Billionaire Elon Musk recently said that he would pay Wikipedia $1 billion if they changed their name. He took to X, formerly Twitter, and wrote "I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia," he said, adding that he would do so "in the interests of accuracy." When a user urged Wikipedia to go ahead with the name change, Mr Musk set another condition. "@Wikipedia, Do it! You can always change it back after you collect," the user said. To which, the billionaire replied, "One year minimum. I mean, I'm a not fool lol." Now, Paytm Founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma has suggested that the Founder of Tesla and SpaceX should make a Wikipedia "equivalent reference point destination" with the help of the microblogging site's Community Notes feature.
Mr Sharma wrote on the platform, "Why not make a Wiki equivalent reference point destination, based on community notes? Open for web." This came in response to a discussion between X users and Mr Musk about the difference between Wikipedia and Community Notes. Mr Musk, in a post, explained, that even though he is a shareholder of X, he cannot change the outcome of a note unlike Wikipedia where "anyone can edit nearly any page and improve articles immediately".
He said, "Wikipedia is inherently hierarchical and therefore subject to the biases of higher ranking editors, independent of their merits. @CommunityNotes requires people with historically different points of view, based on how they have rated and written Notes, to agree in order for Notes to be shown to the public. All code and data is open source, so you can recreate the outcome yourself. Crucially, even I, as the controlling shareholder of the company, cannot change the outcome of a Note. This is an extremely fundamental difference."
Another user added, "The real issue with Wiki is that for the editors, being a Wikipedia editor and racking up cred like Barnstars is *their entire life.* One thing that's dope about Community Notes is the absence of ranking and clout for people who get it right. Continuing to be able to access the feature is the sole reward," To which, the billionaire stated, "Exactly. This is a very big deal."
Previously, Mr Musk had shared a screenshot of Wikipedia's homepage which mentioned "Wikipedia is not for sale" and "a personal appeal from Jimmy Wales". He added, "Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money? It certainly isn't needed to operate Wikipedia. You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone! So, what's the money for? Inquiring minds want to know ..."
In a follow-up post, he had also asked if a cow and a poop emoji could be added to his Wikipedia page.
