Mastodawn

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

this 404 media piece is very confusing to me https://www.404media.co/ai-translations-are-adding-hallucinations-to-wikipedia-articles/

(1) i thought paid contributions to articles were immediate banhammer material
(2) one of the most damaging possible edits is adding a relevant source that actually exists but which is difficult to verify (only in print) and does not actually say what is claimed at all. that is a very different matter from an "error" and it is one of the reasons why paywalled sources have specific annotations for the url-status parameter
(3) putting the ?ref=404media.co param in every single link feels weird. especially the one that links to the "open knowledge association"
(4) it is incredibly strange that open knowledge "association" appears (?) to have no relationship to the open knowledge "foundation", an org that annoys me but appears to be on the level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Knowledge_Foundation
(5) they rely upon exactly one wikipedia editor to source this piece. this becomes more problematic later

AI Translations Are Adding ‘Hallucinations’ to Wikipedia Articles

AI translated articles swapped sources or added unsourced sentences with no explanation, while others added paragraphs sourced from completely unrelated material.

404 Media

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

(6) there's this quote:

Lebleu told me, and other editors have noted in their public on-site discussion of the issue, that these same instructions previously told OKA translators to use Grok, Elon Musk’s LLM, for the same purpose.

why is this specific claim not linked to a discussion on wikipedia like everything else is?

immediately after that comes the strangest part of the piece

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

"The use of Grok proved controversial, notably given the reasons for which Grok has been in the news recently, and a recent in-house study showed ChatGPT and Claude perform more accurately, leading them to switch a few days ago, although they still recommend Grok as ‘valuable for experienced editors handling complex, template-heavy articles,’” Lebleu told me.

why am i reading an advertisement for an LLM disguised as criticism

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

then it comes fast and furious

Ultimately the editors decided to implement restrictions against OKA translators who make multiple errors, but not block OKA translation as a rule.

i definitely absolutely thought paid editing was instaban material. adding hard-to-verify sources that appear valid is deeply destructive. but the article has no links suddenly

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

"OKA translators who have received, within six months, four (correctly applied) warnings about content that fails verification will be blocked without further warning if another example is found,” the Wikipedia editors wrote. “Content added by an OKA translator who is subsequently blocked for failing verification may be presumptively deleted [...] unless an editor in good standing is willing to take responsibility for it.”

this is now providing quoted text and there are no citations here! that is very strange!

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

the link they provide (i removed the ?ref=404media.co query string) has been archived and is not available at that url, despite this piece being posted 8 hours ago. it is also one of those wikipedia talk page URLs that end in punctuation and are very hostile to link parsers

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive378 - Wikipedia

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

the actual text of the decision makes my python PEP spidey sense tingle:

I find clear consensus for Asilvering's proposal

emphasis not mine

A considerable portion of the opposition to this proposal was on the grounds that it was too lenient.

that is not clear consensus. that is most definitely not clear consensus

However, no other proposals are extant, and productive discussion has largely died down,

i cannot tell you how many times i have seen this language in PEPs from brett fucking cannon

d@nny disc@ mc²

the "main concerns" section makes it sound even worse

Edit quality: OKA editors are making large-scale changes that introduce errors and LLM artefacts.
Overwrites: repeated overwrites of existing articles during LLM-assisted translation which breaks templates/infoboxes, and makes it hard to review because they're not incremental changes.
Coordinated mass-editing: OKA trackers indicate various planned campaigns for mass changes (e.g. the Simplify lead campaign) affecting large numbers of pages without on-wiki discussion or consensus.
QA: from the outside, it’s not clear what OKA’s actual QA looks like (vetting, onboarding, supervision), given the above outcomes.

"coordinated mass-editing" is a fucking absurd thing to be lenient about. what confuses me is the "QA" section. i thought all of these things would be banhammer material and not indicative of leniency as one would apply to individual editors who are human beings and not being externally instructed

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

there are a multitude of comments on language translation which sound like hacker news

(For that matter, my plumber speaks seven languages. In some parts of the world, being multilingual isn't remarkable.)

then of course the guy funding all this gets several paragraphs of space for some reason. if you can avoid the immense fear response some of it is great meme material

The "fabricated source" incident:

literally calvin and hobbes spaghetti incident

Once it became clear the editor hadn't verified the sources properly, we took action.

no explanation regarding the action or accountability processes

I'll take responsibility for the mistake in that specific review, but it was an isolated error.

that is definitely not taking responsibility my man

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

there are a smattering of comments that are clearly not sockpuppets and are exactly what i suspected to find when i saw "productive discussion" at top

Cmon man, the training guide instructs translators to create multiple email accounts to get around LLM usage caps… ExtantRotations (talk) 20:12, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

...yes, and? 7804j (talk) 20:16, 19 January 2026 (UTC)

ExtantRotations is a great username and i'm very glad that despite this guy pulling out every single appeal to authority you can muster there remain wikipedians who will call bullshit

seriously read this EA motherfucker's words

Like many long-term contributors, my focus has been primarily on the content side rather than policy discussions or noticeboards,

never ever heard anyone say this who actually does the work

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

these are incredibly serious accusations that fundamentally endanger wikipedia as a source of information. one particular angle that is immediately and hotly deflected by the concern troll with the plumber who speaks seven languages is that non-english edits receive significantly less scrutiny than others and are comparatively harder for a site which is so deeply US-rooted to audit. however i have also found my edits which use the terminology "US-centric" tend to be loudly scrutinized for NPOV (deeply ironic)

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

then he repeats the part that made me squint at the article itself

We don't want OKA editors to be held to a "different" standard,

you. don't want the editors you pay money to. to be held to a different standard.

again, i thought this was instaban material. but he continues

but we recognize that as a funded organization, we have a responsibility to ensure we aren't creating extra work for the community.

not even within my top 10 list of concerns with funded organizations contributing to wikipedia. something is very wrong here

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

the account qcne is the one who gives the fuckboy several pages to argue his piece and then asks him:

Did you write this with the usage of an LLM, @/7804j? Three AI detectors suggest it's AI generated.

"AI detectors" are quite literally pseudoscience pushed by the industry. there are now several thumbs on the scale in this discussion

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

the parts of the 404 article that suddenly forget how to cite anything are a very strange summary of the discussion

Lebleu told me, and other editors have noted in their public on-site discussion of the issue, that these same instructions previously told OKA translators to use Grok, Elon Musk’s LLM, for the same purpose.

the grok discussion is......far more than that. this is the strangest response i can imagine, again from guy funding all this

I find this response and the one above extremely concerning. Are you suggesting that because Grok is a very controversial tool that sometimes produces very problematic results when prompted to do so, that even the idea that I would want to test the effectiveness of Grok as a translation tool is a proof that we have poor judgement or poor intents?

i keep wanting to laugh until i remember this is someone who has been caught completely falsifying content in very difficult to spot ways and is utterly unrepentant. that's not funny to me even if he talks like a supervillain

Keep in mind that translation is a very mechanical task. Grok isn't going to suddenly add Hitler references or generate child porn when asked to translate a sentence about the History of France... I'm really not a fan of Elon Musk, but come on, there's really no need for extra sensationalism here... 7804j (talk) 13:43, 22 January 2026 (UTC)

"yeah of course i didn't vote for trump" is what the CIA guy said at the church committee event

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

then there are responses that give me life and that's not something you see in PEP discussions:

Keep in mind that translation is a very mechanical task.

I believe that this shows a rather poor understanding of what goes into localisation and translation (and the unwarranted editorialising that LLMs perform whenever they're asked to merely translate something). --Gurkubondinn (talk) 08:17, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

hell yes motherfucker!!!! get him!!!!

complete non sequiter response:

I am not saying it is "mechanical" in absolute terms, but compared to other prompts you might give an LLM like "Tell me what you think of Nazis" 7804j (talk) 11:38, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

he has mentioned hitler and nazis so many more times than anyone else has raised it

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

account qcne seems ok. maybe misguided

there's an extended aside from someone trying to argue CSAM is not a bad thing and furthermore that it's overlegislated. not reproducing it but this person is also wildly inexcusably covering for the EA fuckboy

And that would be just fake news and should be ignored. AI translations that are vastly accurate (reported problems account for only a small minority of generated content) is not a "flood of AI content". Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:07, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

this guy should do PR for google

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 4

then again there are people acting like they are serious about protecting the promise of wikipedia

The fact that obvious indicators of synthesis (at best) or hallucination are in translations is unacceptable and has always been so on this project. Less obvious/more insidious errors require more-or-less fully bilingual editors to identify and redress. That more errors haven't been found in the array of huge edits ([43]) made as a pattern from OKA-affiliated editors is almost certainly a question of volunteer scale and capability. AINB is already dealing with a lot. I do not want this community to be in a position where ten unpaid volunteers will have to verify the output of thirty paid editors while hamstrung. Iseult Δx talk to me 08:27, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

it fucking rocks that people say this on wikipedia. that is exactly what i want to see

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 5

anyway that receives fucking ZERO response and then we get to the proposal. and what a proposal it is indeed

Alright. I don't think we're going to get anywhere particularly helpful out of the forgoing discussion.

this guy is interesting. an open anarchist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asilvering who speaks as the voice of authority and denigrates open discussion. i've seen that before. he's got this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Asilvering/Getting_into_it

Don't pick a stupid name

very anarchist

If you find a name you love, which was taken by someone years and years ago who made no or virtually no edits, you may later be able to "usurp" their name.

trying to understand the wikipedia subculture makes my brain hurt. some curious talk page sections though such as mislabeling an admin action and having a strong response to someone concerned about zionism

i like this comment the most so far

Honestly I'm just excited to be accused of hating someone other than Eastern Europeans or minority groups from the Middle East. -- asilvering (talk) 01:00, 21 January 2026 (UTC)

so anyway yeah anarchist german admin who is also a university professor and blocks a lot of people and joined four years ago. his proposal:

I would like to remind everyone that we have two core ideals to inform ourselves of what to do here, namely WP:V and "anyone can edit". That is, we care very deeply about whether things are verifiable, but we also care very deeply about how this is an encyclopedia written by amateurs working together; that is, mistakes are part of the process, and we can expect new editors in particular to make a lot of them.

absurd thing to say. this is not an amateurism discussion when people are getting paid

And it also seems to me that OKA editors are being treated as a monolith, so we end up with "OKA screwed up again" not "editor x screwed up again". Neither of these are fair.

the proposal hasn't begun yet and he's calling out for people not to generalize about the org that pays editors, with guidelines advising LLM usage. "screwed up" is a fucked up thing to say here. he finally gets to his proposal:

everything an OKA translator adds to en-wiki must be verified by the translator; that is, if they haven't checked the information against the provided source, it should not be added.

this is itself not verifiable

effective henceforth; that is, no blocks/pdels for content written before this proposal passes (if it does).

why on earth does this include a requirement to indemnify previous work

The "within six months" clause is there to prevent a scenario whereby a new OKA editor messes up three times and has the sword of Damocles hanging over their head for the rest of their wiki-career.

now i recall this guy does remind me of a certain type of "anarchist" who defends missing stairs

User:asilvering - Wikipedia

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 5

user chaotic enby the single source from the 404 article has this comment on the paid editing

Struck the part about targeted donations which has been clarified. I'm already much more reassured about the situation. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 07:48, 24 January 2026 (UTC)

thank goodness they "clarified" it

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive378 - Wikipedia

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 5

there are a significant number of "oppose" responses. so it's cool that clear consensus in bold text was there. i can highly recommend crashing out reading this discussion and feeling fearful

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 5

user chaotic enby weighs in on translation quality

Conclusion? The average OKA translation is certainly good, but errors are still present, especially when the source article has unsourced paragraphs or empty sections, with text-source integrity being one of the main worries. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 22:47, 23 January 2026 (UTC)

"text-source integrity" is the biggest fear i have over any potential contribution again because it is the most difficult thing to check and fix. someone else mentioned exactly this concern. the guy who said CSAM was overlegislated and strictly posted bad faith comments is now being treated like a respectable contributor. nothing makes any sense to me

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive378 - Wikipedia

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 5

someone mentions a potential google funding link and i am locked the fuck in now. also the first person to mention open knowledge foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive378#c-Wakelamp-20260208133400-People_that_could_be_contacted and they keep going in

Not sure whether they are aware.

the donation and the grants are looked after by separate departments, and this case also in two different organisations and involve the CEO of OKA and OKA,
the application form has no option does not mention donations with matching grants. This is called round tripping or circular funding, and can cause concerns with |donor matching schemes and reallocation of tied funds
The CH grant application form states that "Projects that replace volunteer action by directly funding someone to create content (e.g. editing articles, uploading photos)" are not eligible for funding, but OKA were funded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive378#c-Wakelamp-20260212125800-Gnomingstuff-20260210134400

i need to level my game up. of course money laundering should have been a concern here

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive378 - Wikipedia

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 5

oh nvm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Archive378#c-Wakelamp-20260220132000-~2026-10381-58-20260215192500

I am going to use a number of AIs - the irony - to create a starting point article for the community to look at and QA

should have guessed that was a distraction. also the discussion ends there and the page they created isn't linked

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive378 - Wikipedia

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 5

this is another thing i found with PEPs

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

there is no appropriate discussion page linked or indicated. textbook evasion maneuver

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 5

also the admin who said clear consensus was also the one who nominated chaotic enby. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vanamonde93 and......[drumroll please]........lists JK ROWLING on their "major revisions or expansions". i like this line from that article

She has also been described as an heir to Roald Dahl.[343]

link goes to a paywalled book named "A guide to the Harry Potter novels." pages 10-12 as cited are not visible

the archive dot org page furthermore includes "irish" "scottish" and "welsh" in the tags each of which i find to be personally offensive

User:Vanamonde93 - Wikipedia

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 5

same admin has contributed to several articles on CIA operations which i'm simply not going to spend more time thinking about because i have better things to do. i like this page though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Reich

According to The New York Times, his father's experiences in Nazi Germany made the elder Reich "immediately suspicious of [Fidel] Castro, prompting him to flee with his family to North Carolina in 1960, when Otto was 15."[1]

oh man nvm i am getting sucked in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_PBHistory

The actions of the United States resulted in international outrage. Media outlets across the world accused the US of sponsoring a coup to reverse Árbenz's agrarian reform in the interests of the United Fruit Company.[22] This criticism was influenced by the coverage put out by media outlets in communist-controlled countries, but was repeated in the media in countries that were US allies

this is most definitely the guy i want adjudicating the paid editing scheme

Otto Reich - Wikipedia

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 5

also has a backup account that removes urls about funding connections to us universities for being formatted incorrectly https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Northeastern_University&diff=prev&oldid=1152198307 which goes against every wikipedia credo i've ever seen that encourages fixing the problem and adding sources instead of being obnoxious

they also take a very different approach to consensus elsewhere https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Vanamonde93&diff=prev&oldid=1121042427

Northeastern University: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

d@nny disc@ mc² Mar 5

wasted several hours of my life worrying about wikipedia and i am going to do something different now