The Problem with Wikipedia - Oct. 20, 2007 (J.P.'s Random Ramblings)

[TMC]

http://www.the506.com/ramblings/20071020.html

The problem with Wikipedia

There are two cornerstones of the user-generated content revolution on the Internet: Wikipedia and YouTube. And just like YouTube is under siege from copyright holders who wouldn't recognize good publicity if it bit them in the behind, Wikipedia is under siege from within its own site.

I used to be a Wikipedian. I joined really early - summer of 2002. Back then, the article about my hometown (a capital city of 50,000 people) was just a few lines, and the larger city to the south didn't even have one. I fleshed them both out the first night I joined. I spent a lot of time in 2002 and 2003 writing articles about various cities all across Canada, mostly using data from Statistics Canada and the websites of the city government, the chamber of commerce, and so on. I hoped they would be later expanded by local residents who knew more about their hometowns than I did; and for the most part that's happened. And I got a lot of credit for it.

A lot of improvements took place over the years - a better user interface, more users contributing better articles. This in turn required more administrators. I never became one, I never was approached to become one, I never really even wanted to be one. I wish I did now.

Back when I was on Wikipedia, having administrative privileges was compared to having a mop. All you did was clean up messes, not much more. I'm not sure what exactly happened to change that, but it did and the website spiraled out of control. I think I first noticed it in early 2006.

All of a sudden, I saw admins foaming at the mouth trying not to add information, but remove it. The size of the Articles for Deletion page ballooned. It wasn't just used to delete garage bands or weird lists like "All Movies with 3 E's in their name", but perfectly legitimate, sourced, factual information. Why? It was "not notable". How does something become notable? There's a lot of criteria out there, but it all comes down to subjectivity. And if the admin doesn't have a damned clue about the subject matter, all the better!

Traffic to the Articles for Deletion page became enough that the "proposed deletion" (or "prod") process started - where an admin slaps a tag on a page saying we are going to delete this article within 5 days unless you provide a good reason why we shouldn't. No reason is ever good enough. ("You can't get this info presented this way anywhere else!" "So?"..."This was featured in the New York Times!" "Yeah, but on page D7"..."she was on a nationally broadcast TV show!" "yes, but in Belgium".) I'd love to know how many person-hours of work have just fallen by the wayside because some people became such short-sighted.

I got the sense that some admins actually took joy in deleting other people's work. All of a sudden, the invitation to "write anything you want about anything" became hollow. And nobody high up within Wikipedia seemed to care.

The final straw for me was the great image purge of fall 2006, which, as far as I can tell, was spurred by a "re-interpretation" by some admins of Wikipedia's picture/image policies. Over the course of a few weeks, tens of thousands of images - politicians, entertainers, anything - were removed under the idea that a "free alternative" either was available or could, at some point in the future, be made available. So instead of good-quality publicity photos of pretty much everyone and everything you could think of, we had blurry photos of maybe 10-20% of them that just happened to be taken by a Wikipedian. The page about this project was called "Wikipedia:Fair use", which was abbreviated to "WP:FU". Somehow that seemed appropriate.

In November 2006, I left Wikipedia for good. Nobody even bothered to give me a farewell message or to ask me to come back.

I checked my user page a couple months ago to see what other crap others have had to say about me. I saw a notification that the Belleville, Ontario article; on a city of about 50,000 people, and that I first wrote back in 2003; was about to be deleted. It was saved, but the fact that it was even considered just speaks volumes about the direction that Wikipedia is taking.

I wouldn't dare join Wikipedia now. The first article that I'd write wouldn't last 2 days.

And although it's the biggest problem, deletionism isn't close to being the only one with Wikipedia. When I was a Wikipedian, even if I knew a lot about the subject at hand, I tried to "dumb it down", or at least write at a level that someone who didn't have a clue about the subject could at least understand it. I'm in the minority there. Scientific articles are especially bad for this. Unless you have a degree in math, try reading this.

My hope is that as the user-generated content revolution marches on, someone will come up with a mainstream alternative to Wikipedia, one where everyone is welcomed to write whatever they want, and if it's not up to snuff, it gets improved instead of removed. Is that too much to ask?

(c)2007 J.P. Kirby. All rights reserved.

[MrCleveland]

Be an Uncyclopedian.

I'm part of that site and I made a few good Uncyclopedia Pages.

PS-Uncyclopedia is part of Wiki as well.

[MickeyMac]

Wikipedia is starting to get a little bit better, but still I dont think they are 100% reliable. For instance a majority of their information about music, and music artists come from the allmusic.com page.

[Chelsea]

We actually discussed this in a class recently. Wikipedia, generally, is a great source for something you're mildly curious about but aren't really interested in doing serious research on. It's also a great starting place *for* serious research, as a well-sourced Wikipedia article can lead you in the direction of far more legitimate sources.

It should never be your *only* source for anything - though really if you ask me you shouldn't consider just a single source on ANY subject.

[TMC]

I hate to bump old posts, but here's what Sir Kirby had to say on his 506.com site regarding my actions:

Quote from reganBuffalo on 08/06/09 at 20:10:49:
Quote from onairb2 on 08/06/09 at 19:45:58:
Well, some of wikipedia should be taken with a grain of salt, but that last one could have been true...see the threads about the late '70s Monday night syndicated 'NHL Network' telecasts. It's possible (though not likely) that hockey could have aired on that station.

No. I checked it out.

And 90% of that article was ripped off from my research, posted on the506. Most of the rest is dubious. I watched those games then, and would have remembered if Tom Brookshier was one of the commentators, as that wikipedia entry said.


I have gone into that article and removed pretty much everything but the first few paragraphs. It is the506.com policy that nothing from this site can be used on wikipedia.

Oh, he also thinks that I'm a plagarizing troll and proceeded to banish me from his site for daring to challenge him on Wikipedia! He also officially instituted the "no reposting of lists on other sites" rule.

[TMC]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kirjtc2

I have decided to return to Wikipedia, as User:Fiveohsixer; but to work on articles relating to area highways, elections and geography only...since, honestly, most of them still need a lot of work. Please note that the ban on the506.com info still applies to historical sports broadcasting lists posted on the message board.

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Hello....I'm User:Kirjtc2, reborn on wiki...for now at least. I'm going to strictly work on highway, election and local geography articles for now.

Please note that I still do not allow information posted on the the506.com message board to be posted here, simply because of accuracy issues. All lists are a work in progress and the most reliable information will always be posted there.