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A Third of Wikipedia Discussions Are Stuck in Forever Beefs (vice.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Wikipedia, the internet's encyclopedia, is run entirely by volunteers -- people who spend large swaths of their personal time making sure the information that hundreds of millions of people access every day stays accurate and up-to-date. Of those volunteers, 77 percent of Wikipedia articles are written by just one percent of Wikipedia editors. As such, tensions tend to get a little high, because these editors are often highly invested. They've been arguing about corn for nearly a decade, for example, and there's a long-running edit war about the meaning of neuroticism.
When editors disagree about an edit to be made on a Wikipedia article, they start by discussing it on the article's Talk page. When that doesn't result in a decision, they can open a Request for Comment (RfC). From there, any editor can choose a side or discuss the merits of whatever edit is up for discussion, and -- in theory -- come to an agreement. Or at least, some kind of decision about how to make the edit. But a new study by MIT researchers found that as many as one-third of RfC disputes go unresolved, often abandoned out of frustration or exhaustion. The most common sticking points were chalked up to inexperience, inattention from experience editors, and just plain petty bickering.
When editors disagree about an edit to be made on a Wikipedia article, they start by discussing it on the article's Talk page. When that doesn't result in a decision, they can open a Request for Comment (RfC). From there, any editor can choose a side or discuss the merits of whatever edit is up for discussion, and -- in theory -- come to an agreement. Or at least, some kind of decision about how to make the edit. But a new study by MIT researchers found that as many as one-third of RfC disputes go unresolved, often abandoned out of frustration or exhaustion. The most common sticking points were chalked up to inexperience, inattention from experience editors, and just plain petty bickering.
This. The "original research" policy really screws with things when the source says X = Y and some 2nd party source says X = Z due to a failure to comprehend the subject matter. A bunch of people will have ripped off that 2nd party so there will be endless sources of bad information.
Also, don't try to delete your account. They own your identity & your contributions forever.
The story basically confirms my experiences with Wikipedia. Nice idea, great intentions, and I even use it pretty often, but not worth trying to improve. Let me clarify that I'm an extremely infrequent contributor, mostly just asking questions and offering suggestion in Talk pages and most of my actual public contributions were just minor editorial corrections. Years ago I cared quite a bit more and fixed lots of grammar problems, but these days I just don't care and don't bother. (However I also think there are fewer low-level grammar problems these years.)
I'm trying to figure out the quickest explanation of how my attitude towards Wikipedia was flipped from mostly positive to mostly negative. Various minor things, but I think the recurring one might have been the spam. Not from Wikipedia, but from spammers using Wikipedia to boost the credibility of their scams, usually 419s.
In my twisted way of thinking this is a relatively minor problem (but with potential to become a more serious problem) with an obvious fix. Flag the targeted articles to defeat the spammers' intentions. I think that Wikipedia should notice spammer-related traffic or at least accept reports that an article is being used to support spam, and add a temporary alert to that article. Something like "Scam alert: If you came to this article because you are looking for evidence that Claude left you a million dollars, then you should know that it is just a 419 scam. Follow this link for more information on 419 scams and how to avoid them."
Maybe the suggestion is stupid, but I would say that "internal" consideration of the suggestion never rose to that level of incomprehension within Wikipedia. And I still think there is a significant risk of active vandalism if the spammers interpret Wikipedia's collective indifference in the wrong way.
Oh well. Too much time again. I bid you ADSAuPR, atAJG.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
If you look at Wikipedia’s admin history, most admins were elected over 10 years ago. This provides a substanial old guard that locks out newer viewpoints. What we need is a new generaton of edtiors who arent revert happy and allows more articles about Women in science. I notice that Wikipedia is very deletionist now days especially after they restricted article creation to autoconfirmed accounts. Remember to repay the favor and be deletionist with your donation money.
"They" have been arguing about corn for a decade. As in, some agree and some don't that the title should be "maize" since "corn" has other meanings in some countries. TFS seems to think that the ultimate goal is 100% agreement. That's not the point of Wikipedia. It's not perfect, and it cannot be because people have different preferences. Is it a valuable resource available to all? Yes.
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