Wikipedia's Participation Problem

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Wikipedia's Participation Problem

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday October 23, 2013 @05:32AM from the too-lazy-to-edit dept.

holy_calamity writes "More people use Wikipedia than ever but the number of people contributing to the project has declined by a third since 2007, and it still has significant gaps in its quality and coverage. MIT Technology Review reports on the troubled efforts to make the site more welcoming to newcomers, which Jimmy Wales says must succeed if Wikipedia is to address its failings."

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I was planning to help out... by Mister_Stoopid · 2013-10-23 05:37 · Score: 5, Funny

... but then my motivation to ever help Wikipedia in any way whatsoever was deleted due to "lack of notability".
1. Re:I was planning to help out... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-23 06:09 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Citation needed.
  And there's the single greatest problem. There are assholes out there who spend their days sprinkling "citation needed"s around like they were pixie dust.
  [citation needed]
Re:Unfriendly Elitists by RenderSeven · 2013-10-23 05:58 · Score: 5, Funny

Real experts don't want to go to the trouble of battling with presumptuous morons over the Internet.
The more you know, the less you say. And vice versa.
Re:Unfriendly Elitists by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-23 06:04 · Score: 3, Funny

On a related note, they should share with Google a Nobel Peace Prize for the countless nasty arguments settled by a simple search.
Don't forget all the arguments won with a quick edit followed by a "Let's check Wikipedia!"
Re:How Does One Become an Editor? by Russ1642 · 2013-10-23 06:06 · Score: 4, Funny

Switch them to Slashdot's system? Ha. You must want to take all of Wikipedia and flush it down the toilet. Good idea.
Re:Unfriendly Elitists by i+kan+reed · 2013-10-23 06:07 · Score: 3, Funny

P@ssword1234 worked for me.
Re:Unfriendly Elitists by bob_super · 2013-10-23 06:10 · Score: 3, Funny

It's paid with my tax dollars, so I should have access to it.
After all there is no private or sensitive information in there, it's only metadata, right?
(and yes, I do need to re-read when I change sentence structures just before posting, but how can the preview annoy me if it's useful?)
Re:How Does One Become an Editor? by Russ1642 · 2013-10-23 06:40 · Score: 3, Funny

If you post anything at all expected it to get deleted.
Re:How Does One Become an Editor? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-10-23 07:05 · Score: 4, Funny

Not quite. I've told this before but it's worth repeating. I live in a very small town (>50 people), the wiki article says that the town was devastated by a fire in the 60s. I removed it because there was no fire, at all. It was reversed and added back and I was told I needed a reference or cite. How do you cite something that didn't happen?
The fire wasn't cited either, but it's still there.
Re:How Does One Become an Editor? by NoMaster · 2013-10-23 09:04 · Score: 5, Funny

I think the problem with Wikipedia is basically described by Animal House. Initially conceived as a criticism of communism ... Basically, Wikipedia's goal is an encyclopedia where "Everyone is equal". But as we all know the full quote is "Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others".
Dude, you like totally saw the wrong movie...

--
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?