antonim

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/45888572

I don't know if this is an acceptable format for a submission here, but here it goes anyway:

Wikimedia Foundation has been developing an LLM that would produce simplified Wikipedia article summaries, as described here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Content_Discovery_Experiments/Simple_Article_Summaries

We would like to provide article summaries, which would simplify the content of the articles. This will make content more readable and accessible, and thus easier to discover and learn from. This part of the project focuses only on displaying the summaries. A future experiment will study ways of editing and adjusting this content.

Currently, much of the encyclopedic quality content is long-form and thus difficult to parse quickly. In addition, it is written at a reading level much higher than that of the average adult. Projects that simplify content, such as Simple English Wikipedia or Basque Txikipedia, are designed to address some of these issues. They do this by having editors manually create simpler versions of articles. However, these projects have so far had very limited success - they are only available in a few languages and have been difficult to scale. In addition, they ask editors to rewrite content that they have already written. This can feel very repetitive.

In our previous research (Content Simplification), we have identified two needs:

• The need for readers to quickly get an overview of a given article or page
• The need for this overview to be written in language the reader can understand

Etc., you should check the full text yourself. There's a brief video showing how it might look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC8JB7q7SZc

This hasn't been met with warm reactions, the comments on the respective talk page have questioned the purposefulness of the tool (shouldn't the introductory paragraphs do the same job already?), and some other complaints have been provided as well:

Taking a quote from the page for the usability study:

"Most readers in the US can comfortably read at a grade 5 level,[CN] yet most Wikipedia articles are written in language that requires a grade 9 or higher reading level."

Also stated on the same page, the study only had 8 participants, most of which did not speak English as their first language. AI skepticism was low among them, with one even mentioning they 'use AI for everything'. I sincerely doubt this is a representative sample and the fact this project is still going while being based on such shoddy data is shocking to me. Especially considering that the current Qualtrics survey seems to be more about how to best implement such a feature as opposed to the question of whether or not it should be implemented in the first place. I don't think AI-generated content has a place on Wikipedia. The Morrison Man (talk) 23:19, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The survey the user mentions is this one: https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1XiNLmcNJxPeMqq and true enough it pretty much takes for granted that the summaries will be added, there's no judgment of their actual quality, and they're only asking for people's feedback on how they should be presented. I filled it out and couldn't even find the space to say that e.g. the summary they show is written almost insultingly, like it's meant for very dumb children, and I couldn't even tekk whether it is accurate because they just scroll around in the video.

Very extensive discussion is going on at the Village Pump (en.wiki).

The comments are also overwhelmingly negative, some of them pointing out that the summary doesn't summarise the article properly ("Perhaps the AI is hallucinating, or perhaps it's drawing from other sources like any widespread llm. What it definitely doesn't seem to be doing is taking existing article text and simplifying it." - user CMD). A few comments acknowlegde potential benefits of the summaries, though with a significantly different approach to using them:

I'm glad that WMF is thinking about a solution of a key problem on Wikipedia: most of our technical articles are way too difficult. My experience with AI summaries on Wikiwand is that it is useful, but too often produces misinformation not present in the article it "summarises". Any information shown to readers should be greenlit by editors in advance, for each individual article. Maybe we can use it as inspiration for writing articles appropriate for our broad audience. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:30, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

One of the reasons many prefer chatGPT to Wikipedia is that too large a share of our technical articles are way way too difficult for the intended audience. And we need those readers, so they can become future editors. Ideally, we would fix this ourselves, but my impression is that we usually make articles more difficult, not easier, when they go through GAN and FAC. As a second-best solution, we might try this as long as we have good safeguards in place. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:32, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Finally, some comments are problematising the whole situation with WMF working behind the actual wikis' backs:

This is a prime reason I tried to formulate my statement on WP:VPWMF#Statement proposed by berchanhimez requesting that we be informed "early and often" of new developments. We shouldn't be finding out about this a week or two before a test, and we should have the opportunity to inform the WMF if we would approve such a test before they put their effort into making one happen. I think this is a clear example of needing to make a statement like that to the WMF that we do not approve of things being developed in virtual secret (having to go to Meta or MediaWikiWiki to find out about them) and we want to be informed sooner rather than later. I invite anyone who shares concerns over the timeline of this to review my (and others') statements there and contribute to them if they feel so inclined. I know the wording of mine is quite long and probably less than ideal - I have no problem if others make edits to the wording or flow of it to improve it.

Oh, and to be blunt, I do not support testing this publicly without significantly more editor input from the local wikis involved - whether that's an opt-in logged-in test for people who want it, or what. Regards, -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 22:55, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Again, I recommend reading the whole discussion yourself.

I don't know if this is an acceptable format for a submission here, but here it goes anyway:

Wikimedia Foundation has been developing an LLM that would produce simplified Wikipedia article summaries, as described here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Content_Discovery_Experiments/Simple_Article_Summaries

We would like to provide article summaries, which would simplify the content of the articles. This will make content more readable and accessible, and thus easier to discover and learn from. This part of the project focuses only on displaying the summaries. A future experiment will study ways of editing and adjusting this content.

Currently, much of the encyclopedic quality content is long-form and thus difficult to parse quickly. In addition, it is written at a reading level much higher than that of the average adult. Projects that simplify content, such as Simple English Wikipedia or Basque Txikipedia, are designed to address some of these issues. They do this by having editors manually create simpler versions of articles. However, these projects have so far had very limited success - they are only available in a few languages and have been difficult to scale. In addition, they ask editors to rewrite content that they have already written. This can feel very repetitive.

In our previous research (Content Simplification), we have identified two needs:

• The need for readers to quickly get an overview of a given article or page
• The need for this overview to be written in language the reader can understand

Etc., you should check the full text yourself. There's a brief video showing how it might look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC8JB7q7SZc

This hasn't been met with warm reactions, the comments on the respective talk page have questioned the purposefulness of the tool (shouldn't the introductory paragraphs do the same job already?), and some other complaints have been provided as well:

Taking a quote from the page for the usability study:

"Most readers in the US can comfortably read at a grade 5 level,[CN] yet most Wikipedia articles are written in language that requires a grade 9 or higher reading level."

Also stated on the same page, the study only had 8 participants, most of which did not speak English as their first language. AI skepticism was low among them, with one even mentioning they 'use AI for everything'. I sincerely doubt this is a representative sample and the fact this project is still going while being based on such shoddy data is shocking to me. Especially considering that the current Qualtrics survey seems to be more about how to best implement such a feature as opposed to the question of whether or not it should be implemented in the first place. I don't think AI-generated content has a place on Wikipedia. The Morrison Man (talk) 23:19, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

The survey the user mentions is this one: https://wikimedia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1XiNLmcNJxPeMqq and true enough it pretty much takes for granted that the summaries will be added, there's no judgment of their actual quality, and they're only asking for people's feedback on how they should be presented. I filled it out and couldn't even find the space to say that e.g. the summary they show is written almost insultingly, like it's meant for particularly dumb children, and I couldn't even tell whether it is accurate because they just scroll around in the video.

Very extensive discussion is going on at the Village Pump (en.wiki).

The comments are also overwhelmingly negative, some of them pointing out that the summary doesn't summarise the article properly ("Perhaps the AI is hallucinating, or perhaps it's drawing from other sources like any widespread llm. What it definitely doesn't seem to be doing is taking existing article text and simplifying it." - user CMD). A few comments acknowlegde potential benefits of the summaries, though with a significantly different approach to using them:

I'm glad that WMF is thinking about a solution of a key problem on Wikipedia: most of our technical articles are way too difficult. My experience with AI summaries on Wikiwand is that it is useful, but too often produces misinformation not present in the article it "summarises". Any information shown to readers should be greenlit by editors in advance, for each individual article. Maybe we can use it as inspiration for writing articles appropriate for our broad audience. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:30, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

One of the reasons many prefer chatGPT to Wikipedia is that too large a share of our technical articles are way way too difficult for the intended audience. And we need those readers, so they can become future editors. Ideally, we would fix this ourselves, but my impression is that we usually make articles more difficult, not easier, when they go through GAN and FAC. As a second-best solution, we might try this as long as we have good safeguards in place. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 18:32, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Finally, some comments are problematising the whole situation with WMF working behind the actual wikis' backs:

This is a prime reason I tried to formulate my statement on WP:VPWMF#Statement proposed by berchanhimez requesting that we be informed "early and often" of new developments. We shouldn't be finding out about this a week or two before a test, and we should have the opportunity to inform the WMF if we would approve such a test before they put their effort into making one happen. I think this is a clear example of needing to make a statement like that to the WMF that we do not approve of things being developed in virtual secret (having to go to Meta or MediaWikiWiki to find out about them) and we want to be informed sooner rather than later. I invite anyone who shares concerns over the timeline of this to review my (and others') statements there and contribute to them if they feel so inclined. I know the wording of mine is quite long and probably less than ideal - I have no problem if others make edits to the wording or flow of it to improve it.

Oh, and to be blunt, I do not support testing this publicly without significantly more editor input from the local wikis involved - whether that's an opt-in logged-in test for people who want it, or what. Regards, -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 22:55, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Again, I recommend reading the whole discussion yourself.

EDIT: WMF has announced they're putting this on hold after the negative reaction from the editors' community. ("we’ll pause the launch of the experiment so that we can focus on this discussion first and determine next steps together")

Iz članka Naš napredak u prirodnih znanostih za minulih 50 godinah Bogoslava Šuleka, iz 1885.

I'm not primarily an English Wikipedian; most of my Wikipedia time is spent contributing to Swedish Wikipedia or explaining the encyclopedia to the Swedish public. But I still hang out here. I fix mistakes I come across while reading. I illustrate articles, dabble in policy debate, take part in some talk page conversations, even write the occasional English article. Mostly I haunt Articles for Deletion, where I keep an eye out for anything related to Sweden, to help hunt down and contextualise sources to ensure we can save notable articles.

Usually, it's a simple task of expanding the article a little bit, adding a few sources to make sure key information can be verified elsewhere, and letting people know it's no longer the same text as was taken to AfD.

Sometimes it's a frustrating exercise for everyone involved.

(I should note I'm ESL and I've noticed my pronunciation is a hodgepodge of British vs. American and older vs. younger pronunciation variants.)

As I was watching Geoff Lindsey's YT videos, I noticed the way he pronounces "transláte", particularly in "Google Transláte" where I heavily prefer the accent "tránslate" - although in the verb (i.e. outside the website name) I would be fine both with tránslate or transláte (but probably with mild preference for the former).

So I looked it up and it turns out this is a widespread case of variant British vs. American stress pattern, also affecting other "-ate" verbs: donate, locate, migrate... The polarisation doesn't appear to be absolute, e.g. to take representatives of US and UK pronunciation: Webster 1913 (=1890) has dónate, lócate, mígrate, but still transláte, Jones (Pronouncing Dict.) 1944 has final stress in all four, but the Concise Oxford Dict. of Current Eng. (1964) mentions the variant mígrate. Today the influence of US on UK is probably even stronger. But already in 1909 Jespersen mentions the variant pronunciation of dictate, narrate, and vacate (Mod. Eng. Gramm. vol. 1, §5.57), so surely it hasn't appeared in UK only due to US influence?

Is there some dialectological or formal explanation of this change, or a study of where and how it spread?

The Wikimedia Foundation has suspended access to this page due to an order by the Delhi High Court, without prejudice to the Foundation's rights. We are pursuing all available legal options.

We remain committed to access to knowledge as a human right. We are working to ensure that everyone can access and share free knowledge on Wikipedia.

In accordance with applicable legal processes, the Wikimedia Foundation filed an appeal before the Supreme Court of India, challenging the takedown order. The appeal was admitted and the Supreme Court issued notice to the concerned parties on March 17, 2025.

This regards active litigation, and this page will be updated when we are able to share more information.

As first reported by The Free Press, interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin (who has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve permanently in that role of DC's top prosecutor) has accused "Wikipedia (of) allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public." Martin claims that "information received by my Office demonstrates that Wikipedia’s informational management policies benefit foreign powers." These and other serious accusations are contained in a four-page letter sent to "Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. AKA Wikipedia" in Washington, DC on April 24. Martin alleges that the WMF's activities violate IRS rules for 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations, so its tax-exempt status should be removed, and has given the Foundation until May 15 to respond.

Major concerns cited in the article include:

• foreign (non-US) actors spreading propaganda;
• the dominance of non-US citizens on the Board of Trustees;
• accusations from Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger on the non-neutrality of the encyclopedia's content.

Martin's letter to the WMF asks twelve detailed questions, including:

"4. What steps has the Foundation taken to exclude foreign influence operations from making targeted edits to categories of content in order to reshape or rewrite history? Who enforces these measures, and how? What foreign influence operations have been detected, and what did the Foundation do to reverse their influence and prevent it from continuing?"

The Free Press notes that "the letter is unusual, since investigations into charities and their tax-exempt status are typically handled by the IRS." Moreover, Nonprofit Quarterly reported at length on the difficult and lengthy process required by US law to remove a nonprofit's tax-exempt status.

Note that federal law (26 US Code Section 7217) prohibits senior officials of the executive branch, including the president, from requesting that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) conduct or cease an audit or other investigation of any taxpayer (including tax-exempt entities); there is an exception for written requests by the treasury secretary to the IRS as a consequence of the implementation of a change in tax policy. [...] Congress would seemingly have such authority, but, to date, such legislative action has not been publicly contemplated.

The Washington Post covered the Free Press article, writing that Martin's letter "is part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration and its allies, including Martin, against institutions, media outlets and online platforms they have accused of pushing liberal agendas or political views." The newspaper also reached out to Molly White, who viewed the letter as part of the administration's attempts at "weaponizing laws to try to silence high-quality independent information", as well as Wikipedia beat reporter Stephen Harrison, who said that Martin "seems to want an America First version of Wikipedia", rather than a global information source.

An earlier WaPo article reported that Martin had appeared over 150 times as a guest commentator on Russian state-controlled broadcasters RT and Sputnik from August 2016 to April 2024. Among his statements, he had told "an interviewer on the same arm of RT's global network that 'there [was] no evidence' of a Russian military buildup on Ukraine's borders, criticizing U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia's security concerns," nine days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Martin did not declare any of these appearances on a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire for his upcoming confirmation vote or possible conformation hearing. Several of Martin's appearances on Russian propaganda outlets are shown in another WaPo video.

The Verge also reported on the original Free Press story, while adding that "Martin is known for thinly justified legal threats against media organizations," having recently sent similar letters to various medical journals, including "the New England Journal of Medicine, the CHEST Journal, and Obstetrics and Gynecology, accusing them of being 'partisan in various scientific debates.'"

In addition to her previous comment for WaPo, Molly White told The Signpost that "the biggest harm here is not to Wikimedia, but to the rule of law and to free expression. Letters like this, threatening organizations over clearly First Amendment-protected activities, are a shocking illustration of the authoritarianism that has rapidly blossomed under Trump. I'm proud that Wikipedia continues to prioritize accurate and scientific information as determined by its global volunteer editing community and its policies, not the political propaganda of a single administration looking to impose its views." White published an op-ed on similar topics on the January 15 issue of the Signpost.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales himself took part in a discussion on the matter at Village pump, while a WMF spokesperson released this statement to the media:

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia, the backbone of knowledge on the internet, and other free knowledge projects. Wikipedia is one of the last places online that shows the promise of the internet, housing more than 65 million articles written to inform, not persuade. Wikipedia's content is governed by three core content policies: neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research, which exist to ensure information is presented as accurately, fairly, and neutrally as possible. The entire process of content moderation is overseen by nearly 260,000 volunteers and is open and transparent for all to see, which is why we welcome opportunities to explain how Wikipedia works and will do so in the appropriate forum. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.