1. I just assumed that would be easy, that you would have one instance with no actual content. It just fetches the wikipedia article with the same name, directly from the wikipedia website. I guess I didn’t really think about it.

2. I guess that’s a design choice. Looking at different ways similar issues have been solved already…

How does wikipedia decide that the same article is available in different languages? I guess there is a database of links which has to be maintained.

Alternatively, it could assume that articles are the same if they have the same name, like in your example where “Mountain” can have an article on a poetry instance and on a geography instance, but the software treats them as the same article.

Wikipedia can understand that “Rep of Ireland” = “Republic of Ireland”. So I guess there is a look-up-table saying that these two names refer to the same thing.

Then, wikipedia can also understand cases where articles can have the same name but be unrelated. Like RIC (paramilitary group) is not the same as RIC (feature of a democracy).

I do think, if each Ibis instance is isolated, it won’t be much different from having many separate wiki websites. When the software automatically links you to the same information on different instances, that’s when the idea becomes really interesting and valuable.

This is a great project. I had the same idea myself, and posted about it, but never did anything about it! It’s great that people like you are here, with the creativity, and the motivation and skills to do this work.

I think this project is as necessary as Wikipedia itself.

The criticisms in these comments are mostly identical to the opinion most people had about Wikipedia when it started - the it would become a cesspool of nonsense and misinformation. That it was useless and worthless when encyclopaedias already exist.

Wikipedia was the first step in broadening what a source if authoritative information can be. It in fact created richer and more truthful information than was possible before, and enlightened the world. Ibis is a necessary second step on the same path.

It will be most valuable for articles like Tieneman square, or the Gilets Jaunes, where there are sharply different perspectives on the same matter, and there will never be agreement. A single monolithic Wikipedia cannot speak about them. Today, wiki gives one perspective and calls it the truth. This was fine in the 20th century when most people believed in simple truths. They were told what to think by single sources. They never left their filter bubbles. This is not sustainable anymore.

To succeed and change the world, this project must do a few things right.

1. The default instance should just be a mirror of Wikipedia. This is the default source of information on everything, so it would be crazy to omit it. Omitting it means putting yourself in competition with it, and you will lose. By encompassing it, the information in Ibis is from day 1 greater then wiki. Then Ibis will just supersede wiki.

2. There should be a sidebar with links to the sane article on other instances. So someone reading about trickle down economics on right wing instance, he can instantly switch to the same article on a left wing wiki and read the other side of it. That’s the feature that will make it worthwhile for people.

3. It should look like Wikipedia. For familiarity. This will help people transition.

polar bears. it’s the only animal that likes to eat people. daily life is just too safe and dull.

die hard

Most people haven’t. We all have a filter bubble.

Here is a first draft, my attempt to provide the missing context. Please leave comments on anything bad or missing you notice. https://lemmy.ml/post/4848742

Background? Link?

That all sounds like brigading emotional nonsense. In fact, there were strong reasons for Russia to invade. It is probably true that Russia was manipulated into invading, it had no choice because of strategic decisions made by Ukraine. It’s a shame none of the people you talked to were able to argue the issues sensibly.

Any update on this?

I couldn’t find any comment from the devs. Was there one?

There is an extra problem, not mentioned here. When there are subs with the same name, it is actually impossible to know of choose which sub I am posting to. Like here.

This seems like the right approach. You can get different answers depending on which measure you use

You could compare

1.Willful killings in total

2. willful killings per year

3. willful killings during the 1920s-40s

4. willful killings during Churchill’s regime versus Hitler’s regime.

I guess the UK will have higher numbers by every measure except 1. The figures should be easy to find.

The lemmy devs and users are rigidly against hate speech / free speech. they are afraid it will push away many users who are more sensitive, and ruin the quality of discussion. they don’t tolerate free speech instances.

but who knows, they might be right.

It is all teddits.

The “slur filter” was causing so much arguing that the devs stopped hard coding it. Now the whoever is running the instance can choose any or no filter.

Since I posted this, Microsoft claims to have built an AI which does have “world knowledge”. It was able to explain how to pile up some objects so they don’t fall. We’ll see though if its claims are true.

In general we are open for constructive feedback

My one big fear right now is that a mod could delete my words, and they would be lost forever.

Sometimes I write long essays here. They are ideas that I think are important and original. I write them so people will be able to read them many years into the future.

It’s important that anything deleted by a mod or an admin can be saved by the creator afterwards.

I’d argue it’s necessary that nothing can ever be fully deleted, if you want people to ever write anything important here.

That’s why historically most of the most important world-change essays were written to newspapers. Once a newspaper is published, it is available forever. It can never be expunged.

Very interesting. It shows that Lemmy was always a political project. It was always meant to advocate certain politics and discourage others.

IMO this is not what new users expect. So we keep seeing these posts of people realising, and being shocked, and sometimes rage-quitting.

Only a certain portion of people will stay with Lemmy after that realisation, and the others will flee. Is that what you want? (again just IMO)

If not, is there a way to make this political vision more evident, to try to stop this effect?

TBH I’m against the politics of Lemmy. But (IMO again) despite that it’s still a valuable project, and maybe a historically important one.

Is it really safe to give your real full name and address to a random website, also your ID card number and DOB? It really looks legit, but it could easily be a scam. Is there some way to check?

If the EU really requires all this personal data, it’s an effective guarantee that no petition will ever succeed. You’ll never find 1M EU citizens you are foolish enough to reveal all that to a random bot.

They might just be full of alt-right because they are small and few. If there were more free-speech spaces they would fill with normal people, so you wouldn’t notice the alt-right, like you don’t in bigger platforrms today.

More free-speech plaforms could be a good thing. Like wikipedia and openstreetmaps - as long as the normal people drown out the crazies, it works brilliantly, much better than a more tightly controlled space.

Ideological freedom encourages nasty people. And restrictions encourage thoughtless people.

You can go on notabug and ignore the crazy psychos and chat with the creative people.

You can go on reddit and find endless people with no independent thought, repeating things and not listening to reach other.

Lemmy is in the middle. But IMO that’s not an objective good thing, it’s a preference.

You have obnoxious people on all sides of the debate, including people who avoid listening to foreign ideas by labeling the other sides.

To be honest, nobody knows how the culture would be different under a different sweet of rules, especially the people who act most confident about it.

Yes please I’ve been looking out for a way to make a removable rear camera cover. Something mite durable than just tape