Thomas Mallon with an unexpected benefit of keeping a diary.

“The strategy is clear: erode trust in Wikipedia and other independent knowledge institutions. Because once those collapse, the party in power can declare the Truth, no citation needed.” My latest for Slate:

Excellent @stephenharrison.com piece about Wikipedia, breaking news, and the right wing outrage machine that's kicked into high gear around articles about Charlie Kirk and the killing of Iryna Zarutska. slate.com/technology/2...

Thank you, Chris, for sharing my piece. P.S. You've built such a cool community of readers, interested in both data-driven analyses and music history. Well done. www.cantgetmuchhigher.com/p/the-surpri...

Because cynicism is the easier path, people assume Wikipedia editors title articles based on feelings. But titles follow policy. Different rules apply depending on facts, like whether there’s been a conviction. H/t to @molly.wiki for laying out the reasoning and pushing back on the bad-faith takes

Music writer Chris Dalla Riva has a theory that late ’80s pop songs left a weaker cultural footprint than early ’80s hits. His proof? The size & page views of their Wikipedia articles. I wrote about his investigation, KPop Demon Hunters, and the Wiki editors who write pages for #1 hit songs.

Knowledge acquisition used to be an automatic consequence of doing or researching anything, argues @jackraines.bsky.social, but thanks to AI, the end result is now decoupled from learning about what you've built. What should you do? Write it down. Document the whole process for future record.

This article from @biblioracle.bsky.social explains why AI summaries can't match the power of reading the original. Each of us is a "unique intelligence," and when that collides with the unique intelligence expressed in an author's full work, the collision of unique intelligences throws off sparks.

Last week, the leaders of Meta, Alphabet, OpenAI, and Apple took turns praising Trump at a White House dinner. Not in the room: the leaders of Wikipedia, the volunteer editors who curate and maintain the internet's knowledge.

"Wikipedia has become the next target, and a more stubborn one... its contributors are difficult for any particular state to persecute... there's no government funding to cut off or advertisers to boycott. And it's so popular and useful that even highly repressive governments hesitate to block it."

quick notes from @biblioracle.bsky.social’s book: -automation ≠ artificial intelligence -writing is thinking -writing is feeling -framework for thinking about AI: resist, renew, explore -remember that we are embodied creatures, not machines

Appreciate Vera's honesty here - Of the 86K media files she has added to Wikimedia projects, most came from bulk uploads of sets that are in the public domain/freely available. But 7,500+ of the files are Vera's own work. She goes out with her press pass, documenting the world for Wikipedia.

The GOP is officially probing the Wikimedia Foundation. Yes, "nation-state actors" have targeted Wikipedia before (there are wiki pages about the attempts). But for Comer/Mace, this claim of foreign influence is just a pretext to clamp down on the open internet. To purge it of "un-American" ideas.

[thread] The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent a request for assistance to the @wikimediafoundation.org today (request, importantly, and not a subpoena). oversight.house.gov/wp-content/u... [1/?]

I miss the old em dash discourse. 2011: They disrupt the flow and should be used sparingly—like javelins hurled across the page. Modern prose has too many interruptions. 2025: They prove you cheated with AI. Leave in typos so we know you're human. Good writing is inherently suspicious.

“Every writing event I have ever been to in my entire life, both talent-tested application retreats and pay-to-play retreats and conferences, are all 98 percent white ladies,” she says.

An older woman in a D.C. book club annotated my Wikipedia-inspired novel like it was a spy dossier. "Political websites - biased propaganda" "Recruitment! Bribery! Double agent!" "How can we TRUST anything?"

Experts worry that replacing government employees with AI agents could radically increase the power of political leaders at the expense of democracy. “Human workers can question, challenge, or reinterpret the instructions they are given but AI agents may be trained to be blindly obedient.”

Audie Cornish (CNN host): Why would the generation that was raised on TikToks and hashtag activism turn to paper? Kennedy McDaniel (zine maker): Do I want my reach to be broad? Or do I want it go deep?

Beware of circumscribed inferences

Update: Amazon has banned comments on this video.

Amazon's TikTok video for Kindle Scribe: "Paper notebooks used to pile up around me, but now, everything lives in one place." Top comment: "But at least notebooks and post-it's aren't connected to the internet and can't sell your information! 🙃"

“The way that Wikipedia remains neutral and reliable, and the thing that makes it unique, is that all this content passes through the hands of people.” www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

One year ago today, my debut suspense novel THE EDITORS hit the shelves. Launch week was a whirlwind—interviews, events, celebrating with many of you. 🧵 1/3

“The good readers of a society are both its canaries—which detect the presence of danger to its members—and its guardians of our common humanity.”

I had a great conversation with @stephenharrison.com about how #Wikidata is quietly powering much of the digital infrastructure that we use every day. And the coolest part: you don't need to be a programmer to contribute. Small contributions can spread further than you might imagine. #OpenData

"Your contributions to Wikidata spread so much further..." — @lydiapintscher.bsky.social, Portfolio Lead for Wikidata at Wikimedia Deutschland Wikidata is the structured knowledge base with influence far outside of Wikipedia. I interviewed Lydia to find out how it works.

Dave Matthews, Sting, and Guster each covered "God Only Knows" in tribute to Brian Wilson, while Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong shared a cover of "I Get Around"

Overheard at Dallas City Hall: “Keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it.” —Molly Ivins

My Section 230 necklaces are here! 🥰

Lawrence Wright on fiction/nonfiction

A theory: one reason that this AI slop was so easily caught/widely mocked is because it appeared in print.

you guys are being very cynical about this but the real explanation is that bears and Bigfoot are buddies. They like to hang out and do stuff together

Ezra Klein: I used to conceptualize knowledge the way you see it in 'The Matrix.' I thought reading was downloading information into your brain. Now I think that what you're doing is spending time grappling with the text. Making connections through the process of grappling.

“Shouldn’t there be at least one component of our professional routine that doesn’t kill our soul?” Yes, bring back after-work happy hours!!! Doesn’t have to be a drinking thing (mocktails and topo chicos are just fine, too) slate.com/life/2025/05...

Is this true, Gen Z? (The Revenge of Analog, David Sax)

“The Moleskine notebook’s simple, unobtrusive design makes it feel like a natural extension of your body. It doesn’t interfere in your personal style, and because of this, it allows for an undiluted physical recording of your mood.” —David Sax, Revenge of the Analog

This from @slate.com humanizes the latest AI slop story. Yes, it's awful that this freelancer misused ChatGPT-- producing a "summer reading list" with fake titles Yes, freelancers like Buscaglia face an impossible workload of low-paid media gigs that make LLMs tempting slate.com/technology/2...

When Wikipedia works, it's because: (1) The editors summarize existing publications (no original research) (2) Decisions made by incremental consensus-building (not a democratic vote) (3) Most editors care more about the project itself than pushing an agenda www.techpolicy.press/what-attacks...

Did a roundup of my greatest hits from years of covering Wikipedia as a journalist. www.sourcenotes.blog/p/wikipedia-...

One reason modern life feels so stressful is the realization that our drafts are never really private anymore. Especially at work. “Cool, this doc is finally ready to share… oh wait, it’s been on the company server getting nonstop comments and judgment since the first autosave.”

Big month for Wikipedia: - Got a threatening letter from acting U.S. attorney Ed Martin challenging its nonprofit status - Won a major free speech case before India's Supreme Court - Now defending editor privacy against UK's flawed online safety act

This guy edited the new pope's Wikipedia page to say he was a Cubs fan—everyone was saying it, and there was a source (USA Today) to back it up. Then the new pope's brother confirmed that Leo has always been a White Sox fan. Lesson: Verifiability ≠ truth. edithistory.substack.com/p/i-edited-p...

they're going to put indulgences on the blockchain

Reuters: India Supreme Court reverses article takedown order against Wikipedia’s nonprofit organization The free encyclopedia is still free. www.reuters.com/world/india/...

Wikipedia has been blocked in China. Fined in Russia. Editors jailed in Saudi Arabia. Now the American far-right wants to strip its nonprofit status. I spoke with Vox’s Today Explained about the letter Wikipedia received from the acting U.S. attorney in D.C. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

Wikipedia page for the new pope just now

Me, on German public radio: I never thought the U.S. government would go after Wikipedia. In the eight years that I’ve reported on Wikipedia as a journalist, these sorts of examples came from authoritarian countries like China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. www.deutschlandfunk.de/us-kulturkam...