Essay: Wikipedia Sucks, And It Isn't WP's Fault

[Csonicgo]

I'll finally admit why I don't like Wikipedia as much as I used to: It's not the sources, or citations, or original research, it's the actions and methods of specific community groups.

I've been using Wikipedia for a long time now, and there's always a few things that bother me when I start to go "behind the curtain" where the main wiki-machines, or users, discuss various things about articles. I must admit that I didn't even care to look there, or wanted to, until I noticed articles that were once Featured and were "Good articles" slowly disappear, or some articles becoming suddenly void of content or rearranged. So I decided to check out what was going on, and after a few years of watching, I've come up with this list of users and groups that I think Wikipedia needs to deal with before the motivation for new users is sapped before they even begin.

1. The Notability/Speedy Deletion/Truncation Police. If you're wondering where a once-good article went, you can probably look no further than these guys. Around 2006, a few new policies on "notability" were mentioned, but were never set as a concrete rule. However, that didn't stop a rabid group of wikipedians from destroying articles they found "non-notable" via any method necessary. Most of the time, this was accomplished by nominating an article for "speedy deletion", via a bot or otherwise, or nominating a merge to another article which could be next on the chopping block.

The problem is, "notability" is not a very concrete concept to judge an article. Verifying sources for "notability" is not like checking sources, it's basically checking if it's worth even having an article. Checking for these things takes time, and usually as is the case with Speedy deletions, most run out of time.

I will admit that most articles that are deleted are usually internet related, or fiction related; i.e. articles on individual characters in a video game. The problem with this is, A lot of those fiction-based articles, especially the Pokemon articles, were Featured, and listed as Good before they were blammed in favor of a two paragraph blurb of the former article , then shoved in a list that no one will read. WP:FICT strikes again!

But, where does that stop? Surely all the Simpson's episodes don't deserve their own articles! Star Trek doesn't either! South Park? Shove all that in a list with no pictures and two paragraph blurbs. It's the only way. Because, as they say, there's always another wiki out there dedicated to those articles! all 20+ of them.

I don't know how to actually solve this one. The main thing is: they're actually doing what they're supposed to do, but at a pace that anyone that could vouch for the articles being eliminated cannot speak up in time. It's truly a weird situation.

2. The Boy Who Cried POV: This might be one of the biggest issues. There's always some person that, unaware that a discussion had been held many many weeks ago, finds something in the article to be POV. This is usually the most heated of debates, and bring about drama. There are many kinds of these, so I'll list them here:

* He Who "Read It": These are the usually annoying kind that like to challenge information in an article, usually asking something be changed or replaced because he "read it in a book somewhere". These usually self-destruct after the three-revert rule, but some have been known to create sock puppets and multiple accounts to force their way. Can mutate into something worse.

* The Outraged Practitioner: This is quite a step above the previous group, in that this user finds an article offensive and declares that it must be revised "immediately". The problem is, most articles taken into concern by these users are usually already solid, sometimes deal with Myths and legends, or even Scientific articles. Usually, however, most of these users attack the "pseudoscience" articles, such as Homeopathy. The talk page of the Homeopathy article had to include an FAQ in hopes that these kinds of issues could be avoided. Oh, if only that would work. These are related to the users who drive-by edit articles about recent coups and countries, such as Kosovo and Georgia.

These guys also showed out in force during the Denmark Cartoon fiasco. Quite volatile!

* The Frothing Britroll: Oh, how could I possibly forget? This group creates the best fireworks, in that they are easy to provoke, to explode, and spew colorful language until you can't help but imagine the user's keyboard is covered in rabid froth. I don't know if this applies to all Wikipedias, but in the English version, there are plenty of these fools that seem to have never gotten over the fact that they lost in some old war or something. They bitch and moan about "Americanisation" and other nonsense and serve no purpose but to cause drama and stir up trouble. However, they are the most persistent bastards ever to grace the site, and the only few ways to shut them up is to ban them, cave in to their demands, or have someone look at the article's creation date and try to figure out what "variant" of English it was written in. Congratulations, dipshits! In your quest to blast those Yankees, you brought sensible, rational discussion to a halt!

I had written about these morons back in 2007, but I think they should be brought up again. These morons can write more walls of text than any DeviantArt user, and usually can be provoked enough to argue about shit that happened over 200 years ago, that no one cares about.

"We’ll never change correct the spelling ‘color’ to ‘colour’! NEVER forget, if American asks you to jump, you ask how high!"

Jesus. The only sure way to eliminate these bastards just might be a good ban from editing.


3. The guy who just doesn't "get it": These are fucking e-mines. This seemingly nice user makes an edit to an article and, upon finding it to be removed, goes into a rage. He doesn't know how the show is run, but such a thing will not stop him. He posts a semi-hot paragraph on the talk page, and when told that he isn't helping and to buzz off or find another way to contribute, his brain detonates like an Atom Bomb. The user then transforms into a troll that personally attacks user talk pages, creates sock puppets and hides behind proxies to harass the users who told him he was not helping, in hopes that they will cave in. This is not only annoying, it's dangerous! There's no way to determine how volatile this person might get, or if he will try to go beyond mere cyber-bullying and try to harm the individual through other means. It's amazing how rare these people are, and I imagine it's because most have no means to actually follow through with their baseless threats. Can also be related to the Outraged Practitioner, in that case, they are VERY dangerous. Also could be related to the "read it", user, if that user snaps.

I honestly think a behavioral committee should either form or, if there is one, actually start to help out with these kinds of problems. Rational discussion and explanation do not work for them. They are set in their ways, and will not stop until they draw too much attention, or finally leave on their own. Talk pages aren't monitored as much as main articles, and the reasons are obvious and numerous. However, that doesn't mean that Talk pages are to be an anarchy with no consequences for a user's actions, however benevolent or malevolent they might be.

Is this usually the case with all Wiki Projects? I hadn't noticed much of this until 2006 when Wikipedia really got popular and it wasn't just a "project" anymore.

[wildweasel]

What pisses me off is, in any article about a video game, book, or movie, when a commonly acknowledged fact (like, say, Campbell in MGS2 being an AI) is labeled "citation needed" when that information is right there in the fucking game/book/movie. If I could find any present examples, I'd link them here.

[deathbringer]

Don't forget Slavs/the other lot who shit up any article about central Europe with thier engrish bullshit.

Related are Angry Argies on anything remotely related to the Falklands (i mean seriously, do you see the Japanese kicking up the same stink about those Russian-owned islands to thier north east?).

I too have fell foul of the notability police. I wrote a cited (admittedly primarily from two e-sources, though i do have a book as well it was on the other side of the room) article about an old story paper called The Boys' Friend, which was around in the early 20th centurt and in it's later life had stories written by Charles Hamilton (the Elvis Presley or Valentino Rossi of story papers). Naturally it was immediatley slapped with a notability order by somebody simply because THEY hadn't heard of it.

[SteelPH]

<CtrlAltDestroy> Here is my impression of Wikipedia.
<CtrlAltDestroy> "There are five fingers on the human hand [citation needed]"

I think this sums it up pretty well.

[DOOM Anomaly]

footman said:

<CtrlAltDestroy> Here is my impression of Wikipedia.
<CtrlAltDestroy> "There are five fingers on the human hand [citation needed]"

I think this sums it up pretty well.

Yeah man, that thumb is a questionable one.

[Snarboo]

Wikipedia is like most things: it's a great idea in theory, but one that is mired in bureaucracy in reality. I try not to use wikipedia as an authority on anything given how unreliable it can be.

[Nomad]

I use wikipedia when I just want to get basic info on something. If I need to know more I look for more specific sources. Wikipedia is kind of like the Hitchhikers Guide. Too bad the Kindle doesn't have free wikipedia access anymore.

[deathbringer]

Nomad said:

I use wikipedia when I just want to get basic info on something. If I need to know more I look for more specific sources. Wikipedia is kind of like the Hitchhikers Guide. Too bad the Kindle doesn't have free wikipedia access anymore.

I suppose it can point you in the right direction. At university i used it to find out terminology / basic meanings of things (for instance looking at the tuberculosis article to find out how it's caused), but i then turned to books that are written by people who really do know what they are on about for my actual work.

[Creaphis]

Wow. Sounds like I belong on Wikipedia, doesn't it? Believe it or not, I never edit there, so I'm actually not part of this problem.

[Zaldron]

I love it how people equate crazy asshole communities to this mythical unreliability of Wikipedia.

Damn I'm humble enough to admit 99% of the content is way out of my field, and the one place I do feel comfortable, the programming/IT articles, are pretty much flawless. How are you people exactly coming to this conclusion? How many factual errors do you stumble upon on a daily basis? Are they flagrant enough to invalidate the whole section, let alone the whole article or portal? Are you aware of the error rates of print encyclopaedias, for that matter? What is it being compared to?

[myk]

Meh. I've seen some other things I didn't like, but if you expect a public, free and huge project not to have problems like these, go work for Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc... they'll even pay you :p

Csonicgo said:
I will admit that most articles that are deleted are usually internet related, or fiction related;

It's "nerd-produced", for the most part, after all. There might be some excessive denerdification policing, but if it were lax instead, many visitors would probably think it's an encyclopedia about anime, Star Trek, Final Fantasy or the like, and go some place else.

[esselfortium]

WildWeasel said:

What pisses me off is, in any article about a video game, book, or movie, when a commonly acknowledged fact (like, say, Campbell in MGS2 being an AI) is labeled "citation needed" when that information is right there in the fucking game/book/movie. If I could find any present examples, I'd link them here.

[citation needed]

[Csonicgo]

Zaldron said:

mythical unreliability of Wikipedia

Zaldron said:

99% of the content is way out of my field, and the one place I do feel comfortable, the programming/IT articles, are pretty much flawless

[Ninjalah]

Zaldron said:

I love it how people equate crazy asshole communities to this mythical unreliability of Wikipedia.

Damn I'm humble enough to admit 99% of the content is way out of my field, and the one place I do feel comfortable, the programming/IT articles, are pretty much flawless. How are you people exactly coming to this conclusion? How many factual errors do you stumble upon on a daily basis? Are they flagrant enough to invalidate the whole section, let alone the whole article or portal? Are you aware of the error rates of print encyclopaedias, for that matter? What is it being compared to?

I have to agree with him, all of the information i actually turn to Wiki for (usually free time research, nothing too advanced at least) is actually pretty credible. I mean sure, it IS written by people like me and you, but im pretty sure they know what they are talking about, and if they dont, thats why it has peer editing, to fix the little mistakes and what not. Oh, and Wikipedia has people that make sure most of the things are credible and arent edited to state "LOL THIS GUY ARE TEH DAWMBSHIFTELEVEN!".

All in all, I like it. Too bad teachers/professors hate it so damn bad.

[DuckReconMajor]

Ninjalah said:

im pretty sure they know what they are talking about

I'm pretty sure they think they know what they're talking about.

Ninjalah said:

and if they dont, thats why it has peer editing, to fix the little mistakes and what not.

What if you catch it before it's been fixed, or no one fixes it because it's a generally accepted (albeit false) statement?

Ninjalah said:

Oh, and Wikipedia has people that make sure most of the things are credible and arent edited to state "LOL THIS GUY ARE TEH DAWMBSHIFTELEVEN!".

These people don't know everything, and they probably don't cover as much content as you think they do.

Ninjalah said:

All in all, I like it. Too bad teachers/professors hate it so damn bad.

Actually, many don't "hate" it. They don't mind you going to find general information there. It's also a good place to find sources by looking at the references on a page. But on its own, it doesn't have enough credibility to be used in research.

[Super Jamie]

tl;dr but my views have not coincided with Jimbo's or the rest of the Wikipedia Jews' for quite some time, and inclusionism is just the tip of the iceberg.

It was a great idea for a while, but the sites' time is slowly passing.

Good riddance.

[Creaphis]

All the complaints I hear about Wikipedia's reliability are theoretical (Anyone can edit it! It's probably written by pedophiles!) or anecdotal (This article I read the other day misspelled "Chewbacca"!). What I really want to see now is an actually rigorous, scientific study that compares the accuracy of well-established Wikipedia articles versus the Encyclopedia Britannica equivalents versus a widely-accepted-among-experts view of the fact. Is Wikipedia significantly less reliable than other sources? I don't know! I want to know! And I think that other people should know so that they can adjust their attitudes of fear or worship accordingly.

I'll admit that I get a bit peeved when people criticize Wikipedia's content on the basis of its system of gathering content. Part of that peeved-ness is due to the knowledge that such critics may be right. But I like Wikipedia. Even if its heyday is past, I hope it sticks around. It would be a bleaker internet if it was gone.

[myk]

Super Jamie said:
Wikipedia Jews

Fuck off.

DuckReconMajor said:
But on its own, it doesn't have enough credibility to be used in research.

Except some particular articles, encyclopedias aren't good sources, particularly because they are not primary sources. Using them in research, however, is not the same as citing them as sources. Only scholarly books have as many sources as a well-developed WP article, and these aren't exclusive.

Elementary and high school teachers might want to avoid the Wikipedia or authorize particular articles to avoid complications, but mainly because schools for younger people have didactic and moral demands that sometimes supersede practical or intellectual ones. Educational conservatism has much to do with it. The Wikipedia provides a different thinking model when compared to "professionally produced" encyclopedias.

[Sharessa]

I have an issue with the notability thing. There has been a lot of shit on there that seemed perfectly cromulent, but ended up getting nota-banned out of the blue. There's been several instances where I went to look up information on a subject, turned to Wikipedia (as my primary information portal) and found it had been de-notibilitated. It gets retarded sometimes. Pretty soon they should change their name to the Sciencopedia because if it isn't science-related it's going into the waste bin. Fuck popular culture and all that.

Also, the excessive use of [citation needed] sometimes. The worst offenders are when they tag it to something that's common fucking knowledge. It's something so common that you won't find it in any kind of scholarly publication because it's considered a given. YOu might find it in a book for children, but who's going to look there? Shit like "red means stop on a stop light", "books are often printed on paper", or "the sun rises in the East". You don't run across this stuff all the time, but it's out there and I've seen it. The problem is it gets stuck there because no one can find a publication to cite and people will bitch if the tag gets removed.

The one last, really specific gripe I have is the page on bigfoot. For a while there was a good page there with a very neutral POV that put the subject up in the air as to weather or not it was an actual creature or some kind of elaborate hoax. Then the Georgia hoax incident happened and the page got seriously rewritten to something that just called it a flat out hoax. After a lot of teeth-pulling, it finally got back on track a little, but there's still a lot of misinformation and shoddy facts on there. And as usual, someone's probably going to mock me for this.

Anyway, I actually do use Wikipedia as a primer on any subject I want to look up, and have found it to be 95%-99% factual in most cases. It's just sometimes you run into problems with notability/citation/POV-nazis or horribly jumbled, badly written articles.

Csonicgo said:

(Pic)

I wonder if Colbert realizes that pronouncing it with a ø like that makes it sound more like "weird". If so, it makes a kind of interesting inter-linguistic pun. If I remember correctly, it's kind of an e/i sound from the back of the throat. My German teacher told us that the German word for ski, 'shi'. Was almost phonetically identical to the Norse word 'shø' meaning the same thing. He should know, being from Norway and being named Bjørn. :P

Also, I find it hilarious that Firefox considers any word with the ø letter in it to be misspelled, even a lone ø.

[myk]

Danarchy said:
The worst offenders are when they tag it to something that's common fucking knowledge. It's something so common that you won't find it in any kind of scholarly publication because it's considered a given.

Could you cite a case of this? While this can happen, I've seen a lot of assumption-making where people take things for granted or cases where what matters is the wording or other elements which add meanings or make insinuations which are questionable. Many of the citation tags don't refer to the facts but to value judgments included in their formulation.

[Sharessa]

Did I just get [citation needed]ed? :P

Like I said, they're rather infrequent and I never bookmarked them or anything, so I can't give examples. If I run across one, I'll show it to you, though.

[Fletcher`]

Nomad said:

I use wikipedia when I just want to get basic info on something. If I need to know more I look for more specific sources. Wikipedia is kind of like the Hitchhikers Guide. Too bad the Kindle doesn't have free wikipedia access anymore.

The major difference being that Wikipedia does not have in big friendly letters the words 'DON'T PANIC' written on the front of it.[citation needed]

[ArmouredBlood]

I just ignore citation needed notes. If it sounds like crap it most likely is crap, and if it sounds like it is I'll check somewhere else. This notability stuff is annoying though, about 1/10 random games/anime/manga have really small entries that tell me nothing. I say if 1. someone has something to say 2. they're right, and 3. no one else puts something up, leave the entry the way it is -.-

[Phml]

What I really want to see now is an actually rigorous, scientific study that compares the accuracy of well-established Wikipedia articles versus the Encyclopedia Britannica equivalents versus a widely-accepted-among-experts view of the fact.

Every public, scientific study I've seen showed every encyclopedia to have a higher percentage of errors than Wikipedia. I'm not talking about internet studies either (which could be biaised in favor of Wikipedia), that's stuff I've seen in papers and on TV.

No sources, sorry, but I'm sure if you dig up a bit you'll find something about it.

As for experts, there's always some fields in which you can't name one specific answer and call it The Truth. Take any two experts in any social science and they'll give you different answers about at least one thing. In physics, biology, medicine, what is considered true completely changes every few years.

Frankly, the only problem with Wikipedia is some people are way too passionate about it.

[Maes]

The fact that it's "nerd created" has its pros and cons: for example, most of my IT teachers at university considered it the ultimate resource for research, citations etc. or the very least the best place to start, especially regarding technologic stuff. Case in point, my Cryptography professor, who openly admitted that there's no better source to find all main cryptographic algorithms explained in detail, along with schematics and implementations and links to every possible related concept.

Even dedicated third-party cryptology websites couldn't come close, and as he said, the subject at hand was too fluid and variable to be adequately covered by books and journals alone.

That being said, I can understand that e.g. a literature or history professor might have a different opinion, but for everything that's not subject to interpretation or within conflicting interests, Wikipedia is pretty much t3h p4wn 4nd t3h h4x, j00 fux0r.

[fraggle]

Most of the issues you describe don't really sound that awful to me. Wikipedia is still a great resource and nothing's perfect.

The British spelling issue (color vs colour) is really a problem because the site administrators failed to specify a "standard spelling" when Wikipedia was first born. Instead, the policy is something like "whatever was used in the first version of the article should continue to be used". It's the kind of silly policy that is inevitably going to breed pointless flamewars. They should have just standardised (or standardized) on either American or British English and stuck with it.

[Jonathan]

Creaphis summed up how I feel about this. Wikipedia critics complain about supposed endemic inaccuracy, but it's never backed up with anything more than anecdotal evidence and an irrational bias against the wiki concept in general.

I don't agree that the site is past its heyday though. It's readership is still increasingly, and it's the fifth most visited site on the web (although it recently got overtaken by Facebook). Just because it's no longer the hip new thing amongst nerds doesn't mean it's in decline.

One thing I've noticed with Wikipedia is that it's normally very easy to spot inaccurate or biased information, because the people writing it are so apoplectically enthused by their desire to set the record straight on a particular topic that they're barely capable of writing coherent English, instead producing emotional first-person tirades that stick out like a sore thumb.

[Sharessa]

Jonathan said:

One thing I've noticed with Wikipedia is that it's normally very easy to spot inaccurate or biased information, because the people writing it are so apoplectically enthused by their desire to set the record straight on a particular topic that they're barely capable of writing coherent English, instead producing emotional first-person tirades that stick out like a sore thumb.

The page being locked is always a good warning sign, too. Though usually the non-retards have won over on those.

[Csonicgo]

Meh, Maybe I shouldn't be so broad in painting my strokes. Wikipedia in itself isn't so bad. Hell, I use it all the time. It's some of the experiences I've had in the community that piss me off. I guess I'll go back to the wiki now. be back in 48 hours.



*click*
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AAAUGH!

[Abyssalstudios1]

WildWeasel said:

What pisses me off is, in any article about a video game, book, or movie, when a commonly acknowledged fact (like, say, Campbell in MGS2 being an AI) is labeled "citation needed" when that information is right there in the fucking game/book/movie. If I could find any present examples, I'd link them here.

I believe (not sure) that you can site page numbers as valid citations.

So now you've instilled in me the desire to site a MM:SS from a movie.