1. I just assumed that would be easy, that you would have one instance with no actual content. It just fetches the wikipedia article with the same name, directly from the wikipedia website. I guess I didn’t really think about it.

2. I guess that’s a design choice. Looking at different ways similar issues have been solved already…

How does wikipedia decide that the same article is available in different languages? I guess there is a database of links which has to be maintained.

Alternatively, it could assume that articles are the same if they have the same name, like in your example where “Mountain” can have an article on a poetry instance and on a geography instance, but the software treats them as the same article.

Wikipedia can understand that “Rep of Ireland” = “Republic of Ireland”. So I guess there is a look-up-table saying that these two names refer to the same thing.

Then, wikipedia can also understand cases where articles can have the same name but be unrelated. Like RIC (paramilitary group) is not the same as RIC (feature of a democracy).

I do think, if each Ibis instance is isolated, it won’t be much different from having many separate wiki websites. When the software automatically links you to the same information on different instances, that’s when the idea becomes really interesting and valuable.

This is a great project. I had the same idea myself, and posted about it, but never did anything about it! It’s great that people like you are here, with the creativity, and the motivation and skills to do this work.

I think this project is as necessary as Wikipedia itself.

The criticisms in these comments are mostly identical to the opinion most people had about Wikipedia when it started - the it would become a cesspool of nonsense and misinformation. That it was useless and worthless when encyclopaedias already exist.

Wikipedia was the first step in broadening what a source if authoritative information can be. It in fact created richer and more truthful information than was possible before, and enlightened the world. Ibis is a necessary second step on the same path.

It will be most valuable for articles like Tieneman square, or the Gilets Jaunes, where there are sharply different perspectives on the same matter, and there will never be agreement. A single monolithic Wikipedia cannot speak about them. Today, wiki gives one perspective and calls it the truth. This was fine in the 20th century when most people believed in simple truths. They were told what to think by single sources. They never left their filter bubbles. This is not sustainable anymore.

To succeed and change the world, this project must do a few things right.

1. The default instance should just be a mirror of Wikipedia. This is the default source of information on everything, so it would be crazy to omit it. Omitting it means putting yourself in competition with it, and you will lose. By encompassing it, the information in Ibis is from day 1 greater then wiki. Then Ibis will just supersede wiki.

2. There should be a sidebar with links to the sane article on other instances. So someone reading about trickle down economics on right wing instance, he can instantly switch to the same article on a left wing wiki and read the other side of it. That’s the feature that will make it worthwhile for people.

3. It should look like Wikipedia. For familiarity. This will help people transition.

The lemmy devs and users are rigidly against hate speech / free speech. they are afraid it will push away many users who are more sensitive, and ruin the quality of discussion. they don’t tolerate free speech instances.

but who knows, they might be right.

Thanks. I have made many feature requests and you always consider them seriously (but usually reject them).

I should do one of those things.

Although there are many flaws, and we do complain, Lemmy is still the best (or least dysfunctional) forum in existence. So yous must be doing something right.

In general we are open for constructive feedback

My one big fear right now is that a mod could delete my words, and they would be lost forever.

Sometimes I write long essays here. They are ideas that I think are important and original. I write them so people will be able to read them many years into the future.

It’s important that anything deleted by a mod or an admin can be saved by the creator afterwards.

I’d argue it’s necessary that nothing can ever be fully deleted, if you want people to ever write anything important here.

That’s why historically most of the most important world-change essays were written to newspapers. Once a newspaper is published, it is available forever. It can never be expunged.

good bot

Will there be a “debate vegans” type sub? I still have so many questions, but don’t know where to ask.

These bad laws happen with elected representatives too, but worse. At least with direct democracy, laws will not be made which are against the majority’s best interest, and laws have a legitimate mandate.

For example it’s hard to imagine a direct democracy starting a war of convenience, like representative democracies frequently do and are doing right now. All the most egregious crimes of government would stop.

But the quality of all the little laws is debatable. I would argue it’s higher under DD but I can see why some people disagree.

But it’s hard to discuss very specific examples, because they are always cherry-picked.

Finally, there are several forms of DD and the Californian style is probably the least beneficial.

Most of the worlds’s society is collapsing. Much of the world is becoming uninhabitable. But only a small corner of the earth needs to remain prosperous, for the rich to keep living rich lives.

Since we’re talking politics now, the solution is direct democracy, where the electorate can compel the government to make a certain law, or take certain measures. Major changes become possible which are impossible now.

Nothing which harms the powerful vested interests will ever happen without direct democracy. Today, governments can simply decline to do things which don’t suit them, even if the electorate demands them.

Anyone who believes in any issue at all, your first priority is direct democracy. It is your new goal. Without it your protests are ignored. With it, you can directly change the world without even having to protest.

efficiency calculations are done with assumptions based on current load, usage patterns, and supergrid as prerequisites.

Could be. At least for rural areas, small scale could be more efficent.

aluminum not steel

IIRC aluminium is never used for rotating parts because of the way it fatigues. After a certain number of strain cycles it will snap.

not to keep generating more and more energy

Yes but now this is a political issue. How are you going to stand between big business’s and its thirst for AI? The usage is growing exponentially and IMO will soon be dominant and the rest of the economy becomes more efficient.

Thanks. The reason for big turbines is because they are more efficient. You use less materials for more power. So you’ll never convince an engineer of all this.

I wonder if there is a maximum size of turbine that can be built with steel, given how heavy it is. Wind might become a lot more expensive.

Which would not be a bad thing because the world needs to start converting to sea-swell power asap.

Wind power can be done in an environmentally friendly way wrt the equipment

How so?

Yes good points.

Btw what’s a better term than “tankie”? I only learnt about this ideology recently, am ignorant of the details of it.

It’s okay IMO to have instances which are now closed, more restricted speech/ideas. There are good reasons why some people like them, and why they need to exist. But there must be other places where fee speech/free debate is possible. For example in France it recently became illegal to criticise a policeman by name, no matter what he has done. Very dangerous.

Trying to avoid someone denouncing you - it means suppressing his free speech.

If you don’t want someone denouncing you, then you are not tolerant of all free speech.

alive

Okay i didn’t get that at all.

Bit this new idea sounds like a paradox - someone pro free speech would mind object to that denouncement at all.

How so?

You have to assume that the devs’ rules do restrict the types if discourse which happen. But other than that, it all follows.

I don’t understand a lot of your message.

But if i get the gist, that might not be so positive. People who feel hated, isolated, afraid to express themselves in public, they are the people we should welcome.

It sounds like they are teenagers who are just figuring out their views. They all have strange and offensive ideas at times, but with help most people figure out a sensible worldview in the end.

That’s the defence of the “slur filter” that everyone can agree on. It’s harmless because it does almost nothing. It has no real benefit or cost.

The people who say it deters fascists - it just doesn’t hold water.#

Ideological freedom encourages nasty people. And restrictions encourage thoughtless people.

You can go on notabug and ignore the crazy psychos and chat with the creative people.

You can go on reddit and find endless people with no independent thought, repeating things and not listening to reach other.

Lemmy is in the middle. But IMO that’s not an objective good thing, it’s a preference.

It’s certainly good have diversity of opinion, to keep it interesting for everyone. But how far would you extend that?

If there were more (or more active) fascists here, would that make it richer? Probably not - there ideas are empty and obtuse and self serving and racist. But i would have said the same about tankies before i joined Lemmy and listened to them.

The one thing you do not want is a circlejerk, where everyone agrees and is happy, but there is no important argument between people who strongly disagree.