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In the media

History is written by whoever can harness the most editors

"Losers just got a lot of time on their hands"

Make sure to punch in before reading this issue: volunteering is for losers. Or so some argue[weasel words].

Elon Musk and Benjamin Netanyahu met to discuss many topics including the state of Israel's democracy, anti-semitism, and artificial intelligence. They also managed to discuss Madison and Hamilton, the death of Socrates, and Musk's love of encyclopedias. Except for one! And it's one you may have heard of.

The discussion was broadcast on the website formerly known as Twitter, which Musk owns, with a transcript here. We'll stick to what they think of Wikipedia and other encyclopedias, starting with Musk's early reading.

Musk: ...If I’d had the internet back then with the great movies, video games and that kind of thing, I probably would’ve read much less than I did. I kind of read the encyclopedia out of desperation because I didn’t have anything else to read.

Netanyahu: You read the whole encyclopedia?
Musk: Yeah, pretty much. I’d get something that I’m not that interested in and obviously skip past it. But yeah, pretty much.
Netanyahu: That’s desperation.
Musk: It was desperation. No, I was just like, "I’ve run out of books."
Netanyahu: But I think it was probably a better encyclopedia than the one… These digital encyclopedias today, which unfortunately are edited in ways that don’t necessarily bring out the balanced views of things.
Musk: Yeah, I mean, the fun thing about, say, Wikipedia, is there’s an old saying "history is written by the victors". And it’s like, "Well, yes, but not if your enemies are still alive and have a lot of time on their hands to edit Wikipedia."
Netanyahu: History is written by the people who can harness the most editors.
Musk: Yeah, I mean, whoever, the losers just got a lot of time on their hands and it’s like, “What do they do?” Edit Wikipedia. And literally, so yeah.

S

Wikipedia is a model for Harvard

Is this a model for Harvard? Or is this a model for Harvard?

According to a Harvard Crimson column, Harvard students have all come to rely on Wikipedia.

We trust that Wikipedia can grant us quick and detailed information about nearly anything we can imagine. The site is a modern miracle. Within seconds, we can access acute knowledge on quantum field theory, a biography of Helen Keller, or detailed summaries of every single episode of Breaking Bad."

The reason for our encyclopedia's success, according to these student journalists, is our model of editing, starting with be bold. Talk pages, the prohibition on article ownership, with debate, discussion, and collaboration that lead to consensus; all for $54,269 less per year than certain other sources of knowledge.

Perhaps these students haven't seen some of the more vicious Wiki-debates. But perhaps they understand what is going on here better than Elon Musk and Benjamin Netanyahu. S

Wikiracing at Wikimania

Some other people think Wikipedia is pretty cool too. Especially high-school and college students, and attendees at this year's Wikimania according to The Art of Wikiracing by Stephen Harrison in Slate. Wikiracing is a simple game to see who can go fastest from article A to article B by clicking blue links in the articles. For example, who can go the fastest from "Jimmy Wales" to "Stroopwafel". See TheWikiGame if you'd like to play on the same platform used by the Wikimaniac contest. SuperHamster won the competition.

Harrison attempts a deep dive into the subject, going from lateral thinking to dopamine. But this topic is just about fun and is probably too shallow for his usual mind expanding approach. If you want to try it, just click lateral thinking and see how many pages it takes to get to dopamine. Or – for something simpler – try Elon Musk to Benjamin Netanyahu. S

Tabloid: Vile trolls?

One of the Internet trolls that caused a ruckus

"Vile internet trolls edit Sir Michael Gambon’s Wikipedia page minutes after his death", according to The Express's headline, a couple of hours after the actor's death. A check of the Wikipedia article's history reveals that the headline's claim is, at best, over-blown.

The news of Gambon's death hit Wikipedia at 11:37 (UTC) on September 28. The edit changed one word "is" to "was". After 4 minutes and 7 edits a "recent death" banner was added to the top of the article saying "initial news reports may be unreliable". Five minutes (8 edits) later one IP editor made an edit and then a minor correction in very poor taste - they included the word "herpes". The edits were quickly reverted and the editor warned not to repeat the mistake. The whole incident was over in two minutes, maybe less. The Express editors might consider the edit "vile", but "sophomoric" would be more appropriate.

Recent changes patroller WindTempos, who reverted the "vile" edit, replied to our inquiry. "I'm not surprised to see poorly informed Wikipedia coverage in the tabloid press, but I'm baffled as to how one IP editor's childish vandalism could be considered remotely newsworthy. In any case, it's a striking reminder of how visible even the shortest lived of edits can be."

Looking further in the article's history there was another sophomoric edit 42 minutes later that included the word "masturbation". It was reverted a minute later. Those edits are by far the worst in the first hour after the actor's death.

The tabloid magnified their exaggerated claims, and its garish headline, with a jumbled explanation of how Wikipedia works: "it is understood that anyone can edit a Wikipedia page, and the company instead employs people to monitor edits and delete and rectify them as required." Unpaid volunteers such as WindTempos patrol our articles and other volunteers contribute and edit the overwhelming bulk of the content. The Express should know, after almost 23 years of Wikipedia's existence, that the Wikimedia Foundation and its employees, make essentially no edits to the encyclopedia articles. Kudos to WindTempos and all patrollers!

We understand that The Express employs editors to monitor their stories and headlines, but that they are not always able to rectify their errors. S

In brief

New Haven has a car park designed by Paul Rudolph. And some college.
The Matilda effect, named for Matilda Joslyn Gage, and described by Jess Wade in the media