Publicly available factual information is a threat to an authoritarian regime
this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2025
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To quote something from lefty blogs in the W era: "Reality has a clear leftwing bias"
To quote Stephen Colbert.
Was he the originator? I thought he was cribbing DailyKos or similar...
I don't know. It is widely attributed to the him however.
Stephen Colbert, The Him
I only just realized that there is an extra word in my comment. I read it as a reference I didn't get.
Wikipedia, archive.org, and any similar essential services ought to be migrating their hosting and organizational headquarters to outside the US ASAP.
That's not something you can just do. All of there employees are Americans.
It would be better if they were spread across many countries so that one place couldn't cause a problem.
We have to protect Wikipedia. We have to.
If they take it down we'll make it again.
All you selfhosters out there, this is the cue to make your mirrors
Got my snapshot from Jan.
It's only 20gb.
You need an offline viewer. That's a snap /flat hub install. Kiwix I believe
Says ~110gb for all of english version via kiwix. Did you exclude images or something?
Yes, they’re are different versions. Maxi is the 110GB one, there is also a nopic version that is quite a bit lighter.
Just started, great suggestion.
I can't believe this shit. 2023 me wouldn't believe I'd be doing half of the things I'm doing now.
Just wait til 2025 you couldn't possibly believe what '27's got in stock :p
Though, any server schenanagins That may interest me for some hypotheical good in the world?
No need
Install the free offline reader software from here
Then grab what content you want from https://dumps.wikimedia.org/kiwix/zim/
Here's English Wikipedia, with pictures from 2024 https://dumps.wikimedia.org/kiwix/zim/wikipedia/wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2024-01.zim
names with maxi have all the pictures names with mini few pictures and abridged content names with nopic have no pictures and abridged content
if it says science or basketball, it's just things flagged as science or things flagged as basketball.
Was weighing some options and think I'll be deploying this, thank you.
They literally don't generate any revenue. Wikipedia is quite literally the definition of a non-profit.
Also, trump is barred from running non-profits due to fraud in NY, I feel like that should disqualify him from making these kinds of decisions.
Good news and fun fact, the entirety of Wikipedia can be downloaded quite easily.
Does Wikipedia receive federal funding? If not, people can shut right up.
I think it's in the single digit percentages of their funding.
They're pretty flush with cash still. Trump can go after them, but for what? They'd need more corruption than they have in the judicial system today. They'll get there eventually, but they don't have it yet.
It’s not that there is no danger, but I don’t see anything immediate.
We need a federated Wikipedia (Fedipedia)
Why?
- It would allow multiple definitions for words (not eveyone agrees with what certain words mean)
- It would allow some instances to focus on being apolitical or more political.
- It would allow all wikis to be condenced into one platform (including possibly wikis like the Arch Wiki)
- It would help combat censorship
1, 2, 3 are just really really bad...
And 4 makes no sense.
For number one, there are articles that express different voices around a topic. Definitions often have multiple sections to express different voicws. Do they not?
I think a political project is a different beast from wikipedia. There will be some biases but not as its grounding purpose.
The consensus is somehow already constructed by the current set up. Most people just don't (and my feeling is that will and should not, like in the case of vaccine scienxe) participate.
Censorship of which kind, though?
I mean governments such as the Trump regime specifically in regard to information about politicians
I liked the idea in your first comment but all your reasonings for it are backward.
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I feel like that is a mixed bag
It really isn't bad as is
Is there any way to decentralize Wikipedia? P2P wikipedia? Because that seems like the best long term solution to this.
Yes, start with a mirror. A download is enough for yourself, but mirrors retain what is needed to rebuild the database. You will meed a lot of storage
I torrented the text of english wikipedia one time and deleted it a few weeks after to make space for my Monero node. What I meant by "decentralized Wikipedia" would be not only the files being stored in multiple locations but there also being some sort of system (including moderation I suppose) to broadcast edits across the network
I'll have to stop you right there, mate. You are reinventing blockchain.
Wikipedia over IPFS, it seems to be a work in progress, but its something
that's actually pretty cool, thanks!
How would that work?
The media manipulation information warfare department has virtually unlimited funds and anyone who steps out of line and questions the narrative gets the banhammer. That's why they went after TikTok.
Wikipedia has always been a right wing propaganda outlet. Libbiest among the supergigalibs. What is this post even talking about? I wish N4zipedia shuts down
Please give an example of an objectionable article
Check username
I gathered by the instance but I wanted to provoke the response
To be fair it is a little left leaning and the editors sometime massive jerks.
However, it really isn't bad at all. They do a pretty decent job of publishing factual information and Wikipedia is useful to a lot of people. Even if it was publishing propaganda they would still be protected under free speech. There are way more sketchy non profits than Wikipedia. It is kind of scaring that it is now a target
Reality has a liberal bias
It really doesn't
Bias is a truly human thing. It comes from applying emotions to facts. In reality there are no right answers and thus everything will always be biased.
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