On the contrary, I think that almost all people and institutions that don’t currently have a Wikipedia article should not want one. For example, right now, if someone searches for Neel Nanda, they’ll find his site, which has whatever information and messages he wants to put there. By contrast, if there’s a Neel Nanda Wikipedia article, it will have whatever information very active Wikipedia editors want it to have, and whatever information journalists choose to write about him, no matter how dumb and insane and outdated.
Likewise, if someone searches for AI-2027, they’ll find actual AI-2027, a site which the AI-2027 people control and can add whatever information they want to. If they want to add a “reception” tab to their site, to talk about who has read it and what they’ve said, they can.
On the other hand, creating good new Wikipedia pages is a great idea for things that are uncontroversial but confusing for novices. For example, the new mechanistic interpretability page seems good (at a glance).
And if a Wikipedia article already exists, then making that article better is an excellent idea.
There was a time when Wikipedia editors invited more people to join them and help write articles...
Maybe they should implement a software solution to a social problem. Something like: “if someone who is higher in the Wikipedia hierarchy than you has already edited an article, you are not supposed to modify this article (or maybe just the sections that they have edited)”. This could avoid many unnecessary conflicts, and the result would be the same as now that they battle it out in the talk pages.
I hear the critique, but I’m not sure I’m as confident as you are that it’s a good one.
The first reason is that I’m unsure whether the trade-off between credibility for having a wiki page doesn’t outweigh the loss of control.
The second reason is that I don’t really think there is much losing control (minus in extreme cases like you mention) - you can’t be super ideological on wiki sites, minus saying things like “and here’s what critics say”. On that point, I think it’s just pretty important for the standard article on a topic to have critiques of it (as long as they are honest/ good rebuttals, which I’m somewhat confident that the wiki moderators can ensure). Another point on this is that LWers can just be on top of stuff to ensure that the information isn’t clearly outdated or confused.
The pushback is essentially David Gerard, so I’d be curious how you’re thinking of having to deal with him specifically, instead of just “loss of control” in the abstract. (If you haven’t already read Trace’s essay, it illustrates what I mean much better than I can summarise here.)
On the contrary, I think that almost all people and institutions that don’t currently have a Wikipedia article should not want one. For example, right now, if someone searches for Neel Nanda, they’ll find his site, which has whatever information and messages he wants to put there. By contrast, if there’s a Neel Nanda Wikipedia article, it will have whatever information very active Wikipedia editors want it to have, and whatever information journalists choose to write about him, no matter how dumb and insane and outdated.
An extreme (and close-to-home) example is documented in TracingWoodgrains’s exposé.of David Gerard’s Wikipedia smear campaign against LessWrong and related topics. That’s an unusually crazy story, but less extreme versions are very common—e.g. a journalist wrote something kinda dumb about Organization X many years ago, and it lives on in the Wikipedia article, when it otherwise would have been long forgotten.
Likewise, if someone searches for AI-2027, they’ll find actual AI-2027, a site which the AI-2027 people control and can add whatever information they want to. If they want to add a “reception” tab to their site, to talk about who has read it and what they’ve said, they can.
On the other hand, creating good new Wikipedia pages is a great idea for things that are uncontroversial but confusing for novices. For example, the new mechanistic interpretability page seems good (at a glance).
And if a Wikipedia article already exists, then making that article better is an excellent idea.
This is even closer to home—David Gerard has commented on the Wikipedia Talk Page and referenced this LW post: https://web.archive.org/web/20250814022218/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mechanistic_interpretability#Bad_sourcing,_COI_editing
There was a time when Wikipedia editors invited more people to join them and help write articles...
Maybe they should implement a software solution to a social problem. Something like: “if someone who is higher in the Wikipedia hierarchy than you has already edited an article, you are not supposed to modify this article (or maybe just the sections that they have edited)”. This could avoid many unnecessary conflicts, and the result would be the same as now that they battle it out in the talk pages.
Thanks for the comment!
I hear the critique, but I’m not sure I’m as confident as you are that it’s a good one.
The first reason is that I’m unsure whether the trade-off between credibility for having a wiki page doesn’t outweigh the loss of control.
The second reason is that I don’t really think there is much losing control (minus in extreme cases like you mention) - you can’t be super ideological on wiki sites, minus saying things like “and here’s what critics say”. On that point, I think it’s just pretty important for the standard article on a topic to have critiques of it (as long as they are honest/ good rebuttals, which I’m somewhat confident that the wiki moderators can ensure). Another point on this is that LWers can just be on top of stuff to ensure that the information isn’t clearly outdated or confused.
Curious to hear pushback, though.
The pushback is essentially David Gerard, so I’d be curious how you’re thinking of having to deal with him specifically, instead of just “loss of control” in the abstract. (If you haven’t already read Trace’s essay, it illustrates what I mean much better than I can summarise here.)