I cannot live anymore without Wikipedia. Each time I’m discussing a random subject with somebody and that a question pops into my head, I think “Let’s look on Wikipédia” before realizing that I’m in the Big Room with the Big Blue Roof, not in front of my computer.
Nevertheless, I don’t have a Wikipedia account. I don’t see the need for it. Sure, it could be useful for others, but I don’t think I’m really good at writing encyclopedia stuffs, I don’t find it funny at all and I believe that I’m already doing some useful stuffs. I don’t want yet another account, I don’t want a password nor statistics.
Of course, I was correcting mistakes when reading them, I was sometimes adding one or two sentences because my knowledge of the page’s subject was enough. I even created a few “stubs” when I thought it was missing. Some of them became real well-formatted Wikipedia pages afterward.
It was back in those days…
I don’t do that anymore.
For the last year, every change I did on Wikipedia was a catastrophic failure. As I was not logged in, they were most of the time seen as non relevant. Most of my changes I manually followed where flagged with the infamous “Reference or Citation Needed“, even those that could be confirmed by any history book.
Sometimes, you know something so well that you can’t even tell a source for it. Ask any Belgian the name of the first Belgian king. And then a reliable source to prove their answer.
Anyway, if I replied with a website source, it was rejected because no blogs or forums are allowed as a reliable source. Think about it. A blog is simply a website with chronological content. Most of modern website with information and content are blogs. ArsTechnica and Slashdot are considered as blogs. The fact that a date is put on the content should not interfere with the quality of the said content. In theory.
Wait, it’s worst!
When you edit a page, even for a one-letter typo change, the page immediately falls in the whiter-than-white-wikipedia-ayatollah-commando-squadron radar. And, oh surprise, they discovered that the page hosted for years a content that was not perfectly following the Wikipedia religion. And, as every good zealot should do, they immediately corrected the error, regardless of the fact that the content was fine and useful for years.
On one article I was reading about some sport, I corrected a mistake in an URL in the external link section. One day later, the whole section was removed with all the links because every pointed website was considered as “a blog”. Those links were really relevant to the subject and very useful for me. But they were “blog”. Now, I consult the history of that page to have the links.
Another article[1] I recently corrected for a spelling mistake was deleted as “non-notable enough”. The fact that I was looking for that article, that I found it, that it was existing for weeks or months and that I corrected a mistake should be a proof that it was at least an useful article.
But Wikipedia doesn’t want to be useful anymore.
It’s a common story in the human species. First, we want to achieve a goal. Second, we discover that we are all different[2] and that we need some rules to organize our work. Third, we make the rules really complicated to fit every corner case. Fourth, we completely forget the goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it. Fifth, we punish or kill those who don’t follow the rules as strictly as we do.
Every religion started that way, most companies internal rules have the same origin. Sadly, Wikipedia is no different. For some time, I hoped but… no. Sad. Let’s pay extra attention that my projects and my own life don’t follow the same scenario.
Notes
[1] I deliberately keep my examples vague to keep a general tone in the debate. I don’t want to discuss every case and have a justification for the deletion-modification I faced. The reflection is general as, according to my experience, it happened on both EN and FR wikipedias
[2] I’m not!
The Why I don’t contribute to Wikipedia anymore by Lionel Dricot, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Belgium License.
Agreed, I also got fed up with this "non-notable enough" stuff, the cool thing about wikipedia was that it covered nearly every little, most obscure subject.
That’s why I don’t contribute either apart from the occasional typo
Unfortunately, your article is the perfect summary of my experiences with Wikipedia for the last few years.
In the early days, I encouraged my guitar students to contribute to wikipedia, even if only stubs. But now? They’re almost guaranteed to have their work removed.
It’s such a pity to see capable, motivated contributors turned away!
That absolutely reflects my own experiences.
Perhaps a fork is needed.
http://www.monarchie.be/en/famil...
I am personnally happy with the way wikipedia is going. While it may become harder to contribute, as you will need more time to find good sources for every bit of information you add, as your contributions might get reviewed before appearing live, or even blatantly rejected by an overzealous admin, I believe it might be needed to solve some long-term problems wikipedia has been having.
You can not run the wikipedia like you would run it five years ago; it has now so much light that introducing wrong or biaised information even for a short amount of time can have serious implications in the real life. Five years ago, nobody would have bothered, it would have had a lot less visibility.
Regarding you last point, if you believe that section is actually relevant, you should discuss it on the discussion page… after all, it’s still a wiki
"It’s a common story in the human species. First, we want to achieve a goal. Second, we discover that we are all different and that we need some rules to organize our work. Third, we make the rules really complicated to fit every corner case. Fourth, we completely forget the goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it. Fifth, we punish or kill those who don’t follow the rules as strictly as we do."
This sounds like the Wet Monkey Theory [1] to me, or an extreme case of peer pressure.
[1] randomtransients.blogspot…
I didn’t have the same pb with URLs or so, but I once wrote the notice for a friend of mine who is a writer. I was in search for one of her book’s precise title and found out her notice was just few words with a line asking for help to write a real one. I knew very well both the person and her work (except for that little title I missed), so I wrote it easely.
Some times later, some administrator wrote me asking to re-read it : someone had come and modify it in a slanderous way, they had try to put it right back, but were asking me to verify. A few derogatory adjectives were still mentioned here and there. I put everything right back but later some things of the same kind happened again, as if she had some personal enemies trying to spread bad words about her.
It has been appaling to discover that and afraid as my connection name quite obvious was, that she one day or another might see her own notice in a sabotage day and thought I might be for something in these awful words.
And that’s why I’ve decided not to contribute anymore, except for long ago dead writers may be.
Luckily this seems to be a major problem in the english wikipedia and the german wikipedia seems to work much better in this field (probably because it has fewer editors).
@7: I have the opposite experience. The German wikipedia has been famous for years for exactly this admin attitude and behaviour. Especially the "article not relevant" deletion fests are annoying. It went so far that I decided not to use the German wikipedia anymore, but the English one as it was much more comprehensive. Too bad seeing the English Wikipedia now going down in the same way.
I can understand stricter rules for naming your sources on edits. But I have a hard time understanding the "not relevant" deletion obsession of many zealots.
You just don’t understand wikipedia goals. Wikipedia now needs credibility. Time where you get some information from blog and you put on the page is simply over.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wik…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wik…
strategy.wikimedia.org/wi…
As the original creator of the citation needed template, I can only apologise if it’s been used incorrectly
I can confirm this, I’ve had similar experiences.
Fact: the "be bold" policy has become more and more a mockery (see also bit.ly/12YHkz about "Bullypedia" and newbies).
First, we want to achieve a goal.
– This is good.
Second, we discover that we are all different
– We are all different aspects of the same whole. Ego is the the belief in the illusion that we are all individuals, separate, not merely aspects of the whole collective of One. Yes, this is on a metaphysical level, but this World, this Realm, is all part of the Maya, the Grand Illusion, so while we may be "individuals" within the context of this Realm, it only applies to this World, this Realm, and not what truly is.
and that we need some rules to organize our work.
– We need a common method of operating. We don’t need "rules", but we do need to all agree on some basic common things to achieve the task, which may be achieved in many different ways… so what is really needed isn’t "Rules", but rather a common agreement on the methodology to be used to complete the tasks at hand and achieve the common goal of the whole. The problem is that the human ego has it’s own agenda where the human wants it done their way, etc. It’s about power-over vs power-within.
Third, we make the rules really complicated to fit every corner case.
— That’s the ego, the human person, power-over vs power-within, etc. Humankind is its’ own worst enemy instead of being it’s own best freind. I will never understand it.
Fourth, we completely forget the goal of those rules and we apply them blindly for the sake of it
— This is more of the same ego, power-over vs. power-within, except at this point it has become fundamentalism. the one thing I’ve noticed about fundamentalism (of any kind, on any subject), is that fundamentalists are more about the act of being fundamental than what they are being fundamental about. It’s not really about the subject of "X", it’s about the fact that you didn’t follow "The Rules". YOU didn’t stay within the klines, do as you were told, didn’t toe the line, etc. Again, more ego, more power-over vs. power-within, more of the same things that plague humankind because it chooses to create them.
Fifth, we punish or kill those who don’t follow the rules as strictly as we do.
— Of course!! "They" didn’t follow "Our" rules. Again, ego, power-over vs. power-within, more of the same I’ve mentioned before here.
I had the same reflection about a month ago. Well, only for the English wiki. French and Dutch wikis (oh hay! I’m Belgian too
) are not yet in this process of ayatollah-commando-squadron. Well… not so far.
Wikipedia was a good idea. Now I think it’s dead. I hope there will be a "new wikipedia", fundamentalists-less.
Fork it baby!
What wikipedia currently need is credibility. And it cannot gain it if sources are random websites and blogs. It’s a pitty, it’s clearly not working properly, but I’m sure it’s for the best. I’ve been contributing myself, and as long a you provide a reliable source (such as book, article) your informations won’t be deleted.
Hello
[citation needed]
I’m totally agree with you, exactly the same thing append to me, they destroy part of articles and they say "the articles don’t respect the rules" !
The main goal is not on quality of information, but only source, content links or source blog is removed without asking if the content is ok for the article !
I like the way that wikipedia strives towards trustworthyness and stability, but sometimes they are a little too strict on article that are not notable.
>What wikipedia currently need is credibility. And it cannot gain it if sources are random websites and blogs.
Bullshit. They generally allow arbitrary “non-blog” websites, many of which can in no way compare to “blogs” like, say, Ars Technica, or even genuine blogs such a many of the ScienceBlogs.
Wikipedia’s main sources are always going to be websites – it is much easier for the authors and the readers if the content is online rather than in a physical book or magazine. And humanity now published far more information online than in print.
So if websites are the major portion the sources, why would you arbitrarily restrict it to non-chronological one? It makes no sense at all.
As for notability, there needs to be a requirement, but it needs to be a lot lower than it often seems to be now. Most articles are mostly text, and take up very little disk space, and the less popular or well-known something is the less it will be accessed, so bandwidth isn’t a major issue either.
One of the major advantages of WP is that the lack of a dead-tree format removes all the good reasons to limit what can go into it, but WP now seems to not want this huge advantage.
“Every religion started that way” – Citation Needed
NEVER FORGET FAT GOURG (or the story of the imaginary creature that was deemed too imaginary for Them)
It would appear this is an ancient post that has bubbled up into planet GNOME’s feed by accident… nevertheless, yes, I contribute only tiny small things as an anonymous contributor only, and I suspect it will not be long until my contributions are no longer welcome. (Even though most of my contributions are just tagging unsourced facts etc.)
Some time ago I realized that humans beings regardless of culture have a motto. It’s a simple motto, and one in which all cultures excel and you’re Wikipedia example is certainly appropriate. The motto goes, ‘Defeat the purpose.’ And that’s it, no more and no less. It applies to every aspect or western civilization I have encountered both past and present.
As said, Ploum works a lot on other stuffs. Even if it’s sad, modern Wikipedia contribution requires time.
Wikipedia is the best encyclopedia ever and is getting better every single day. And Gnome is getting better every single day. Not that bad !
I couldn’t disagree more with this.
1. Facts which are added without citations are worthless to people who don’t “know” the fact in question. For every person helpfully adding in a date for a given event in history, there’s someone adding a fake date somewhere else. The only check on that (save for limiting editing only to people with established credentials) is to force people to show their working (i.e. with a source). It is usually not difficult to find a reliable source for seemingly trivial facts.
2. Articles will be edited as time passes. That you happen to prefer some lower-quality old revision (either because you’re one of these types who thinks Wikipedia should be an advocacy platform, a news website, or a substitute for TV Tropes) is neither here nor there. You still have access to your cruft in the article history, but articles are not there specifically to service you, and low-quality material can and will be removed in future.
3. Wikipedia has a strong policy of allowing people to ignore rules if it gets in the way of improving the project. This is widely misunderstood, because everyone takes it as a given that any of their contributions are improving the project. However, the real point is that it’s a tool for cutting through red tape rather than as a shield for people who fundamentally disagree with what Wikipedia articles should contain. Ignoring the rule on reliable sources, or on articles not containing trivia, does not improve the project.
- Chris
Chris > Your point of view is very interesting. Thanks for sharing it.
I think that the central point of disagreement is what you call “quality”. As far as I know, there’s no objective mesurement of “quality”.
It means that different perception of quality will end in editing wars.
I prefer having a “stub” or a low-quality page with some spare informations than no page at all. You appear to say that there should be a minimum quality level.
My concern is that, several times, I discovered that the information I was looking for was on Wikipedia and was deleted afterward as “not of enough quality”.
As an end-user, I’m worried because this quality obsession makes wikipedia a bit less useful everyday.
Think about it : the best quality paper is a white paper.
I also stopped with writing for wikipedia.
For the same kind of reasons.
And, more than that, I also stop supporting them financially.
Zut, à la fin !
These things are for good reason. Good-quality articles, which you are probably trying to edit, are reasonably protected by interested editors. If you come across as one of the masses with an agenda and no source, it’s not at all surprising that they will flag your edit. There are a lot of dedicated people who make Wikipedia function on a very basic level. If you behave like an anonymous contributor who feels you deserve special considerations with zero contributory credentials, it’s completely predictable that you will be treated like, excuse me, every other jerk off the street. If you don’t want to be involved, extricate yourself entirely. Don’t keep complain that there are real people who make Wikipedia, in many cases, a very useful and reliable source of information. Considering the nature of the web and the Wikipedia style, often this is nothing short of a miracle.
Rules are fine, we all want to be able to rely on the wikipedia information.
However, it’s impossible to master the labyrinth of conventions, policies, standards, and practices that have been layered over the past few decades, in order to make a meaningful contribution to the information.
In order to accommodate a broader group of contributors, they need to unravel the required learning curve. Otherwise, we can assume the content will continue to be created by a bunch of myopic old men.