Wikipedia Creates AI System To Filter Out Bad Edits (thestack.com) 83
An anonymous reader writes: Wikipedia has developed a new artificial intelligence system aimed at improving the quality of its entries and detecting both mistakes and damaging edits made to its articles. The technology is named the Objective Revision Evaluation Service. The Wikimedia blog explains that the system is able to highlight incorrect edits, allowing editors to filter them out from the "torrent" of new amends and scrutinize their credibility. The entire service and process is open – with Wikipedia making revision scoring transparent and audit-able by publishing the source code, performance statistics and project documentation publicly under open licenses.
Is this some kind of joke article? (Score:1)
The acronym for wikipedia etc is W.O.R.S.E?
Re:Is this some kind of joke article? (Score:5, Funny)
But now that you mention it they missed a golden opportunity to call it the Holistic Objective Revision Evaluation Service or something along those lines.
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Wikipedia
Holistic
Objective
Revision
Evaluation
Service
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Yeah, at least that shreds light on the true meaning of holistic [wikipedia.org]!
Now, let me try and explain these comments from a non-chauvinist point of view. Etymologically, the term whore [thefreedictionary.com] is related to desire, wish, aspiration —our noblest qualities. Nowadays it is used to indicate females who vilify those qualities by turning them into a source of profit. By extension, human males use the term to refer to just any woman, thereby unwittingly recovering the original, etymological meaning. That attitude is cons
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>> I think you mean O.R.E.S
Sounds like they've been playing Minecraft.
Re:Is this some kind of joke article? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why a joke? Consider it a spam filter for Wikipedia entries. The more popular entries have unfortunately had to get locked down due to rampant vandalism. Wikipedia, for all it's faults, is one of the wonders of the modern age. Between it and Google, it's like a global repository of human knowledge... or at least, a summary of human knowledge, with links to deeper knowledge.
But while its power is derived from the masses of humans that create and edit that content, the masses are also its weakness. Humans are endlessly creative, and this tool will probably just teach trolls how to vandalize more creatively in order to fool the algorithm. Still, if it cuts down the noise for editors, it may end up being a good thing. It's hard to say until it's actually been deployed in the real world for a while.
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a summary of human knowledge
No. It mostly a collection of stuff that was found with Google search.
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Wikipedia is a giant litmus strip. Whoever can pump out the most "reliable sources" and game the bureaucracy best gets to redefine truth through the woozle. It's the ultimate test of how good you are at PR or propaganda.
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m. Wikipedia, for all it's faults, is one of the wonders of the modern age. Between it and Google, it's like a global repository of human knowledge... or at least, a summary of human knowledge, with links to deeper knowledge.
But while its power is derived from the masses of humans that create and edit that content, the masses are also its weakness.
Wikipedia: a formerly comprhensive collection of human knowledge, being deleted one article at a time until it's all gone. Once a place that derived its power masses of humans that created and edited that content, but now controlled by an ever-shrinking editorial cabal, soon to be replaced by a shell script.
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Well, at least the shell script will be consistent. So, there's that. I'm not sure why you're modded troll. It appears pretty accurate to me. I still find it useful but that's because I'm willing to check the sources and use it as a jumping off point to do further research. I have noticed a trend where omission, I'll not go so far as to say it is deliberate, is used to ensure the tone of the article is both factual and biased. It does, indeed, contain the truth but it's a very limited set of truths and impl
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Nonsense. The editorial staff is larger than it has ever been, and there's a record number of writers contributing. Check the change logs. They're public. The sheer number of junk articles deleted is higher than ever but as a percentage it does not appear to be -- as the size of Wikipedia has grown, so has the junk people have tried to add into it.
The shell script should help make sure that the necessary task of pruning the junk is applied objectively.
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What I find interesting is that Bill Gates was publicly pontificating about such back in the very early 1990s. Their partial implementation was known as Encarta and had many of the same goals but slightly less altruism. The Wikipedia (ah how deliciously ironic) article indicates that it was first released in 1993 but there's at least one video segment and one talk given where Gates discusses it a bit more as well as the objectives of the project.
I'm not positive but I think the talk was given at ComDex and
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Detects mistakes? (Score:5, Funny)
Great! We can hook it to a random number generator and have it create all knowledge!
Nah doesn't work (Score:4, Funny)
I'm the inventor of the scroll lock key but everytime I ad this to my Wikipedia profile it gets deleted.
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Probably because Wikipedia aims not to include crap. I'd be interested to see the third-party sources that name you as the inventor of Scroll Lock.
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I'd be interested to see the third-party sources that name you as the inventor of Scroll Lock.
Here is the source [xkcd.com].
Citation timing (Score:2)
To break such a citation feedback loop, prefer a pre-2001 citation for claims about applicable topics. By the time Wikipedia came around, the Scroll Lock key had been present for well over a decade, so if there were a citation, it's more likely than not that there would also be a pre-2001 citation.
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At which point you get your revisions undone and buried in warnings for edit warring, verifiability and not truth, placing undue importance on a marginal opinion, and the moment you try to get help from the admins to deal with all the flaming and stalking it's boomeranged back on you.
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edit warring
It's only edit warring if you try to reapply your edit. If you instead discuss the revert [wikipedia.org] in a civil manner, there is no war. If discussing the revert has not worked for you, I'd like to see diffs so I can help you figure out what went wrong and why.
verifiability and not truth
If you have pre-2001 citations, you have verifiability.
placing undue importance on a marginal opinion
If you have pre-2001 citations, plural, the opinion is not marginal.
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I've been editing wikipedia pretty much as long as it's been wikipedia. If you are on the wrong side of the groupthink or disagree with one of the wikipedia untouchables you WILL be screwed. Every single source you try to bring will be accused of being an unreliable source supporting a marginal opinion, you will be told that wikipedia is about verifiability and not truth, and you'll be viciously flamed the entire time and threatened with all kinds of disciplinary procedures. The moment you attempt to compla
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If discussing the revert has not worked for you, I'd like to see diffs so I can help you figure out what went wrong and why.
If you are on the wrong side of the groupthink or disagree with one of the wikipedia untouchables you WILL be screwed.
I hate to have to say it, but [citation needed]. I'd understand better if I could verify what you're talking about through diffs.
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Seriously tepples? Enough with the denialism [archive.is]. You're either being mendacious or are so out of touch with the current state of wikipedia you should stop trying to advocate for it. It's ruled by powerful cliques like wikiproject feminism and other unblockables.
BRD: Do not rush the discuss phase (Score:2)
Enough with the denialism [User:Beeblebrox/The unblockables].
The only "denialism" here is learning how to "deny" the unblockables an opportunity to accuse you of edit warring. It starts by not edit warring.
It's ruled by powerful cliques like wikiproject feminism
You are correct that I haven't been active in controversial topics, especially those related to civil rights of a particular group. But the examples in Beeblebrox's essay [wikipedia.org] appear to skip at least one step of the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle [wikipedia.org].
Wikipedia doesn't make it obvious, but a reve
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That was my thought as well, when will Wikipedia come up with something that identifies bad editors and blocks their reverts.
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Unfortunately, due to going camping this weekend, my next two days suck, but thanks for the offer. Maybe if you end up in this area again.
If everyone reading this right now gave $3... (Score:3)
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What do the specs have to do with whether or not the plane was used to shoot down another one?
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The problem is that the only people who care about whether or not they were shot down by this or that plane also don't care about whether they can or cannot do it.
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The plane is a air to ground attack aircraft, kind of like the A-10, it can't shoot down a plane flying at 30kft, so if you try and make it out to be an F-35 instead of an A-10, maybe people will believe that it wasn't a AAA battery that Russia lent to the Rebels and is instead a fighter jet that Ukraine is using.
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Well, it's technically possible for an A10 to down a civilian plane. It's not like you have to engage in high-g dogfights to win that battle...
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My assumption was that the A-10 couldn't reach those altitudes, but it looks like I was wrong, as service ceiling on the A-10 is 45k feet, on the SU-24 it is 35k feet. It is possible for these aircraft to shoot down a civilian aircraft at cruise altitude, it is just highly unlikely. The SU-24 apparently carries 2 R-60 A-A missiles, so it is theoretically possible, however I don't believe that the SU-24 the Russians are pointing to ever flew above 10k feet. It is a scapegoat to try and draw attention from
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I'm honestly waiting for the first helicopter editor being reverted by the AI due to him being identified as a troll and vandal. It would probably serve as the proof that the AI is working correctly...
Well it's a start (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if the AI can be programmed to weed out the;
*Man-Child admins who lack authority in real life and become a Wikipedia admin to (over)compensate
*Agenda Warriors who go there to further their ideological battles
*Bullies
*Harassers
*Stalkers
*Jimbo Wales
we might see some improvement.
Re:Well it's a start (Score:5, Insightful)
The first 2 are the reasons I stopped contributing to Wikipedia. Today, article contents reflect the most stubborn editors with the most free time on their hands - not people who actually know what they're talking about.
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As an admin there who fights to prevent this, I have to agree. It isn't an easy battle when the warriors have more time than the skilled editors and admin combined. Some things we do right, controversial or complicated topics, we do poorly.
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Now if the AI can be programmed to weed out the ...
That should be possible. If the AI can effectively discriminate between "good" edits and "bad" edits, then it should also be able to identify admins who revert a lot of "good" edits.
It will be an improvement (Score:2)
At the very least it cannot get any worse.
My last attempt to contribute something sensible to Wikipedia was removing what I deemed a vandalism attempt in an article about Greek columns where a certain person was named along with his sexual preferences that are allegedly inspired by Greek society. Which was evidently relevant to the understanding of Dorian column styles, it seems, for my removal of said person's name along with the pertinent information about his sexual preferences was dutifully restored mer
Re:It will be an improvement (Score:5, Interesting)
The list of wikipedia astroturfing and politics turfing is beyond annoying. One of my favorite wiki feebles is when they told Philip Roth he’s not “credible source” on book he wrote [arstechnica.com]
I wish I would of bookmarked the editors page, but there was this historian who specialized in mis understood beliefs in wikpedia, but he would have his updates removed because the standard "group think" belief was he was incorrect. He even posted the references required but was still reverted. He finally just edited his personal page, so it would be searchable, no idea if it is. His popular one was that no Canadian military was in vietnam, but Canada did have military medical there with hospitals and mash type units. He even linked to the CA GOV MIL page that had the medals given out during the vietnam war.
Don't get me started on the whole left slanted views given. Even the gamergate page is dripping in political correctness and not very subtle slanted views. Read the comments section on there, you can see how Jimbo had to ban anti-gg editors for awhile due to the bias.
I remember when MGTOW was coming about, some editors on wikipedia wouldn't allow a mens right page or mgtow to be referenced or mentioned. Finally they they came up with a plan, create a MGTOW page and redirect it to MTOW (Maximum Take Off Weight) to make sure MGTOW couldn't get a page.
Also the page for "Cultural Marxism" was deleted, and then a redirect to the "Frankfort School". The irony is dripping. Now according to wikipedia is a "Conspiracy Theory"...
Check out the differences on some differences in definitions for Cultural Marxism.
Urban Dictionary
The gradual process of destroying all traditions, languages, religions, individuality, government, family, law and order in order to re-assemble society in the future as a communist utopia. This utopia will have no notion of gender, traditions, morality, god or even family or the state. The Philosophy was proven not to Work already by Vladimir Lenin as he tried in vein to control and subjugate the people. He admitted before he died that capitalism was the only true system in which people understand how to live with each other.... Lenin knew that there were a few western Idiots who kept spreading the communist ideas long after Lenin gave up.... he called these people useful idiots as they had more emotion than brains and could be used to subvert the western states for a military takeover in the future as the citizens would already be perverted and sick and weak from poisonous ideas, decadent lusts and mindless entertainment.
Metapedia
Cultural Marxism is an ideology which emphasizes culture as a main cause of inequalities. Critics have seen cultural Marxism and its influence as an important cause of political correctness and as an important cause of a perceived decline of humanities, social sciences, culture, and civilization in the Western world.
Rational Wiki
The term "cultural Marxism" is most commonly encountered as a snarl word decrying everything right-wingers don't like, alluding to a conspiracy theory involving sinister left-wingers in the cultural and artistic spheres, including the media and academia, supposedly being engaged in a decades-long plot to undermine Western culture. With bonus anti-Semitism.
Wikipedia
DELETED.
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Absolutely correct! People cannot be sources for Wikipedia. Previously published material is the only allowed source for Wikipedia. And you can't just write a web page yourself and use that for your source. Now if Philip Roth wrote an article about his life and published it in a reliable periodical, that article could be used as a source, just as if I wrote an article about Philip Rot
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That's not the point.
The problem illustrated is that recognized experts in a field are routinely shouted down by pseudonymous man-children. This is exemplified, ironically enough in a Wikipedia project-space titled "Randy in Boise" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
If Randy and a bunch of Randy's friends find a blog that says there were skeleton warriors in the Peloponnesian War, they can crowd-surf their opinion in and keep the experts' out. The Wikipedia is an exercise in gang warfare, not "crowd-source
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I see aqll the time that math articles have errors. Not "oh, this obscure theorum is wrong" but "the math they used in their example doesn't check"wrrong. You don't need a source for "your example problem doesn't do sums right". But they insist it does...
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Wikipedia
DELETED.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
HTH, HAND.
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Anyway, I now realise that you already mentioned that it was a redirect.
The redirect was created with the note:
redirect, per result of many, many, many, many discussions
And that brings to a complaint of mine of Wikipedia: If you aren't "in the know", there's no way you can find these "many" discussions. They're hidden somewhere in the Wikipedia: or Talk: namespaces, but I wouldn't even know where to start searching for them.
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...and then you just gave up. I totally see how it was that other guy's problem.
I've had similar experiences, but I don't give up. If you let asshats walk all over you without putting up a fight, expect asshats to walk all over you. Wikipedia has all sorts of policies for how to deal with this sort of conflict. And I'm sure that in most conflicts both parties think they are in the right. So whomever loses comes here and complains about how bad Wikipedia is because their "good" edit was reverted, so now they
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Fight? Over what? An edit I don't care about? If they insist that their page about Greed columns should inform people about the butt fucking preferences of certain people, I don't deem myself to be in any position to tell them they cannot do so.
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I just thought it's funny, that's all. Seriously, if I have to fight for and defend an anti-troll edit, I don't even want to be bothered to do a content edit that could actually be questioned for its relevance or sensibility.
We are literally talking about the undoing of "XXX is a fag". There is no universe in which this bit of information is relevant or pertinent in an article about a style of Greek columns. Or any article that isn't directly dealing with Mr. XXX.
Sorry if I don't feel that fighting through
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I strongly suspect that you're found one of the editors, moderators, or admins who are powerless anywhere else but Wikipedia and think that this makes them experts, authoritative, or even relevant. From my reading, you let a bunch of mentally handicapped people do whatever it was they wanted to do and this person has now called you a loser because you refused to argue with a bunch of people who are devoid of anything resembling intellect.
They cite you mentioning it, as an example, of it being important to y
Secret Code snipit (Score:4, Funny)
... IF POSTER = DONOR MORE THAN US$15E5 THEN GOTO POST EDIT ...
rest of filter code goes here