alt Hacker NewsAbout a decade ago, I read the history of AIDS on Wikipedia. It was a very informative (and satisfying) 20 minute read.
Now it's pages and pages and pages of text: probably factual, but not a satisfying read. It feels like it's for a different audience, and it's not satisfying to read.
Is it AI generated? I don't know for sure, but it feels like either someone (or something)'s missing the point of who Wikipedia's audience is; or that someone is following an agenda, (or that there's an edit war going on between dueling agendas and the facts are added to drown out the "AIDS is a consequence of bad morals" agenda.)
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Hmm, its showing as roughly 9.4 kwords which is a little higher than ideal. I may raise the suggestion to spin a section out. Maybe § Emergence can have its own article and be only summarised in the parent? I see the New York subsection is also quite long.
I don't think it has anything to do with AI. Wikipedia has been like that for at least a decade for me.
Same feeling here - not sure if it’s AI, or zealous wikipedians + incentives that make addition easy but editing and pruning means stepping on many other writers turf, but I used to enjoy reading articles, while now many are more useful as “information fodder” for LLM to summarize and interpret.
Just so we're on the same page, this is the one I just skimmed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS
On reflex, I searched for "reagan". 0 results as of the morning of October 27, 2026.
I was there in the 1980s when the AIDS outbreak started getting mainstream news coverage. I watched the Ryan White movie on TV, when it was the biggest topic at school for months afterwards:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White
I can tell you what really happened. HIV/AIDS scared the bejesus out of the political establishment of the time. Who then stoked that fear to push their socially conservative agenda onto everyone in an attempt to return the US to what they viewed as a morally just culture (basically the 1950s), much like MAGA today.
And just like when Donald Trump refused to wear a mask to set an example in protecting the elderly and other vulnerable groups from infection by COVID-19, Ronald Reagan refused to devote real resources to slowing the spread of of AIDS and finding a cure. Because AIDS furthered the GOP's efforts to expand the War on Drugs, push abstinence-only sex education, demonize same-sex relationships and criticize secular culture in general.
In a very real sense, Ronald Reagan and his administration let AIDS grow from being a manageable disease to becoming an epidemic that killed millions of people. His misplaced priorities set back research and treatment options by decades.
Omitting Reagan's name from the history of AIDS is like casually leaving Benedict Arnold out of the history of the American Revolutionary War.
The domino effect of his abdication of duty has touched everything from US police interventions in developing nations that it's exploited to its $40 trillion national debt. It's literally fogged the lens through which we see the world.
Its easy to forget all of that now that once-daily HIV treatment pills and bi-monthly preventative injections exist, and we're finally seeing cures on the horizon.
Revisionist history now dominates our political discourse. I write this because the "AIDS is a consequence of bad morals" agenda is not something to be lightly swept under the rug. It's literally a pillar upon which the alternate timeline we're on now stands.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Being as detailed as possible is its goal. Simple English Wikipedia exists for shorter easier to read versions of articles. Generally though, turning a complex topic into a fun easy read is the goal of good scientific journalism, which is also important but a separate effort from an encyclopedia.