Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia Losing Contributors, Says Wales
derGoldstein writes
"According to an AP report, 'Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said the nonprofit company that runs the site is scrambling to simplify editing procedures in an attempt to retain volunteers.' He explained, 'We are not replenishing our ranks... It is not a crisis, but I consider it to be important.' Despite Wikipedia's wide-reaching popularity, Wales said the typical profile of a contributor is 'a 26-year-old geeky male' who moves on to other ventures, gets married and leaves the website."
There's an easy reason for this. The admins are, generally speaking, dicks. This wouldn't be a problem if they were in touch with the community, but they aren't.
Or more likely they're sick of the cabals that form. Wikipedia has lost lots of contributers over the past few years because of them, and will continue to do so unless these spergmeisters are kicked off the pages that they edit camp.
As usual, it's a couple of intractable morons that ruin it for the casual contributor.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Edit the "wrong" article the "wrong" way and you'll get some asshat jumping on you. Wikipedia isn't exactly a friendly place to new people, or even some veterans, so that makes it difficult to retain volunteers.
Perhaps if the whole thing wasn't run by a small clique of sociopathic dorks who wield a ridiculous bureaucracy in a manner that can yield any conclusion that they wish it to yield, then people might stick around for longer than their first editing war.
Every procedure on that site is a complete farce.
Wikipedia needs to adopt some of the stuff StackExchange does to encourage user participation and APPROPRIATE moderation. The SE platform wouldn't work for Wikipedia, but some aspects of the user system would be highly beneficial. Reputation of some sort would be great, along with better privilege levels.
I once was an editor there. Allow me to illustrate why I am no longer.
It all started when I dared to step into the turf of something one of the "higher ups" considered his. An edit of me was reverted. Not just something trivial that begs for a "citation needed", it was a well worded and sourced piece of information. The reason was that it was "not enough on topic". Ok, I see that differently, but so be it. Not like I have to have everything I write published.
What bugged me was that the day after, my entry was, almost verbatim, in there again. This time under the name of the person who thought it's "offtopic" only one day earlier. But ok, so be it, some people need it for their ego to be the "only authority" on some subject.
The problem started when this became the rule rather than the exception. Whenever something new developed in an issue, it descended into mind numbing bickering whose version gets to stand. And since I'm more in the fact-gathering and less in the butt-kissing game, usually it's not my version that stands. So hey, maybe they don't need me as an editor.
The last straw was when I removed some defacement (IIRC it was an article about greek pillars and someone made a rude reference of someone fucking someone else up the rear) and it got reverted by my personal stalker. It seems, they get butt-kissing brownie points for doing as many reverts as possible, preferably without reading first what got written.
So, in case you're wondering why you don't get more editors, take a look at the existing ones.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The WORLD is run by small cliques of bureaucracy wielding, sociopathic dorks.
Wikipedia needs to amend its "Notability" and "Verifiability" policies badly, and stop deleting articles (which blocks access to the edit history). They don't accept evidence as verification, only "published sources" which use inaccurate speculation and second-hand information. Misinformation keeps reappearing on pages, because it has a citation to some other website which makes the claim, despite that it is untrue.
An example of a time I was highly frustrated is when I was trying to read about the software program called Impulse Tracker, then discovered that its page was deleted. So what if Impulse Tracker is "not notable", its file format is still used in the tracking scene, so I wanted to read about the original program, but can't because the page was deleted. And if I want to reconstruct the page, I can't because the edit history is blocked out.
If by simplifying editing procedures you mean getting rid of the untouchable wiki nazi admins, there may be hope still.
Given the "friendliness" that greets new contributors.
I have entered correct information with references and such in few articles where I am somewhat of an expert, like one where I did my masters in the topic and created couple of pages that were in the page request list in topics where I am fairly knowledgable.
End results: >70% of my edits were removed within few days and in several cases replaces with actual WRONG information. Of the created pages one has today totally wrong information, one has been proposed to merge with another page, but nothing has happened in way many months and a third page was just removed.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Where Alph the sacred river ran, through caverns measureless to man... Now care to explain why you quoted that? I don't get it.
An empty palace is still empty no matter how much trash you fill it with. Seemed obvious to me.
There are too many rules, the environment is too hostile (examine the default template "warning" about being blocked, it's a threat, not a warning), pages are guarded jealously by people who will claim that there is no consensus for any change they don't like, etc.
So, fewer people are editing for whatever reason, and many people who try and edit, are driven away.
Some specific reasons some people don't post are outlined [...] reasons [people] don't edit Wikipedia (in their own words).
At the article Chronicling the abuses, a commentator made the point:
This type of slant (on other articles as well) also drives away editors who can't put up with the shit.
So, Wikipedia, because of, in many cases the policies and guidelines currently in place, fails to be inclusive. It is not "newbie" friendly (who has time to read all the rules...), and so newbies are bitten and leave.
So, what's the solution? Well, I think that's easy. Any big organization has problems of a much larger scale than small organizations. So, break Wikipedia up into subject specific Wikis. The general encyclopedia model has been demonstrated to have flaws. Now lets try again. The people who care about web comics can edit on Comicpedia. Etc. Fewer arguments about notability as well.
You imply laziness where others see frustration. I edited Wikipedia for a long time, and granted not all of my edits were good, but then I watched as my contributions, one-by-one, regardless of quality, got deleted. This took years, mind you, but it left me with the distinct impression that either I had nothing of value to add to Wikipedia, or Wikipedia had nothing of value for me. Perhaps both.
I would go back in a heartbeat if WP worked like it did in 2004 again. But it doesn't, and I don't think that's going to change any time soon, so my edits nowadays are minor, few, and far between.
If you spend a lot of time writing something, and then somebody decides that it's not "notable", it's unlikely that you will contribute again.
Wikipedia is just bits, bits are cheap, why do the editors act like they are rationing a scarce resource?
My changes were immediately reverted and I was harassed by one of their overzealous editors for not citing a source. The change in question was correcting someone's grammar. I'm not surprised one bit that they're losing contributors.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
The reality is that well-researched material is difficult and time consuming. You can get maybe 50-60% of the material that makes up what an encyclopedia was in the 1980s from people with passion and dedication but after that you are faced with just a lot of work. Work for no compensation other than ego-boosting.
This reality has been utterly rejected by the Walesian philosphy of knowledge in which there is no real "truth" there is just concensus.
What they are left with is a whole bunch of stuff of unknown quality that people with various passions have written over the years. OK, admittedly some of it is accurate and good but there is no telling what. There is plenty that was written by someone with an agenda and Wikipedia made (and continues to make) it possible for someone with enough dedication to block anyone from corrupting their perfect treatise. Eventually, it is going to be left alone even if the original contributor departs.
The amount of passion that is out there for people to spend time writing and defending their turf in the Wikipedia world just isn't enough for the whole thing to work consistently for a long period of time. Sure, there might be a base of the truly hardcore, but it isn't enough. They seem to have some kind of rating now so people can continue to tune the text according to concensus, but concensus isn't important except in that Walesian dimension. As someone pointed out earlier what you tend to get with enforced concensus is the million-monkeys effect. While it is entirely possible you can get another Shakespear you absolutely will get a lot of drivel. What concensus does is form that drivel according to social norms so it isn't recognized. It is still nothing but the regurgitated ramblings of pop culture.
How do you fix this? Well, I don't think it is possible. Walesian philosophy says that in large numbers there is truth and all truths are equal. With that in mind, what possible hope does a real subject matter expert have? Sure, there might be a few with real passion to tell the world their views on genetics, high energy particle physics or the social orders in ancient Egypt. But they chances they are going to win out over the concensus belief system are small indeed. It was an interesting experiment and it isn't entirely surprising that it lasted as long as it has. But passions move on and Jimmy is unlikely to find much passion out there filling in the cracks in what has been built or taking over what has been abandoned.
Whine whine whine... It is hard to take you and anyone else seriously unless you link to Wikipedia. Citation needed.
I find it much harder to take you seriously if you believe that putting in "whine whine whine" does something positive for you. If you argue like that on Wikipedia, some introspection may be in order on how not to drive editors away.
For everyone who pointed out the _real_ reason why editors are leaving Wikipedia:
Tom Smith - WikiPirates
Some lust for gold and silver, and some for gems and jewels
But some want greater treasures, and they use their software tools
For some of us quest for knowledge, and we wants it undefiled,
But now and then you get a troll who thinks he's Oscar Wilde.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, who sail the server seas.
They flaunt their fake credentials and their advanced degrees.
They control the information with bullying moderation,
'Cause arrogance and online swagger trump your expertise.
No matter what your sources, no matter whom you cite,
He doesn't want to hear it, 'cause he knows for sure he's right
There is no compromising, no bargain or accord,
He's never heard of you, or doesn't like you, or he's bored.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, they love to wield their clout
All day they'll argue details that no one cares about
They don't see as overreachin' their demands for page deletion
Web pages are in short supply, and what if we run out?
Yo ho, yo ho, no one ever thought,
Yo ho, yo ho, in this web we'd be caught,
The Wiki's meant to document the stuff the mainstream missed,
Instead we've got a pompous sot who's building up his wrist.
So if ye've got a subject that really interests you,
Beware the Wikipirates, they've got nothing else to do.
Someday we'll have a knowledge base with all you want and need,
Till then we'll take cold comfort that they're likely not to breed.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, who whine at our attacks.
They're only trying to help us, never mind the rules and facts.
They're just honest, not unpleasant, it's not their fault that we're peasants,
If we'd only see their brilliance, everybody could relax.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, that basement-dwellin' band.
They regulate and obfuscate what they don't understand.
The grief they give ya will reduce ya to trivia and minutiae,
And prayin' that you really do get banned,
Only "public noteriety" will get you in their library,
Be grateful they're all lost at sea... they'd try to delete the land.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
When I search for particular subjects, the Wikipedia and aggregates always dominate the results. Since information on Wikipedia is questionable then what material they have is "contaminated" meaning you have to spend extra time verifying it. "If it's on the internet, then it must be true!" but I like webpages that have the name and contact of the person that wrote the material. And like everything else you have to consider the source, i.e. govt websites, company websites (download useful troubleshoot manuals or simply marketing by dweebs), websites by nutzoid people, websites by reputable people. As we all know who it comes from makes a difference in credibility of information. But many sites I cannot quickly find because Wikipedia hijacks search results!
Wikipedia is useful if you want to find very basic information, i.e. is Gina Lollobrigida an actress, ESA astronaut or photographer? (she is only two of those three).
mfwright@batnet.com
Sorry, I have enough drama and social troubles in my RL. I'm in no way interested in some in an area where I neither get paid for it nor get anything else out of it. I went to Wikipedia to read articles and add my knowledge on a subject to it where applicable and sourceable. If that's not wanted, no problem on my end of the bargain. I'm neither dependent on being a WP-editor for any kind of income, and neither do I draw my self-respect (or respect of any of my peers) from being able to claim "ownership" of any WP-articles.
I added what I knew, corrected what I could prove wrong with relevant sources and if that's not wanted, ok. You can take a horse to the river but can't force it to drink.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Long ago I noticed once that the well-sourced facts set out in one Wikipedia article contradicted a claim (not directly sourced) made in a related article. So I naturally edited the claim to correspond to the facts, mentioning the edit was for internal consistency. I hadn't come to edit an article, but I consider it to be a Good Thing to fix small errors as you see them.
Unfortunately for me the claim happened to be in a gay-related article and apparently embodied the PC position towards this incident.
The storm hit. An admin reverted it without comment (against Wikipedia rules). I explained the reasoning in Talk and reverted back. Then he reverted again, no comment. Now I reverted, explaining he was violating the rule about explaining reversions.
Count: Two reverts for me, two for the admin.
The admin reverted again, saying I needed to cite the source outside of Wikipedia (the same source the other article cited). So I re-did the entry and re-posted with the suggestion. I can work with people, and take positive editing suggestions seriously.
Count: Three reverts for me (if you consider a repost to be a revert), three for the admin.
He reverted it AGAIN without comment, blatantly breaking the three revert rule. Then he said if I tried to change it again it would count as a 3RR violation and I would be banned. I checked the admin's personal page, yep, a gay activist.
At no time were the facts in the other related article challenged or changed. At no time did he tell me I was wrong, or that my edit was factually incorrect. He just didn't want the facts to be on that page.
Even if an admin isn't involved, a cabal of supporters can do the same thing, reverting your posts at will. They can get one or two reverts each, winning while you hit your three revert ceiling. There is really no consensus as Wikipedia tries to reach, since a small, organized and dedicated cabal can easily win over the unorganized concensus of many casual editors. If the cause is a liberal one, it is most likely that their cabal will be supported by the admins.
Now I try to stay away from anything relating to PC, but even then it can seep into the most neutral-seeming articles.
Slashdot has figured out how to fix this problem.
Most comment sections on news Web sites are junk, usually not worth reading. But on Slashdot, the comments are generally more entertaining and useful than the articles themselves.
Why is this? I think it's because of the clever moderating system. Ordinary users get to vote comments up or down, and the result is that the trash sinks to the bottom, and the good stuff gets highlighted.
So Wikipedea should try the Slashdot approach...let people vote on the edits that should be reverted, and which ones should be kept.
They were warned about this years ago. Former wikipedia administrator Kelly Martin wrote whole treatises on it. in her blog. A former admin under the pseudonym of "Parker Peters" wrote up apt descriptions of why it happened - power-mad individuals abusing their "buttons", individuals who gamed the system, gangs who formed to "control" articles - on his blog too.
I've found this discussion to be particularly apt, a discussion of precisely how Wikipedia fails to retain newcomers because most newcomers who actually make an edit are quickly shooed out the door by either the POV pushing gangs or the edit-count-aholic "recent changes patrol"; adding in to this is the fact that the trigger-happy admins remaining no longer stay remotely within policy, as the average "visitor vandalism" punishment is not a block of one day, but one month or sometimes more directed at DHCP addresses, and generally these power-mad fools compound the problem by instantly locking down the talkpage so that if someone else were to get that address, they can't even ask for an unblock... not that the unblock process ever actually works any more, since the same trigger-happy gestapo types patrol the Unblock Requests page.
The underlying problem, the thing that drives people away from Wikipedia, is that it's impossible to get started in. The admins are, just about uniformly, complete dickholes. The "regulars" who remain are either edit-count-itis freaks who will play revert-war with automated tools just to get their edit count up, or are shameless sycophants who play hanger-on to those admins deemed "in power" - the goal of both groups being to boost their chances of someday getting the "extra buttons."
To paraphrase Douglas Adams, the first problem of Wikipedia admins is that nobody should be allowed to do it who ever actually WANTS the job.
The secondary problem is that those sections that really need fixing, are the domain of power-mad admins or control-freak groups who maintain them and drive people away as quickly as they come in order to WP:OWN the content.
The third part is that you can't even talk about Wikipedia without having to reference byzantine, contradictory, fucked-up rules. You can't participate in Wikipedia without memorizing most of them, and the moment you cross one of the power-mad fools they call admins or some of the POV groups, you're going to get hammered over the head with those same "rules", and before you know it you're going to be on the end of a longstanding block with a talkpage lock if you dare try to file an unblock request that says, in essence, "please unzip so I can suck your cock o powerful sir."
If you think I'm joking, try reading their own guide. Explaining why you believe the block was out of policy? ZZZTTT! WRONG! Pointing out that you're being targeted by people with WP:OWN issues or that you're responding to a major problem involving some other Wikipedia policy violation? ZZZTTT! WRONG! The only way you get an unblock requested is to (a) know a corrupt admin who happens to be your friend or (b) play the "mea culpa mea culpa" game.
Oh, and as for using CheckUser to show that you are NOT a sockpuppet after the favorite tactic of dickhole admins and POV warrior alike, the false sockpuppetry accusation? Sorry. CheckUser is Sooper Sekrit Kangaroo Court Data that can ONLY get you sent to the gulag.
I also [received] more 5-Funny to my credit in the year I've been here than your entire life.
Dood, I get +5 Funny here all the time, and I'm a fuckin' idiot. For the sake of your self-esteem and all that's holy, please don't ascribe any real-life value to slashdot moderations.
Next time this happens, take the revert to the article's talk page.
What you cannot seem to be made to understand is that no one outside Wikipedia can be bothered to give a shit about "the proper process". We don't care. It's one thing to see an article we can copy-edit or add a little bit to. Hey, I can spend two minutes adding to the collection of human knowledge? I'm in! But it's entirely different to expect us to want to spend time babysitting our edits so that the griefer jackasses who stake ownership to large swaths of a hard drive don't delete our work on a whim.
You keep saying "well, all you have to do is..." but that's never going to happen. We're not "into" Wikipedia in the same way that the Aspie teen hitting "reload" 100 times an hour is, and aren't willing to donate large chunks of time to it.
The problems (and any possible solutions) lie wholly with Wikipedia and not with casual editors. Expecting the entire world to modify their behavior to cater to Wikipedia's processes and procedures - which were cooked up by those same editors who are ruining it for everyone else - is a pipe dream at best.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Ever tried to just fix a spelling error? Good fucking luck.
I wrote an article on someone who's career predated the internet, had published several books and published groundbreaking research with Nobel prize winners. Deleted for "lack of notability" because there isn't much about him on the internet. Meanwhile, there are 50 articles on Pokemon, an article on every NBA player, and an article on every town in America. Note: Ever been to Harpster, Ohio? Not notable.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
I have, several times. I corrected various little things. Nothing that should've been remotely controversial. No account or anything like that.
Result? Reversion, every time.
Fuck it.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
And you just hit the nail on the head why Wikipedia sucks. it might be good for finding out which wire to switch to make a crossover cable (although frankly I don't even trust it for that) or some lame fact about 1880s tractors but if it is anything somebody might have decided to claim as their own? Fuck you its getting reverted.
Hell I got banned for daring to ask EXACTLY what counted as "notable" since I had provided BOTH the exact disc and minute on the director's commentary a mistake was pointed out as well as a link to the director's blog where he pointed out that what was on the screen was not what he shot but had been changed by the suits after he had finished.
All I ever got was "not notable" and when asked what exactly IS notable if both the director AND writer don't count I got banned for daring to question the almighty admin. Fuck them, I have better things to do that take abuse from little shits when I'm not getting paid. it really doesn't surprise me they can't keep anybody, if wales gave a shit he'd be watching the admins and tossing the douches. Instead he lets them run riot and turn the place into their own little asskissing wank fest. no thanks.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Or, if not outright reversion by the site, careful editing of a subject one knows well and are working to make accurate re-edited into oblivion by people who know it considerably less well.
And then there are the "locked" subjects, where really poorly put together subject matter can become perpetual; you couldn't fix it if you wanted to.
It's one thing to be asked to contribute to a global knowledge resource; it is quite another to do so and have your work tossed aside for all the wrong reasons, or be locked out in favor of someone considerably less qualified than you are.
There is a vast swath of the population that is poorly informed (to be kind) and the idea of editing open to all is never going to fly as long as no one oversees the quality of people's work; on the other hand, if the clueless and/or deluded are in charge of such oversight, it can't work well either. I think it would take a very, very careful set of policies and people -- and a solid review process -- to make this work any better than it does (which isn't very well, frankly.) Add that to the sheer amount of data involved in a concept like wikipedia... and you get chaos -- no matter how orderly the formatting of the site and the cute little notes about "this article needs..." make it seem.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It was simply an inconsistency in Wikipedia. Sourced information in one article said one thing, while another article stated differently without a source. It was a long time ago.
Although in looking back at it now, it appears it was "some say" weasel-worded around the problem. I'm sure putting WP:WW on there would get slapped down fast, but I'm not about to try since I know it is an admin- and cabal-controlled article.
Wait, now I see the sources in the other article are gone, all content regarding it removed, claimed to be NPOV or UNDUE. I guess my rogue admin finally got to that article too. That information had been up there for a rather long time. I guess the PC cleansing hadn't gotten around to it.
But then, why does notability matter anyway?
Because notability is necessary for verifiability. If no reliable sources care enough about a given subject to write about it, how are claims about the subject supposed to be verifiable?
Because it improves the state of everyone's knowledge. Sure, editing Wikipedia is harder than it used to be, but it's not because of the community or the policy. It is because the main body of work is complete, the standards are higher, and there is more scrutiny. There is a way to keep Wikipedia (or any community project of a similar size) organized, fair, and free from vandalism, and it's a bureaucratic process. You and others who whined here over the past few years always have the same story: your edits got reverted, so you lost interest and quit. That's perfectly fine and you are a hero in my book until there is an implication that "they don't need you as an editor". They do, but you just don't seem to understand what an editor is supposed to do. It sounds like you expected to edit articles in a vacuum, which is not realistic. In a project this large, you need to be a bureaucrat as well, which boils down to resolving conflicts through discussion and filling out official forms. Really, there is no other way to do it. It's an overhead, but frankly, it's nothing compared with the research that goes into an article, so you should definitely give it another go. With just a bit of patience and a consistent effort, you should be able to bulldoze over jerkoffs who try to game the system and get your edits the exposure they deserve. You will succeed every time, because your edits are good, the software keeps a complete record, and moderators do read the history.
My criticism about no links provided is also valid and goes hand to hand with what I am saying above. You guys so obviously don't care about your own contribution or the community review process, you didn't bookmark a single instance of alleged abuse. And you want us to believe you cared before? I am not buying it.