Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia Approaches Its Limits
Reservoir Hill writes "The Guardian reports that a study by Ed H Chi demonstrates that the character of Wikipedia has changed significantly since Wikipedia's first burst of activity between 2004 and 2007. While the encyclopedia is still growing overall, the number of articles being added has reduced from an average of 2,200 a day in July 2007 to around 1,300 today while at the same time, the base of highly active editors has remained more or less static. Chi's team discovered that the way the site operates had changed significantly from the early days, when it ran an open-door policy that allowed in anyone with the time and energy to dedicate to the project. Today, they discovered, a stable group of high-level editors has become increasingly responsible for controlling the encyclopedia, while casual contributors and editors are falling away. 'We found that if you were an elite editor, the chance of your edit being reverted was something in the order of 1% — and that's been very consistent over time from around 2003 or 2004,' says Chi. 'For editors that make between two and nine edits a month, the percentage of their edits being reverted had gone from 5% in 2004 all the way up to about 15% by October 2008. And the 'onesies' — people who only make one edit a month — their edits are now being reverted at a 25% rate.' While Chi points out that this does not necessarily imply causation, he suggests it is concrete evidence to back up what many people have been saying: that it is increasingly difficult to enjoy contributing to Wikipedia unless you are part of the site's inner core of editors. Wikipedia's growth pattern suggests that it is becoming like a community where resources have started to run out. 'As you run out of food, people start competing for that food, and that results in a slowdown in population growth and means that the stronger, more well-adapted part of the population starts to have more power.'"
Not to knock golf, fishing, spoiling the grandkids or catching the early-bird special, but I could think of worse ways of spending one's retirement time than editing and writing articles for an encyclopedia.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
If you have a 25 percent probability that your edit will be reverted, why bother? Coupled with abuse of the "notability" concept for new articles, Wikipedia has gone from "the encyclopedia of everything that everyone can edit" to the "encyclopedia of things we like and some people may edit."
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BMO
The rate at which new articles has decreased; I would hardly call this surprising. The coverage of Wikipedia is so great that the only place for new articles are more obscure concepts and greater specialization of existing ones.
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Then add the pile of people doing snow jobs, Steven Colbert stunts, reversion wars, etc, and I don't think its surprising at all.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
An entire article about a british financial journalist and author was deleted recently by some french guy because he'd never heard of her. Well duh, he's from France, she's an english language journalist, why would he have heard of her? Until these sorts of idiots are weeded out I'll keep wikipedia at arms length and double check everything.
What kind of opportunities can arise from certain groups/governments getting their people inside the main editing groups? Articles can be subtlety edited to be bias to certain ideals and points of view that would not be questioned. Every time I hear news about Wikipedia it starts to sound more and more likely.
I've had stuff reverted which I've known to be 100% true (because it was about some software I personally wrote) and yet some muppet halfway across the world who probably knows next to nothing about the software thinks its wrong because theres no other source to verify against. In the end I just kept re-adding it until he gave up but it really pissed me off and I suspect I'm not alone.
It's not just numbers of articles. Articles are shrinking. Trivia sections get eliminated if not integrated in the rest of the article in order to conform with "style" (no matter how interesting/surprising the trivia bits are), images that aren't strictly conforming to copyright get purged (even if they probably qualify for fair use -- but someone hasn't made the argument, and bots eventually get the images out), anything controversial gets mired in edit wars or simply deleted, and so on. Some great articles that I've gone back to over time are little more than stubs now. At least the earlier versions are preserved in the edit history.
Success and the desire to make it a more polished product is slowly whittling Wikipedia away and discouraging casual (but knowledgeable) contributors. It's becoming a pain to contribute and more boring to read.
It's more and more like a "real encyclopedia" every day.
Because jackasses can't stop making edits about Obama being the antichrist, bears and elephants fighting with robots in the year 2525, or Metamucil and Clorox mixed together being better than cocaine. This is why we can't have nice things on the internet.
>>Wikipedia has gone from "the encyclopedia of everything that everyone can edit" to the "encyclopedia of things we like and some people may edit."
Pretty much. Elitism on the part of the core editors combined with a provincial desire to have articles "their way" combined with healthy doses of fucktardery has basically made me give up on contributing to wikipedia.
Case in point:
I went to an article, saw that it was missing ISBN numbers for the books the subject was written.
I looked up the ISBN numbers, and added them to the bibliography.
The core editor who claimed it as part of his domain reverted the edit. Within a matter of seconds; certainly less than a minute. No comment on the revert.
I waited a day, added the ISBN numbers again. He reverted the edit again, again no comment.
I tried it a third time, then left a notice on his user page telling him that he shouldn't be acting like that.
One of his admin friends came onto his user page, reverted out my warning to him, said there was no evidence the editor was rejecting edits arbitrarily (even though I'd linked the reverts in the notice), and that I essentially shouldn't say such things to my betters.
So yeah, I waited a month, did it again, and they were accepted without comment. Because, you know, there's nothing controversial about ISBN numbers. :/
But that was enough for me. Wikipedia is an incestuous cesspool.
I have been saying for some time, the historical significance of Wikipedia will be as an extremely well documented social experiment, rather than as an encyclopedia.
It was a genuine attempt to create a new way of gathering and ordering human knowledge, but ultimately it failed to overcome the problems in the society that it occupied. Petty politics and corruption ate away at the original vision. I am not intellectually lazy enough to just shrug and say 'human nature' - I think there is more to it than that.
Wikipedia, like the rest of the Internet, might appear to be a new cultural space but the fact remains that everyone who contributed to it still occupies a real world cultural space. Real life Democrats are wikipedian democrats. Real life creationists are wikipedian creationists. Technology itself doesn't let you outrun who you are, so ultimately the same conflicts that make real life debate and conflict suck made Wikipedia suck as well.
I'm hoping, for the sake of the web and for the sake of Wikipedia itself (a victim of its own dominance; everyone wants access to the first hit on a Google search of their pet topic) that something else displaces it. Having a single, flawed, starting point for finding out information on the Internet (as many people do with Wikipedia) reduces its utility for research.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I stopped contributing to Wikipedia years ago. If you write an article, no matter how well-written, there's a good chance over 9,000 deletionists will pop up and go "HURR HURR NOT NOTABLE" and either speedy delete, prod, AfD, or some combination of the above. Those who cannot create instead focus on destroying.
Compromise, however, is difficult to achieve because everyone has a different perspective of what's a good point of compromise. Wikipedia works that way -- as does my U.S. of A. -- but there's always going to be times when that compromise is being made in favor of one perspective over another for a long enough period of time to alarm the peeps. Hopefully, "balance" will be restored (though nothing is ever truly and completely balanced) to a point that is generally acceptable to the most interested parties.
Harold
The problem with wikipedia is that these regular editors are extremely fussy about changes and take control of articles - I may come along, correct an error in something I know very well and think 'that's my part taken care of' only to have the one guy who's basically taken control of the article revert a few hours later because I didn't add yet another reference to the bottom of the page citing this new information. It may not be more significant than anything else on the page but this page has become that editors article (unless it's a large popular article) and if it doesn't have a reference for each point, they're not accepting it. Also see [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:J.K._Rowling/Archive_06#Pronunciation]this[/url] storm in a teacup.
Actually what it really means is that a few editors have amassed all the power (much like a few people amass all the power in the government). This problem has been around for a while. I personally stopped contributing after they kept deleting the the article on the stolen sidekick. Its been reduced down to just a few lines in some other article.
There is of course Deletionpedia, but it looks like their bots aren't always on top of the situation. Several of the articles I've tried to find there weren't saved in time.
It's a shame, since Wikipedia could be so much more that the narrow vision of the deletionists.
I have only made a few contributions to Wikipedia, and the experience of having my changes reverted has killed my interest in contributing again.
I'd like to see a new/competing version of the online encyclopedia which attempts to be more inclusive of all information. Rather than removing information because it is not deemed notable, contributions should be rated for how notable and essential they are. However, the less notable information would still be there - it just wouldn't be the first thing to come up in search results.
This could even apply within specific articles. The main article would contain the most important information, and would look much like an article on Wikipedia today. However, more arcane / tangential information on the topic would be available for those who wanted it. They would just click on a link for "all details" or click to expand certain sections of the article.
There are several explanations of what's going on with wikipedia. There's the perception that, based on the amount of information already there, that there's less to do, so the sense of urgency for contributing likely has dropped among potential contributors. In other words, wikipedia is approaching the point to where it is a victim of its own success.
There's the problems with inaccurate information being cited and then very publicly refuted, which is likely engendering feelings of reluctance to be associated with that sort of public failing by potential contributors. Some of these people probably should be discouraged from contributing, given that's how those errors got there, so this is not entirely a bad thing.
Then there's the reason given in TFA, regarding the core group of editors. There very much appears to be an attitude of exclusivity, if not outright elitism, among some of the more outspoken "regular" editors, to the point where a person such as myself who may have some specific knowledge on a particular topic doesn't feel that the reward is worth the effort to fight the system.
There are several topic that are either woefully incomplete (numismatics) or contain both explicit errors and copious errors of omission, presumably in attempt to present a "neutral point of view" (uss pueblo), that there are many opportunities for contribution to existing articles. However, the perception of the effort required to amend an existing article quickly brings me to the conclusion that it's not worth the time needed to do the research simply to have it removed by some editor for no other reason than because I'm not an accepted authority by virtue of not being part of the elite circle.
...as Wikipedia matures and common issues get covered. There are fewer "easy" items to add, and editorial standards rise. In the beginning, everyone was new. Now the more casual, less experienced editors are more likely to be reverted, at least until they rise to a higher bar than was required in the beginning. It could be that it's just becoming an incestuous cesspit, but I think increasing coverage and quality are likely reasons.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
I edited Wikipedia because I found significant errors and omissions in areas I was familiar with. The articles are accurate enough now. And, yes, I had an edit reverted. After we discussed it on the talk page, I redid the edit, and it was much better the second time.
So, I'd like to propose a completely innocuous explanation for the figures given: the number of casual contributors has gone down because there's a lot less room to go into an article and be an expert. Also, casual contributors very often haven't learned how to make a good Wikipedia edit, and having it reverted is ultimately a good thing. Moreover, with the lesser need for the casual contributor, the proportion of crackpots and vandals has doubtless increased. This could well account for the large number of reverts.
While Wikipedia has definitely changed, it doesn't look to me like it has changed for the worse.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Excellent study. Lots of people have felt this way for a few years now, but this is what science is for: Replacing "gut feeling" with hard facts.
The next step, of course, will be the most interesting: Research into what one can do, how one has to build a community to avoid these problems, and keep it running along the successful path.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Because, you know, there's nothing controversial about ISBN numbers.
If, however, a story had once run in the National Enquirer that the ISBN numbers were gay, not only would they have been included in the article, but three more paragraphs would have been added about them, with supporting citations from overseas versions of the National Enquirer, and a photograph of the ISBN number with some Dewey Decimal number believed to be it's life partner. ...and don't mod me flamebait until you've read the talk pages for Anderson Cooper, Tom Cruise, et. al.
Agenda? nahhh...
It has nothing to do with the "inner core" and everything do with morons who watch their favored pages and revert anything and everything that undoes the axe they ground in it. Most people's time is more valuable than that of the cultists, conspiracy theorists, fanboys, and ideologues who make up the bulk of the editors.
The inner circle's flaw is that they don't enforce standards of credibility, not just of the editors, but of the sources used to cite information into the encyclopedia.
I wanted to write an article about the Solovetskiy Stone, which is a monument to victims of political persecution in the former USSR erected by former Gulag residents right across the KGB headquarters.
I didn't want to create a user - sorry Jimbo, I just don't want to join your fan club. As a form of punishment, I was tormented with like a 17-step wizard with questions such as whether I am writing about a "MUSICAL GROUP, DJ, ALBUM, or SONG". After I finally got to the part where I write my part, it was unceremoniously deleted by the EarWig robot (eh?), because some of the text - basically the address of the place in Moscow - was copy-pasted from memorial.ru. And this is the site with a 10-page article listing the secondary characters in the Final Fantasy world. Sorry, somebody else would have to create this article instead of me and yes, I was shocked at how bad Wikipedia had got.
Anyway , all the guy had to do was download the software and run it to check the veracity of my claims
Which makes your contribution "original research" that should not be in Wikipedia at all.
Look, Wikipedia is, first and foremost, an encyclopedia. It's supposed to be a collection of information from other reliable sources. If you can't provide a reliable source for the material, then it doesn't go in. Period.
Saying "run the software yourself" is not a source. Wikipedia doesn't publish "things that are true", it publishes "things that can be verified by asking other reliable sources".
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Colleges don't disallow Wikipedia because of it's nature, they disallow Wikipedia because it's an encyclopedia -- you can't legitimately source Britannica or any othher encyclopedia in any academic paper, so why should you be allowed to cite Wikipedia?
No. It's the encyclopedia you may edit so long as you have "consensus".
I recently decided to edit out a particularly rambling and circular introduction to the Exponential Function. Needless to say, my excision was not taken too kindly. I found myself in a protracted and frankly, surreal struggle to make the article in some way useful for the people who come to read it.
Long story short, my opinions on how best to present the exponential function were labeled a POINT OF VIEW, a major no-no contrary to the higher WP:PRINCPLES. Having found myself lumped in with Holocaust deniers and cranks of every degree, my chances of making further edits to the article were in fact pretty slim. What debate there once again was petered out without any "consensus", which meant I couldn't alter the status quo.
This is at least the fourth time this has happened to me on Wikipedia.
The usual routine is that someone who "owns" the article with throw up a mountain of WP:RULES and WP:TRADITIONS, each more underhanded in intent than the last, in an effort to stonewall you for as long as they can. They can keep this up for months. Any "debates" with the aim to achieve consensus are farcical to begin with, as everyone involved knows that they never, ever reach consensus on anything. Good men get frustrated, demoralised and bored, and leave, letting evil triumph. I do not use evil in a rhetorical way. I firmly believe that the great majority of wiki-lawyers have petty malice and megalomania as their primary motivations rather than concern for the quality of articles.
The Wikipedia page for World War 2 had the start date for the conflict as "Late 1930s" for over 5 months. Five months with a totally incorrect date for one of the most important events of human history because one editor felt things needed to be more "inclusive". I'm all for inclusivity, but stupidity is where I draw the line. The usual farce ensued. The editors set up a Mediation Cabal to reach "consensus" on the issue(Their discussion once again petered out impotently), all while the the obscenity of a start date sat, unmolested for 5 months on one of the most visited pages on the site, no, on the internet. The thought of how its precence may have shifted general human knowledge and understanding of the conflict saddens me.
There is a deep and by now, inoperable rot and the centre of how things are run and done at Wikipedia. The rot began with Jimbo Wales and his simple inability and unwillingness to properly run a project of this scope and importance. As time went by, only the most devious, duplicitous and underhanded of editors prospered and gained control. Now, as the site enters its consolidation phase, the altruism and effort of millions of honest editors has been crushed under the weight of one of the most corrupt and intransigent bureaucracies in the world today.
Wikipedia is rotten from the Top to the Bottom and cannot be trusted for anything, by anyone, for any reason. Even as a reference section. Not even the chemistry and astronomy pages can be relied upon these days,. Things will only get worse as the Wikicrats, Wikilawyers and Wikiticians assume total oligarchical control.
May the Maths Be with you!
I am one of those who edits a page once a month. I have a few pages and topics a like and have added to my watch-list. Most of the reverts I see and do myself are plain vandalism. The remainder are punctuation and a bit of grammar.
I have had few cases of something I thought to be good being reverted. Recently on a page I added a few new facts that had been reported in the news, with citations. They where reverted by a moderator without a comment (I call that rude). After confronting him on his personal page, he argued that he could not read Spanish, therefore could not confirm my citation. Oddly, as I pointed out, the topic was a topic for which you absolutely need to be fluent in Spanish to read primary and secondary sources. Well, after a bit he got a moderator who could read Spanish to check my citations. But did not revert his revert, I had to do it myself.
Did this make me stop contributing to the Wikipedia. NO! It is our duty to confront such morons until they give in.
What would be the point? Wikipedias problems *are* the people you're entrusting to fix it, the long-term editors and admins. I mean, obvious improvements, like adding a mode to view deleted articles, haven't been made. Why would you expect them to make any more wide-ranging changes?
It's goofy as hell in the first place that wiki keeps a detailed change log of everything ever by anyone-- except deletions. Deletions are holy, beyond reproach.
Comment of the year
There's loads of good new topics which aren't covered in Wikipedia yet. The problem is people don't seem to be interested in writing them up, instead they compete on what everybody else is interested in. I'm not sure when I last had a revert so I guess I must be one of that 'elite'. And yes I do do a fair amount of reverting too. Mainly vandals writing their girlfriends names or parts of their anatomy. Plus there are a fair number of loons. I'm afraid yes I quote wikipedia policy at them, in particular no original research and notability. I say yes what you've written may be true, it's not up to me to judge, but you've got to convince others first by getting it published and people talking about it as wikipedia can't publish your original discoveries. What am I supposed to say, you're cracked - go talk to a lamppost? I don't bother with the current biography articles but editors on them have to be especially careful not to report things without evidence and there are a lot of people trying writing up the latest thing they heard on twitter or whatever. If you want to write on wikipedia think of something a little boring to start with where you're not fighting over Islam or what some movie star did or some pacman character first appeared. There is a truly monstrous list of 'Requested articles' plus an enormous number of stub articles that need developing.
thou discernest my thoughts from afar
"Wikipedia doesn't publish "things that are true", it publishes "things that can be verified by asking other reliable sources"."
What a load of BS.
While I marvel at your debating skills, I think you are missing the point. Encyclopedias are never the primary source of information. They merely compile and reference other works. This is not a wikipedia thing. This is an encyclopedia thing.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Wales is himself, a professed objectivist, and Wikipedia is his society. Ayn Rand fanboys should take note.
Underneath the exterior, its a complete hash of bickering, factionalism, vicious territorial disputes and power struggles. Its policed by a secretive clique that tolerates neither criticism nor dissent. Were it a real life territory of any kind, it would be a hell hole. What is now done with harsh words and moderator privileges would be done with truncheons and bullets. There would be a cult of personality surrounding Wales himself, backed by force, and no personal freedom.
This is how your world would turn out, Randroids. It doesn't matter one iota what you say, or even what you believe, about liberty; the simple fact that you believe you have access to a perfect, immutable truth means your world would be doomed to look like this - because people disagree with you and you think such disagreement is evil.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Actually, you're incorrect... true "redheads" don't have the structures to produce it, they have a genetic anomaly that causes them to produce excessive quantities of pheomelanin rather than the normal, brownish eumelanin that everyone else produces. There are studies on this, as the genetic anomaly also seems to relate to pain sensitivity.
I tried to contribute an article about a local person of note, and I had to fight with an editor for a week who kept deleting the article. Not flagging it, not posting messages about how it could be altered to improve content, but outright deleting it. After a few experiences like that, I gave up on contributing to Wikipedia at all.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
It's good that Wikipedia's growth is slowing. That's an indication that the job is approaching completion.
Most of the important articles were in the first 500,000. New articles at this point tend to be marginal or unwanted. Here are the last five articles added to Wikipedia:
That's what's coming in right now. Most of the articles being added to Wikipedia at this point are either junk like that, or on very obscure topics. That's why growth is slowing. This is a good thing. Throwing out the trash is a hassle for everyone involved.
Then fork it.
Every couple months I make a trivial change to an article to correct a serious error. Basically that's the only kind of change that motivates me to contribute - one where a few minutes of my time can help the world at large.
I have about a 50% revert rate. Usually it's for not citing sources. I fully support and agree with the rationale for preferring well-cited works. But when I'm replacing misinformation with what is correct, and the misinformation had no citation either, I can't see how that is a legitimate complaint.
I've edited articles as an anonymous nobody, and haven't had the content revoked. Granted, I haven't started new articles. But, 25% reject isn't so bad, considering the average human's writing capability. People have an inflated opinion of their own ability. Experienced users have less rejects because they are more skilled at formatting articles and are more knowledgeable about the wikipedia point of view. What, do you really expect the average Joe's contribution to be as reliable as a seasoned wiki editor?
No comment on the revert.
WP:BRD tells what to do whenever you get reverted without comment or if you don't understand the reason given in the edit summary: start a new section in the article's talk page asking for clarification, and then make the edit again a week later if nobody objects. This works because anybody who watches an article also watches its talk page.
I think the reason why is pretty obvious, but I have no evidence to back it up (except for the fact that I'm a semi-regular editor, like 2-10 edits a month).
Many articles on Wikipedia have become "stable". This means several people have spent years fine-tuning the articles to the point that a large change better be damn good to warrant inclusion. On these stable articles, most changes will be minor edits or vandalism related. We are starting to see the law of diminishing returns in effect - each edit does far less, so casual people have less interest in making edits. There are still plenty of important articles that need work, but the number is fewer than it was a couple of years ago, which drives down the number of edits for everyone.
One reason why regular editors are still making a lot of edits is vandalism. This also explains why the one-off edits are reverted at a high rate. I'd like to see statistics on the number of edits VS the number of reverts for these groups of people.
One poster above mentioned adding ISBN numbers to an article, and apparently an evil, faceless editor reverted his edits, making him /sadface. What was not mentioned was whether they actually asked in the discussion page first if they may add these numbers in order to enrich the article, which would make the motives behind the edit known (and the account/IP for the comment and edit are the same, therefore anyone conducting an edit review can known the motivation for the edit).
How exactly would adding ISBN to an article be anything but an improvement? Are they violating NPoV or something? Is this defending Dewey Decimal against the evil ISBN virus? Or does the page have an alpha:numeric ratio quota they're violating?
This shows up one of the myths of wikipedia, that it tries to capture truth. It doesn't. It tries to capture what is notable and not completely transient in interest. In fact the policy is to reject original research and uncited statements. This means for instance if you have a great new idea there is no point trying to inform the world via wikipedia. The old wrong idea is the one which should be in wikipedia until such time as the new one is written down somewhere else and gains some decent support. Arguing with editors on wikipedia that your idea is better is besides the point.
thou discernest my thoughts from afar
This has been done. The English-language Wikipedia, at this point, is a summary of all worthwhile human knowledge.
At least all worthwhile human knowledge of interest to SF fans, Warcraft guild leaders, and antique computer collectors.
If you're looking for information on an Apple II clone from 1984, you're good to go... you got details on slots and card cages and everything. If you're looking for information about a hot air balloon from 2005, you're not going to be so lucky.
Wikipedia is great for big topics, but it is still woefully incomplete at the local/reional level. I've added articles on state and county parks, local (but nationally recognized) museums, and never had much fuss. Maybe because I always make sure there is at least one citation - never hard when you live in the shadow of the mighty NY Times.
... so I don't see this as the end of some kind of fad. In the beginning it was easy for anybody to find articles on popular subjects that still needed lots of work (if they existed at all). However, as time passed and people continued to contribute, it naturally became increasingly likely that any particular subject would already have an article that was relatively complete. Consequently, it will become increasingly unlikely that the average person will be able to continue making as many meaningful contributions.
On the other hand, I spent about three years at WP and have witnessed a lot of impolite, petty and downright childish behavior among some of the most active contributors and administrators. As a result, overall quality is not what it could be. For instance, regarding scientific subjects -- especially biology -- I found it very frustrating that so many people regarded article format and personal interest to be more important than content and accuracy. Once this changes, though, WP will definitely become more valuable, but it will also become even more difficult for the average person to edit without being reverted.
I'd like to see a new/competing version of the online encyclopedia which attempts to be more inclusive of all information.
It exists. It's called Wikia. Wikia has the Star [Trek|Craft|Gate|Wars] wikis, where the fanboys can publish the details of every item ever mentioned in any spinoff comic book. Go there and post away.
You've said that twice now. I don't see it, myself. It's pretty good for basic unchallenged facts like geography, for example. But as soon as you get into anything that even remotely touches on politics and ideologies it turns into a rat's nest of disinformation and dissent. Look at any Wikipedia entry involving the paranormal, UFOs, etc. and you'll see, inevitably, the 'psedoscience' label applied to people or ideas. It's a very clear bias and makes it feel like you're watching a Larry King show where the 'opposing point of view' is brought in to provide 'fair and balanced' reporting, with the effect that the idea is ridiculed and shut down. Maybe it deserves to be, but the point is, it's biased.
In academic circles, Wikipedia is not well thought of--even to the point of banning using Wikipedia as a source. Is this academic elitism? Oh, probably, just like Will Durant is not considered a 'real' historian, but if you sneak in his ideas without citing him, history professors think you are brilliant. I realize that has its own problems, but my point is that the reputation counts.
I am quite aware that 'studies have shown' that Wikipedia is as or more accurate than more standard works such as Britannica, but, IMO, if you are using Wikipedia for anything but a quick look-me-up to get an idea of the issue, then, just like a /. poll, you're insane.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
I abandoned trying to edit Wikipedia years ago when I read a Wikipedia article dealing with the ethnicity of ancient Egyptians. It made aberrant claims about all Pharaohs being black, citing afrocentrist "historians" as sole sources, without a single instance of the word Copt.
Turns out however that despite the ridiculousness of the claims in the article and the obvious bias, this couldn't be challenged, as it was the pet article of an afrocentrist but otherwise reputable contributor. See, while the person in question was a valuable contributor, they used Wikipedia as a platform to push their agenda. That gave them a sort of immunity, it's like a reward, you contribute a lot, so you get to have some propaganda real estate. I'm sure that most contributors don't actually use it to push their agenda, but every once in a while you can catch one doing just that, and it's hard to challenge them because their reputation outweighs the qualities of their work.
You just got troll'd!
Wikipedia has always (yes, since its' inception) suffered from two major problems.
a) Its' policy is terrible.
b) The people running it are a serious problem.
The policy is a continually moving target, with flavour-of-the-month, entirely subjective and arbitrary fads dictating editing style. Edits get rejected because of such vague and ridiculous notions as, "weasel words," or "peacock phrases." One of my edits, to the character bio of John MacClaine from the Die Hard movies, was rejected because it sounded "too much like a magazine article." WTF does that mean?
Another problem is overwhelming bias, particularly in the direction of materialistic/scientistic atheistic bias. The biographical article for Richard Stallman is a good case in point; it's a blatant, totally unrepentant whitewash. Stallman is a lot more controversial than that article makes him out to be; it's not NPOV at all. There were a number of people who for some time were trying to add information about the other side of that particular story, but the article's self-appointed keeper is an individual of the alias Gronky, whose slavish, utterly single-minded worship of Stallman would simply induce pity if it wasn't so disturbing. He has continually deflected every attempt to add links to any material that is in any way critical of Stallman at all, to the point where the people who were trying to add said links have apparently given up.
This type of scenario is also deeply typical for Wikipedia. It's very common for a single individual or small group of individuals to use a particular article as a podium for expressing their view, and only their view, about the given topic, and any attempts to make edits contrary to their perspective will be continually reverted.
The claim that it is "an encyclopedia which anyone can edit," is thus, in practice, a complete lie. You can make an edit, sure; but good luck having it last for more then thirty seconds before one the army of pedantic atheistic fanatics reverts it for some entirely arbitrary reason, that generally makes sense to them alone. A lot of the time they don't even bother citing a reason, now; there's no point. That more than anything else, is the reason why I haven't bothered trying to edit on a regular basis for probably nine months now.
It did exist but an editor deleted it to get his edit count up.