Getting Rid Of Wikipedia Is Not Censorship
Or why it’s important to only use words like censorship when the topic at hand actually matters. Wikipedia in particular has had a long period to get its website in working order, and actually pointing you in a direction where you can find out about things. But more often than not, wikipedia’s description are full on misleading at times, at best. The example of calling it Hanging, Drawing, and Quartering when you’re only dissected after death is one example.
But also Wikipedia doesn’t even list all the information that is available on guillotined or ( near guillotined ) persons in French history. So often you end up having to go down a rabbit hole that could easily have been presented if the website were getting their information right the first time, and not having to rely on constant revisions.
I get there is a danger of mistranslations, but a mistranslation is still better than not having the information, because you can still ask someone for information about something to be clarified. I had to specifically find out information about AIML ( not even European History ) just to find out how to actually code in this language. The world would not be losing much if Wikipedia suddenly went away over not.
And yet you still have people that call wikipedia censorship, despite the fact that you would actually find out more just looking at the top search results on Startpage and Duck Duck Go, than you would on Wikipedia itself. It doesn’t even serve the purpose that it claims to. If you were burning down the Library Of Alexandria, than yes that would be censorship.
But censorship is not getting rid of a resource that doesn’t not serve its purpose or function: to provide historical information that is verifiable by scholars on the topic in question. You have free software being built, for the express purpose of keeping a website online, that only serves to confuse people about the topic, rather than reveal things I might like to know:
– What kind of wooden shoes did 19th century France wear.
– What are some note able beheadings ( public or private ) in this period.
– Other bits of information.
( It’s also why calling the internet an AGI bugs the shit out of me, but that’s an entirely separate topic. )