I think I have an idea

[Ognistysztorm]

The US Government is currently suing google for anticompetitive practices which is exactly the same pattern of behavior that enabled their love darling Wikipedia to rise up to become a monolith in the first place.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/why-is-us ... 023-09-11/

So I think I have an idea; what if we manage to shoehorn our cause into it by contacting the government attorneys responsible for prosecuting the case. How to contact them? Hopefully there's a possibility that a government W in the case will cause Google to stop prioritize Wikipedia in searches, or at least expose the problem(s).

[adamovicm]

You'd better make a list of cases / Wikipedia articles that brought harm to the government. That could help that cause.

[badmachine]

the government loves google and wikipedia because they boost government propaganda while suppressing stuff inconvenient to the government. dont look for solutions from the courts. many have tried and all (or almost all) have failed.

[journo]

The only things I value Wikipedia for is (usually original research) infobox items which act kind of like a massive whitepaper for companies, websites, and individuals. Like if I need the current URL or current CEO for something. I also find their massive collection of CC licensed images absurdly useful. The actual article content is pretty bad, and most people would be better without it, so it really wouldn't be hard to beat Wikipedia with Google out of the way.

As far as Google, their Google Books and YouTube services are absurdly useful and limiting them from my life would hurt my work and research. I wish I could cut Google out of my life but I'd be poorer and more stupid if I did.

I think Google should have the right to index things however they like though. If the issue is Google then someone needs to create better alternatives to Google services. That or just wait for Google to die as it's replaced by worse services like Chinese spyware.

[Ognistysztorm]

You'd better make a list of cases / Wikipedia articles that brought harm to the government. That could help that cause.

In a way I would argue that some of the cases that might have brought harm to Uncle Sam's causes include the Holocaust in Poland distortion scandal, the CCP defilement kerfuffle that resulted in Anonymous hack operations, and perhaps the two dozen sexual harassment scandals which will make Wikipedia a toxic pill altogether.

[ChaosMeRee]

It's trivially easy to show that there is absolutely no legitimate reason why the top Google result for X should be the Wikipedia article on X.

You don't even have to show them the Wikipedia article on X is in all likelihood a pile of shite (since it is likely to contain information that is either poorly sourced or has no evident source at all).

All you need to show is that for any given search query that could conceivably have a Wikipedia page, there will be a more trustworthy Google result that deserves to be higher in the ranking than Wikipedia. Even if that is simply a research library catalogue entry.

By definition, there will always be a more trustworthy source for any nominal Wikipedia query than the Wikipedia page itself, because you're theoretically not allowed to even create a Wikipedia page if such a source does not exist.

Wikipedia could of course try to argue they offer another service. They offer a structured gateway to multiple sources, some of which may never be very highly ranked on Google. And that therefore this is why Google should be allowed to make the business decision to prioritize them in the rankings.

It is easy to demolish that argument by proving that it is says quite clearly in Wikipedia's own Terms of Use that they do not make any claim of accuracy, neutrality or comprehensivity regarding their content.

This is different from Brittannica etc, where no legal guarantee of accuracy is given, but that all responsible steps are taken to ensure errors are vanishingly rare, genuine honest mistakes. Wikipedia's disclaimer is the exact opposite - you dear reader are told to assume every word on Wikipedia is a total lie, until you have satisfied yourself it is not.

That means Wikipedia cannot even guarantee the list of references, any bibliographies or just the compendium of external links provided on any specific page, is accurate, neutral or complete.

On Wikipedia, imams a lawyer will have a field day with this once they get it, it is 100% the reader's legal responsibility to ensure even those lists of resources aren't total garbage. So you have to ask, if you're doing it right, why would a researcher even start with Wikipedia?

Meaning of course that this oft floated idea that Wikipedia might be crap overall, but it is at least good as a starting point for research, has always been a huge lie.

It would be easy to demonstrate there are entities out there providing even that service to a high quality, usually because they use the mechanisms Wikipedia chooses to ignore. They bring expertise, professionalism, reputation, to the product.

These are the entities that will have been harmed by Google's anti-competitive decision to always rank Wikipedia ahead of their results, regardless of the state of the content (or I imagine, because of any peer reviewed studies that gives any credence to the idea Wikipedia is a better product than these alternatives).

If it is shown therefore that Google has illegally abused its monopoly to force consumers to use only its product, then by extension, they have illegally created a monopoly on the general research market for Wikipedia.

And rather obviously, in the even narrower competitive market of crowd sourced free but but probably totally garbage "encyclopedia", they illegally created a scenario where it could never be the best crap encyclopedia that came to dominate the market, it would simply be the one that started first. This is why Wikipedia has always prioritized getting bigger, as in more articles and more editors, over any other metric. They have always known the advantages of their Google ranking.

To this day, Wikipedia gives almost zero priority to efforts that would ensure the accuracy, neutrality or comprehensivity of its product, either individually or as a compendium. It is assumed, contrary to twenty years of experience to the contrary, that this would be a natural occurrence once it got big enough. It is also recognized recognized things have zero bearing on their Google ranking.

Well, it's mighty big now. And still pretty shite.

And of course, they realized long ago that the general public are idiots. At least in their primary market, the United States of Dipshits. If it's cheap and quick, it will take off in America, the fact it is harmful to you is neither here nor there. McPedia.

[Ognistysztorm]

It's trivially easy to show that there is absolutely no legitimate reason why the top Google result for X should be the Wikipedia article on X.

You don't even have to show them the Wikipedia article on X is in all likelihood a pile of shite (since it is likely to contain information that is either poorly sourced or has no evident source at all).

All you need to show is that for any given search query that could conceivably have a Wikipedia page, there will be a more trustworthy Google result that deserves to be higher in the ranking than Wikipedia. Even if that is simply a research library catalogue entry.

By definition, there will always be a more trustworthy source for any nominal Wikipedia query than the Wikipedia page itself, because you're theoretically not allowed to even create a Wikipedia page if such a source does not exist.

Wikipedia could of course try to argue they offer another service. They offer a structured gateway to multiple sources, some of which may never be very highly ranked on Google. And that therefore this is why Google should be allowed to make the business decision to prioritize them in the rankings.

It is easy to demolish that argument by proving that it is says quite clearly in Wikipedia's own Terms of Use that they do not make any claim of accuracy, neutrality or comprehensivity regarding their content.

This is different from Brittannica etc, where no legal guarantee of accuracy is given, but that all responsible steps are taken to ensure errors are vanishingly rare, genuine honest mistakes. Wikipedia's disclaimer is the exact opposite - you dear reader are told to assume every word on Wikipedia is a total lie, until you have satisfied yourself it is not.

That means Wikipedia cannot even guarantee the list of references, any bibliographies or just the compendium of external links provided on any specific page, is accurate, neutral or complete.

On Wikipedia, imams a lawyer will have a field day with this once they get it, it is 100% the reader's legal responsibility to ensure even those lists of resources aren't total garbage. So you have to ask, if you're doing it right, why would a researcher even start with Wikipedia?

Meaning of course that this oft floated idea that Wikipedia might be crap overall, but it is at least good as a starting point for research, has always been a huge lie.

It would be easy to demonstrate there are entities out there providing even that service to a high quality, usually because they use the mechanisms Wikipedia chooses to ignore. They bring expertise, professionalism, reputation, to the product.

These are the entities that will have been harmed by Google's anti-competitive decision to always rank Wikipedia ahead of their results, regardless of the state of the content (or I imagine, because of any peer reviewed studies that gives any credence to the idea Wikipedia is a better product than these alternatives).

If it is shown therefore that Google has illegally abused its monopoly to force consumers to use only its product, then by extension, they have illegally created a monopoly on the general research market for Wikipedia.

And rather obviously, in the even narrower competitive market of crowd sourced free but but probably totally garbage "encyclopedia", they illegally created a scenario where it could never be the best crap encyclopedia that came to dominate the market, it would simply be the one that started first. This is why Wikipedia has always prioritized getting bigger, as in more articles and more editors, over any other metric. They have always known the advantages of their Google ranking.

To this day, Wikipedia gives almost zero priority to efforts that would ensure the accuracy, neutrality or comprehensivity of its product, either individually or as a compendium. It is assumed, contrary to twenty years of experience to the contrary, that this would be a natural occurrence once it got big enough. It is also recognized recognized things have zero bearing on their Google ranking.

Well, it's mighty big now. And still pretty shite.

And of course, they realized long ago that the general public are idiots. At least in their primary market, the United States of Dipshits. If it's cheap and quick, it will take off in America, the fact it is harmful to you is neither here nor there. McPedia.

That's thoughtful but the main answers to the question are still absent. Who are the lawyers/prosecutors responsible for the case against Google and how do I reach them out to tip them off about Google's preference of Wikipedia in search results?