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Comment by simianwords | Hacker News Reader

I find it very interesting that the main competitor to Wikipedia which is Grokipedia is taking a 180 degree approach being AI first.

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Didn't know about Grokipedia, I've just opened an article in it about Spain, scrolled to a random paragraph, and the information in it is plain wrong:

From https://grokipedia.com/page/Spain#terrain-and-landforms > Spain's peninsular terrain is dominated by the Meseta Central, a vast interior plateau covering about two-thirds of the country's land area, with elevations ranging from 610 to 760 meters and averaging around 660 meters

Segovia is at 1.000 meters, and so is most of the top half of the "Meseta". https://en-gb.topographic-map.com/map-763q/Spain/?center=41....

I still stand on not trusting any of what AI spits out, be it code or text. And it takes me usually longer to check that everything is ok than doing it myself, but my brain is enticed by the "effort shortcut" that AI promised.

Grok does cite that claim as being from https://countrystudies.us/spain/30.htm a page in Eric Solsten and Sandra W. Meditz, editors. Spain: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1988.

The nice thing about grokipedia is that if you have counter examples like that you can provide it as evidence to change it and it will rewrite the article to be more clear.

You know what other site you can provide evidence to and change to be more correct?

I don't ever edit English wikipedia because my English is not nearly up to the standard, and suggestions for improvement (worthwhile IMO) are usually ignored. Grok at least won't ignore you. (I tend to post suggestions to unpopular pages with sparse edit history, which is probably the reason for them going unnoticed.)

I use to frequent irc channels and forums where no such thing as an old question existed. Someone asked an interesting question on irc and days or weeks later a response would happen. On forums the response could be more than a year "delayed". Gradually things shifted to newer new new news that couldn't possibly be new enough. Then debates happen where people sometimes link to the vastly superior olds. Wikipedia finally caught up and questions are no longer ignored. In stead they are archived long before an ignored status could be earned.

Not Wikipedia as Wikipedia doesn't care about evidence. Those people care about reputable secondary sources and will ignore you when point out evidence that contradicts such sources.

I'm not an expert on the geography of Spain, and it's rare that I'd defend Grokipedia but in this case I think it is correct.

Meseta Central mean central tableland. Segovia is on the edge of the mountain range that surrounds that tableland, but often referred to as part of it. This is fuzzy though.

Wikipedia says: The Meseta Central (lit. 'central tableland', sometimes referred to in English as Inner Plateau) is one of the basic geographical units of the Iberian Peninsula. It consists of a plateau covering a large part of the latter's interior.[1]

Looking at the map you linked the flat part is between 610 to 760 meters.

Finally, when speaking about the Iberian Peninsula Wikipedia itself includes this:

> "About three quarters of that rough octagon is the Meseta Central, a vast plateau ranging from 610 to 760 m in altitude."[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meseta_Central

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iberian_Peninsula

Spaniard here. Spain it's tricky, it's both 'flat' with the meseta and the 2nd most mountainous country in Europe. I am not kidding, look at a heigth map. It has a plateau... surrounded by mountains and with a bigass sierra at mid-North (Picos de Europa).

> I find it very interesting that the main competitor to Wikipedia which is Grokipedia

Encyclopedia Britannica (the website not the printed book) is the main competitor to Wikipedia and gets an order of magnitude more traffic than grokipedia. Right now grokipedia is the new kid on the block. It has yet to be seen if its just a novelty or if it has staying power but either way it still has a ways to go before its Wikipedia's primary competitor.

Main competitor? I’m pretty sure that Uncyclopedia is a more relevant competitor to Wikipedia than Grokipedia. Likely more accurate, too.

In some time it will become a serious alternative.

Serious alternative if what you're after is false information, certainly.

What false information?

Maybe, maybe not. There are a ton of failed attempts at competing with Wikipedia out there. Whether grokipedia is one remains to be seen.

That thing is "the main competitor to Wikipedia" in the same way I'm the main competitor for the Olympic 100m race. I mean, both I and the winner have legs so it's going to be a close race, right?

It’s on its way to becoming more popular and a clear competitor to it. Just a matter of time.

Is that "more popular" in the sense of McDonald's popular?

Yeah so?

No, it's more the "a thousand flies can't be wrong" type. SCNR

Doesnt really matter the reason why does it?

If more people use it then it is more popular. Simple metric.

Well, kinda ...

Approximately 3.2m Americans drink Hard Kombucha.

Approximately 5m Americans use Cocaine.

Simple metric.

Right, so cocaine is more popular than Kombucha. Whats your point?

{* whoosh * -;-O} - actual statistical output

Feel free to actually explain yourself at any point, currently you are just making yourself look incredibly snarky and silly.

I'm ok with that. 2+2 is super boring. Snark and silly is at least entertaining (to me).

Wouldn't touch that grokipedia pos with your bargepole ... let alone mine.

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