Mad props to the people at the Archive. You are the heros we need in a formerly open internet that is surrendering to evil big corps and closing down free access.
The Internet Archive is in a really bad spot being attacked from multiple sides at once. But — while service has not been consistent — they have maintained open access. I can still access anonymously from Tor without Cloudflare or some other centralized gatekeeper showing me the middle finger.
If you got some money to spare, consider donating to them. They need it.
I'm expecting a full court legal attack on Wikipedia at some point. It's just too good for information, and companies would rather you use their chatbot to regurgitate that info now that they have their own copies. Google was already built to pretend as if they had some magic system giving you "Answers" that were 95% just the text of the infobox they used to have for wikipedia on the side.
It's going to suddenly be extremely valuable that wikipedia didn't settle for having a small rainy day fund and instead ceaselessly grabbed every fucking donation they could for two decades so they can fight such a legal battle.
Why would any chatbot provider attack Wikipedia *legally*? Captcha is fully solved, and agents are fully capable of acting as editors, pushing any agenda desired by the user.
Strangers can't really edit Wikipedia any more, especially if their edit is suspicious. It's a closed system despite the appearance. An anti-vandal bot or human will quickly revert your edit.
This is not really true in my experience aside from protected articles; however it is true that sometimes another human will make an edit which degrade the article quality or insist on keeping something that shouldn't be kept. Also, Articles on contentious subjects tend to be problematic.
basilikum · · focus · HN ↗
The Internet Archive is in a really bad spot being attacked from multiple sides at once. But — while service has not been consistent — they have maintained open access. I can still access anonymously from Tor without Cloudflare or some other centralized gatekeeper showing me the middle finger.
If you got some money to spare, consider donating to them. They need it.
superxpro12 · · focus · HN ↗
The future is bleak :\
mrguyorama · · focus · HN ↗
It's going to suddenly be extremely valuable that wikipedia didn't settle for having a small rainy day fund and instead ceaselessly grabbed every fucking donation they could for two decades so they can fight such a legal battle.
khafra · · focus · HN ↗
mitxela · · focus · HN ↗
HappyPanacea · · focus · HN ↗