This is a good article; it would be easy to just roll eyes at Cruz, but this goes further in explaining how Wikipedia actually works.

Last week, I read a post from Andrew Heiss on Bluesky that inspired me to take a look at whether/where I was cited on any Wikipedia articles. I knew my research had been referenced on one particular page, but I’d never done a thorough search for this and decided to give it a whirl. While I can’t claim anything as cool as the page on Hosni Mubarak (where Andrew’s research is cited), my research is referenced on three different Wikipedia articles, which feels pretty cool, actually.

I think this is a good example of why digital labor is a particularly salient critique of generative AI. Yes, Wikimedia content is licensed, but not as strictly as copyrighted works. Yet, ripping off of their work is arguably worse than grabbing some copyrighted works.

This is an excellent and detailed overview and I’m better for having read it.

Some time after I moved out of the house for college (etc.), my younger siblings pooled some money to buy a used PlayStation 2 and a few games, including Guitar Hero 2. When I was home for summers and breaks, I got some exposure to new-to-me music through playing that game with them. As a huge fan of Homestar Runner, I naturally appreciated the appreciation of Trogdor, but one of the songs that stuck out most to me was Freezepop’s less talk more rokk:

I get why folks in ed compare ChatGPT to Wikipedia, but there are important differences. Wikipedia is entirely non-profit, lays bare its knowledge generation process, can be fixed on the fly, and can’t actively generate problematic content. It’s not just about reliability.

This is a cute story—hat tip to Boing Boing for recommending it.

Great read on what’s become perhaps the most defensible platform on the social web (though Wikipedia certainly still has its problems).