probably diverge and fork numerous times, resulting in countless competing versions. How would you merge them back together?