496 – That’s Me In The Corner

For the first time since William the Conqueror, there was going to be a primatial council at Westminster Abbey. This was a HUGE deal. Like… enormous. Anselm had been trying to hold a major reform council for years, but King Rufus had refused. Reform, as you may remember, wasn’t something that the red king was all that interested in. But Henry… Henry was branding himself as a reformer, which gave Anselm a golden opportunity and he wasn’t…

https://www.thebritishhistorypodcast.com/496-thats-me-in-the-corner/

RE: https://mastodon.social/@ieeespectrum/116059551433682789

This fairly dumb article in a magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers claims there's a "crisis" at Wikipedia because the editors rejected a push to have an AI summary on top of every Wikipedia article,

The article doesn't give much evidence that there's a "crisis":

• Where the article says "Research has shown that many readers today greatly value quick overviews of any article," the link leads to something completely different: an article titled "In the AI era, Wikipedia has never been more valuable", containing no such research.

• The article says "But the volunteer base is aging. A 2010 study found the average Wikipedia contributor was in their mid-twenties; today, many of those same editors are now in their forties or fifties."

So volunteers at Wikipedia are aging faster than most of us, with some of *the same people* moving from their mid-twenties to their fifties in just 16 years?!? Maybe it just feels that way. 😆

In fact, a 2024 survey of over 100,000 Wikipedia users showed that 29% were 34 or younger:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2024/April

and a 2022 study showed that about 45% of active editors were 34 or younger:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Insights/Community_Insights_2023_Report#Age

(Thanks to @gethemudo for pointing to these studies.)

Anyone can become disabled.

Anyone can lose their job.

Anyone can become homeless.

Anyone can go hungry.

These are not moral failings. They can happen in an instant.

Most people are far closer to living in poverty than they realize.

We must fight for one another & for the most vulnerable.

Listen:

We are not trapped in a historical analogy.

Quit filling out your Autocracy Bingo Card and mournfully quoting Hannah Arendt. Find some friends, stand up, get out there, speak out.

Flood our public spaces with citizens who love democracy and diversity, and thus smother out the hate & fear.

🌊 „Farben Japans“ in der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek:

🌊 Die großartige Ausstellung japanischer Farbholzschnitte ist nur noch morgen, am 6. Juli, von 10 bis 18 Uhr zu sehen (Eintritt frei).

🌊 🏄‍♀️ Wer‘s nicht schafft, kann durch die virtuelle Ausstellung surfen - mit Audioguide:

https://www.bsb-muenchen.de/va/farben-japans-holzschnitte-aus-der-sammlung-der-bayerischen-staatsbibliothek-virtuelle-ausstellung/

#München #Ausstellung #Japan