Talk:Criticism of Wikipedia

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[edit] VFD Nominations

[edit] Archives

Archive 1

Contents

[edit] Difficulty of Editing

It is difficult for users to know what changes have been recently added to articles, or how long the article has been in its current state. This makes the examination/discovery of subtle changes and deletions more difficult to detect.

Some have proposed highlighting recent changes a different color to alert readers that the information is new and as such has not had much time to be reviewed/corrected by the community. On Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) (see Wikipedia talk:Provenance), Pseudo Socrates made a proposal to provide temporal provenance by placing a Temporal Provenance button on each article that would produce a dynamic page that was a version of the current article modified as follows: Each interval of text would be colored according the following algorithm: Text of vintage less than 24 hours would be colored red, vintage more than 24 hours but less than one week would be colored green, remaining text would remain black.

18-November-2006: Coloring one-week text green sounds like a good idea, and could help find goofs after multiple quick revisions, but coloring "2-week text" might be better: for Hurricane Katrina, the landfall time had been reset/botched for 11 days before I spotted it, and I found vandalism to "Semmelweis" mothers after 10 days. For now, we can view a wide-difference under the "history" tab, by checking the selection-dots of 2 revisions about 2-weeks (or 3) apart, and then look for issues in the wide-difference results. It is too tedious to compare each revision to the previous, one by one. However, two-week text in green would be great to alert readers to "new growth" being, still green, in the article. -Wikid77 20:14, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] No Original research

It seems there are a number of refutations to criticism that are "Original Research." One Example "Waldman gave this interview on October 26, 2004. By March 28, 2005, without counting subarticles, the Chinese art article had become three times as large as the article on Hurricane Frances, while the article on Tony Blair was 50% larger than the article on Coronation Street. Proponents of Wikipedia point to such statistics to show that systemic bias will diminish over time. Opponents point out that these articles drew attention from the Wikipedia community because they were specifically mentioned by Hoiberg, and this increase in size was not universal." This violates WP:NOR and needs to be deleted or sourced. This isn't the only one. When will this page be unlocked? --Tbeatty 06:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unintended consequences criticism

Needs to be added: Siegnethaler said: "I'm glad this aspect of it is over," But he was also concerned that "every biography on Wikipedia is going to be hit by this stuff — think what they'd do to Tom DeLay and Hillary Clinton, to mention two. My fear is that we're going to get government regulation of the Internet as a result." [1] --Tbeatty 06:14, 9 April 2006 (UTC)




I noticed that

Here's another article. Isn't it nice. [2]

JHJPDJKDKHI! 17:31, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Review

Does anyone know what happened to the wikipedia review link? It looks like there was some revert wars and such but AFAIK our policy does not cover removing what seems to be a fairly valuable notable (albiet notorious) link? Just another star in the night T | @ | C 21:43, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

(1) Check the archive. It's a thoroughly beaten dead horse. (2) It's not notable. They seem to think that are (and have been creating new accounts to insert the link, in violation of previous bans/blocks), but that does not make them so. Raul654 21:48, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - I was just wondering :). Just another star in the night T | @ | C 21:50, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Notability is not required for external links. Only relevancy and quality. It's obviously relevant, so now it's a quality argument - but don't trot out "notability" please. --Golbez 01:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

It fails a test for inclusion using any measure. It's a forum for disgrunteled ex-users to vent their ideas about how about how the OMG ABUSIVE ADMINS conspired to kick them out, not to mention previously mentioned low-point discussions about Snowspinner's teeth. 'Nuff said. Raul654 01:05, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Fine, I'm not saying it has to be there - I'm trying to encourage you to give a better reason than "notability", which doesn't apply, so that succeeded. --Golbez 01:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Raul654, your views are nothing to do with being named as one of the abusive admins would it? =]—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.155.95.163 (talk • contribs) 14:55, 5 May 2006.

AFAIK, the 'teeth' discussion was on another forum, at proboards.com -- there has never been any such discussion on wikipediareview.com; and on proboards, that discussion took place in an off-topic forum which could arguably be considered to be part of a different forum. Furthermore, the fact that the forum is run by disgruntled ex-users does not necessarily make it invalid, anymore than a group of army veterans criticizing the army would be invalidated -- in addition, Blu Aardvark became an ex-user after he joined the forum, and arguably because he joined the forum. Of course, as Golbez has noted, the forum is relevant, and its 'notability' is not relevant. So, with your top complaints being thus refuted, Raul, I think you have to consider your POV in this issue, the manner in which you have repeatedly violated the rules regarding admin behavior, and the fact that the only thing which has been "beat to a dead horse" is your tendency to misrepresent the facts and censor critics. Whisperknot

At the very least, wikipediareview.com has an RSS feed of news sources about Wikipedia, which thus makes it a useful site for anyone interested in criticism of Wikipedia. Whisperknot

The original and the new forums are run by most of the same people, and at least two of the people who are still moderators/admins on the original one are also staff on the new one. Also, the supposed physical descriptions of Wikipedians didn't take place in any sub-forum. The posts were eventually moved to one, but they were on the main board for quite some time. I don't see how Raul is violating any rules. He's acting as an admin to stop the spamming of a link to a non-notable website maintained by a very small number of posters, and containing a lot of arguably defamatory material. SlimVirgin (talk) 13:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
NOTE Whisperknot (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log)'s only contributions are to his userspace and this talk page. Yet another Wikipedia Review sock.
Wikipedia Review doesn't meet the tests of relevancy and quality when they don't even live up to their name. They ban users who don't toe their party line. They preach about freedom of speech but don't allow it on their own site. They bemoan censorship on Wikipedia and in the same breath suggest that it somehow illegally makes pornographic material available to minors. Oh and about the teeth disscussion? Does post on David Gerhard's pictures make the site more relevant? Before you start putting words in Golbez's mouth, consider this eloquent quote:
"This [Wikipedia Review] is a forum for people who were banned from Wikipeida and want to complain about it. There is no review here, just empty complaints from people who...probably deserved to be banned considering how disconnected they are from reality and civil discussion." -Golbez on Wikipedia Review (post was deleted by Selina)
I was banned from the site for having that quote in my signature. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 13:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I do enjoy that quote. The thing is, I just wanted to make sure the proper process was followed on this link, as not to give them any further ammunition. I stand by my quote, and had left WikipediaReview until Internodeuser/Zordrac made a comment so mindblowingly stupid about David Gerard that I had come out of retirement. Now I'm trying to slowly wean myself again. I do not have any interest in engaging in or defending the multiple attacks on the personal aspects of some admins, and I do not enter those threads (except of course in the David Gerard example). I keep wanting to think WikipediaReview has potential, and they keep stealing it back away. --Golbez 15:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I would like to clarify this claim. Malber was not banned for having that quote in his signature - in fact, I specifically stated on numerous occasions that I considered that quote to be acceptable. Even when I removed other objectional things from his signature, that qoute remained. Malber was banned for changing his avatar to a picture of a penis. Although WR has few official "rules", I believe that we had been very clear on that. --72.160.68.9 22:28, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Hello Blu Aardvark. Are you referring to the picture of the Prince Albert piercing from Wikipedia that you liked to put on my userpage? Or how about the "Yep, I'm gay!" navy picture that Selina has replaced as my avatar without my ability to alter it? Yep, definately a hotbed of intellectual, constructive criticism. :-\ -- Malber (talk • contribs) 00:33, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Malber's guess was correct. I spotted a half-dozen Lir socks this morning, including Whisperknot. As such, Lir is about to get the same LARTing previously used on Wonderfool. Raul654 14:32, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia Review is notable to this article. It's only natural for the banned/outcasted/expats of a community as large as this to gather someplace. It's certainly more notable than some of the solo rants/crusades getting inked/linked here, and it's entirely misleading for a section like Criticism_of_Wikipedia#Abuse_of_power to mention only users who have "quit" and not those who've been "banned". heqs 00:54, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Having reviewed this discussion, and having seen what goes on at that site, may I suggest that this article is not entitled "Abuse of Wikipedia administrators" but is in fact entitled "Criticism of Wikipedia". The site should not be added as an external link on this article, this would be insulting to true critics of Wikipedia. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:49, 19 April 2006 (UTC)


The link should be added. There is no requirement of notability for external links, only relavancy, and as one of the major bastions of criticism against Wikipedia it should be included in the article. This is [b]not[/b] linkspam, this is a relevant external link in a article, and whatever has been done with the link outside of this article (spamming, vandalism, etc) does not change that fact. Additionally, many active members of Wikipedia post, reply, and discuss on Wikipedia Review (admittedly, myself included, amongst many others). Additionally, compared to some of the other links we have in the article, this surely belongs. --Avillia 17:25, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Are you the same User:Avillia that just reverted the link for being non-notable? --Coroebus 08:38, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


This website appears to be a focus for banned wikipedia users, I would have thought that a link to it would provide a valuable source for criticism of wikipedia from those on the receiving end of its perceived failings. Also, if they're particularly keen on seeing a link posted, it seems like shooting yourself in the foot to try and censor it. It does seem to have a lot of discussion of individual wikipedia editors and administrators, but we do have a section on abuse of power and censorship, so that would be pretty relevant - I know it isn't nice seeing yourself slagged off by others, but that'll be there whether we link or not. I also can't see the notability argument being relevant, and it seems lots of people that want to keep the link off the page seem to keep track of what is going on there, supporting claims that it really is a relevant nexus for criticisms (of a very particular kind) of wikipedia --Coroebus 19:24, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Searching through wikipedia I see that this site gets namechecked constantly, seems like there is some kind of conflict going on between its members and a number of wikipedia editors (many of whom are active here to keep it from being listed) which makes it perfectly notable for this section, I'm minded to put in a hyperlink or at least a reference to the site --Coroebus 14:03, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please Unlock

Do we really have to lock the whole page over a dispute concerning a link to an external site? Let 3RR and consensus decide the link. Locking the whole page over a link to a super-low traffic site smells more like a desire to censor than a legitimate concern about an inappropriate link. Please unlock the article and work out the external link issue separately. --Tbeatty 15:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

So far as I can tell, the consensus is not to include the link, and the problem with letting 3RR decide is that the WR banned users are creating sockpuppets to revert, and so page protection becomes necessary. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
3RR only works when there aren't sockpuppets at play. The moment that happens, a protect is the only option, until things die down. The protection is not because of a 3RR violation, it is because an edit war was occurring. I don't think semiproect would work - they seem to be using sleeper accounts. (look at Pigfodder's contributions) --Golbez 16:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't disagree. It just seems silly that a single external link is so "contentious" that the whole page is locked. Wouldn't it be better to let these "sleeper accounts" surface so their IP's can be banned and the sock puppets exposed? It seems that it would be worthwhile to expose them over an external link as opposed to false information or vandalism. And wasn't this one sockpuppet that could easily be dealt with? Please unlock it and deal with the sockpuppets as sockpuppets are dealt with. There are plenty of articles that are hit with sockpuppets that aren't completely locked.--Tbeatty 16:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
There are a number of technical problems with your suggestion, Tbeatty, which I won't elaborate on in case the socks don't know them all, but page protection was the best, if not the only, solution. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:42, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
What's technical about unlocking a page and making it semi-protect? Just warn anyone who puts in the link faces permanent IP and user banning. --Tbeatty 00:27, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
Except for a handful of special cases, permanently banning IPs is about the worst thing you can do. IPs tend to be shared and easily redistributed. In most cases, it is trivial for a banned user to be re-assigned a new one; anyone unfortunate enough to get that IP afterwards would be unable to edit wikipedia. Raul654 00:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
It's handled for over a million other pages without needing complete lockout. Please unlock. Jimbo's page explains that security at the expense of "you can edit this page right now" is not an acceptable solution. --Tbeatty 04:09, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Why was this protected again after only two reverts? We can't keep this protected forever. Just another star in the night T | @ | C 17:44, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

  • I have reduced the protection level to semi-protection in case there are lingering sockpuppets. Other admins should feel free to completely unprotect if desired. -- Beland 20:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks--Tbeatty 20:03, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Date of Larry King Vandalism

Is there a source or at least a date associated with the flatulence-related vandalism of the Larry King article? I looked through the history and didn't find anything (I imagine it was deleted). Does anyone know the date this occurred?--Ejconard 21:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NOR

I pulled stuff that is unsourced and appears to be Original Research.

  • While it has long been one of Jimmy Wales' goals to distribute Wikipedia in the poor nations of the world, the current Wikipedia would give them a product that does an inadequate job of covering their regions. Below is a comparison between how many times Canada and Nigeria are mentioned in four encyclopedias. The second column is the ratio of mentions of Belgium to mentions of Rwanda.
Canada:
Nigeria		 Belgium:
Rwanda		 Encyclopedia
27:1 11:1 Wikipedia
19:1 4:1 Encarta
12:1 4:1 Columbia
5:1 4:1 Britannica


  • Waldman gave this interview on October 26, 2004. By March 28, 2005, without counting subarticles, the Chinese art article had become three times as large as the article on Hurricane Frances, while the article on Tony Blair was 50% larger than the article on Coronation Street. Proponents of Wikipedia point to such statistics to show that systemic bias will diminish over time. Opponents point out that these articles drew attention from the Wikipedia community because they were specifically mentioned by Hoiberg, and this increase in size was not universal.
I think this is fair enough. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:53, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

If mailing lists, web forums, etc. are legitimate sources of information, then someone could "fix" this just by posting the arguments to some forum or mailing list.

Of course, if they are not legitimate sources of information, then we have to get rid of references like these:

"Others have suggested that while Wikipedia may not be an encyclopedia, this is not such a bad thing. A discussion on MeatballWiki on the topic contains the following introduction:"

"Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade noted on his online webcomic that..."

"Former editor-in-chief of Nupedia, Larry Sanger, stated in an opinion piece in Kuro5hin that..."

Ken Arromdee 14:28, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Citation needed for weasel word sections

The following sections are filled with weasel terms and are in need of citation:

  • Anonymous editing
  • Copyright issues
  • All of Criticism of the community

I suggest that they either be cited or deleted. Criticism of the community is very suspect because this is difficult to cite and is very self referential. It wouldn't stand on its own as a notable phenomenon. This should not be seen as an opening for a certian obvious troll site for disgruntled banned users because they don't meet the criteria of a reputable publication.

In general, I think this article has become bloated. It's already larger than the main article on Wikipedia. Do the sources for Criticism of Wikipedia indicate that it is such a widespread phenomenon that it warrants an article of this magnitude? -- Malber (talk • contribs) 17:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Wikipedia Review

Is it my imagination, or did Talk:Wikipedia Review just get nuked? While WR does not, at this time, merit an article of its own (it's still pretty non-notable, even if Daniel Brandt and Andrew Orlowski occasionally show up and post there), it's talk page wasn't hurting anything.

--EngineerScotty 23:52, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you but as I was involved in the active conversation that the deleter was clearly trying to disrupt, I feel it would be inappropriate if I did the undeletion and would prefer if someone else did it. Pcb21 Pete 00:04, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
There's nothing of any use or interest on it, and lots of posts from at least one banned user. I can't see the point in restoring it. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] comic

Enlarge


[edit] Merge from Wikitruth.info

Sounds like a dandy idea to me. Wikitruth.info isn't any more predominate than other critical sites, in fact, it's much less so than a lot of the national news. When we think about the prohibition on self reference it this case, the question should be "would another similar but unrelated online encyclopedia say these words?". I can certainly see another encyclopedia having an article on Wikipedia which was large enough to split the criticism out, but I just can't see Wikitruth having it's own article in such an encyclopedia, unless their bar for notability was much lower than ours. I also believe that it would be unlikely that a non-wikipedia-editing reader would care to read about wikitruth without reading about the other criticism. --Gmaxwell 15:00, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

WCityMike wanted to setup a poll [3], but I think thats premature. Lets discuss a little first. --Gmaxwell 15:06, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Gotta ask you, Gmaxwell, since when is it cool on Wikipedia to remove people's contributions on a talk page, even if you disagree with their procedure? — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 15:13, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Material restored and poll proceeding. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 16:13, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
The poll is completely inapproiate from multiple angles. We need to discuss not poll. No decisions on wikipedia are made via pure polling. Plus, everyone the poll is voting keep.... Well, duh, it's not proposed that we delete it, we're proposing to merge it. --Gmaxwell 17:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
According to WP:DR, "Note that informal straw polls can be held at any time if there are enough participants in the discussion". While deletion of other people's comments from the talk page except for the purposes of archiving or when severe personal attacks are present is usually considered vandalism. -- noosphere 22:37, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

2 of the most bad editors on whole Wikipedia want Wikitruth deleted:

Conflict of interest with gmaxwell, has personal interest vested in removal of WIKITRUTH:
 www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Quotes#Our_Reviews - see "ladyboy" part —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Seoul Jjang (talk • contribs) .

As far as I know I've never been mentioned on that site. --Gmaxwell 17:35, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
You have. Click the above link.--Nick Dillinger 17:38, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Ha! Indeed. In any case, it's completely irrelevant. --Gmaxwell 17:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, the fact that it's not clickable is a story in and of itself, ain't it? — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 17:46, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
That fact certainly kept me from following the "link". -lethe talk + 22:38, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] April/May 2006 Straw Poll Re: Merge to 'Criticism of Wikipedia'

(Restoration of material deleted by Gmaxwell. Gmaxwell, please do not remove people's contributions to talk pages, even if you disagree on how procedure should be carried out.)

We're not holding a vote right now. --Gmaxwell 21:20, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

During the AfD I'd originally voted to merge, as there was far too little information in this article to merit its own article. However, even before the AfD was over it expanded in quality and size, and I decided to change my vote to Keep. Now the article is better still. It definitely deserves to stay. Also, if you look at the AfD debate, you'll see that only about 1/4 of the editors wanted it merged, 1/4 deleted, and 1/2 wanted it kept, iirc. -- noosphere 15:04, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

We're not suggesting it be deleted right now, we're trying to discuss merging it with Criticism of Wikipedia. --Gmaxwell 21:20, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

the website does follow the spirit of inclusion of content into Wikipedia. The only reason a large page with actual interest among user is under deletion/merge considerations is because of the subject.--Nick Dillinger 17:44, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

We normally add such content into the article on the site, in this case it would be Criticism of Wikipedia because the wikipedia article has become big enough to split. How would treating this like we'd treat any other such site be a sign of bias? It seems to me that the opposite would be true. --Gmaxwell 18:18, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it shouldn't be merged, as it is a decent article in its own right now. As a disclaimer I worked on the article quite a bit while it was on AfD and a little afterwards. Just another star in the night T | @ | C 15:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Oppose merge, per another star/RN and Gmaxwell. Ombudsman 03:02, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Let's just delete it. That'll show those boys who say we censor stuff that doesn't reflect well on us! Grace Note 07:13, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Strongly opposing merge. Criticism of Wikipedia is already long enough as is, and wikitruth.info is more than significant enough in and of itself (the breach of security, the public accusations from Jimbo that it's a "hoax", the indications of serious dissent within the ranks of admins, the intensely unflattering personal attacks on admins and censorious users) that it deserves its own separate article. As a site which is apparently so very dangerous to the foundation that the very act of linking to it could merit blocking, it moves far beyond "just another criticism."Captainktainer 10:09, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

As above. Don't merge. ShaunES 04:58, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Strong oppose to merging. Wikitruth is beyond criticism of Wikipedia. It should be kept separate so that legitimate and sourced criticism about wikiepdia (and not external blogs about wikipedia) can be maintained. This page should be dedicated to the documented criticism of wikipedia by reliable sources, not about the goings-on of a website. --Tbeatty 05:24, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Oppose to merging. I think here we are looking at a situation regarding level of difficulty. Wikitruth focuses heavily on the internal politics of administrators of wikipedia: conflicts between admins and the office, conflicts between admins on policy, abuses by admins, conflicts regarding software writers and admins, details regarding how administrators do things (command level details). The site assumes a knowledgeable editor to be understandable at all. The criticisms article conversely focuses on users of wikipedia with a light focus on editor's issues. They really are two different topics. As an analogy criticisms of congress by lobbyists might be about things like how badly the bathrooms are laid out, the poor organization of the offices on the 3rd,4th and 5th floor; problems with voice mail forwarding system.... That isn't what your average American would think of when they talk about "criticisms of congress". jbolden1517Talk 18:26, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fix incorrect link when page is unlocked

The Penny Arcade link should be Penny Arcade--BigCow 20:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

As this is just fixing a disambig link, I will do so. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 21:50, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anonymous editing

Is the criticism of anonymous editing limited to IPs, or to users with usernames (such as myself) that are not their own legal name? I was curious on this point and found: "so-called 'anon' votes, as if Wikipedia usernames were less 'anon' than IP numbers" http://www.aetherometry.com/antiwikipedia/Section_III_5.html - although that is a rather odd-looking site, and a blog post: "Thus it's a little misleading to call unregistered contributors "anonymous," since registered usernames actually provide greater anonymity both for mischief and for good." http://slashdot.org/articles/05/12/05/2010247.shtml There's an article that touches upon WP and anonymity here http://www.alistapart.com/articles/identitymatters but that is in reference to IP editing. Шизомби 17:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Pseudonymity is not as much of an issue as anonymity; anonymity is a more intense problem, because when someone edits from an IP address or a throw-away account there is no way to tie together that person's edits. That is, not only can you not verify who they are in the real world, but cannot tell whether they are a persistent vandal, a frequent good contributor, etc. - Jmabel | Talk 23:47, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of "American" English

Perhaps we should also discuss how the American way of doing things is insidiously pushed on Wikipedia in respect of the forced use of "American" English. e.g. total denial of the hyphen (cooperation instead of co-operation is a classic example), no "u" in favour,colour etc, advise instead of advice. Why should the rest of the English speaking world have this rammed down their throats? Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral, not a vehicle for Americans to force their culture onto others.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.107.122.20 (talk • contribs) 09:56, 5 May 2006.

Have you visited humour recently? I don't think this is a frequently voiced criticism -- remember, this page isn't for us to journal our beefs with Wikipedia, but to document the major criticisms that have been published. — Matt Crypto 11:28, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
How is using British spelling any more neutral than using American spelling? -- noosphere 20:20, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your childish comment, thought you were a fan of no personal attacks? Ahh, the hypocrasy of the academic is indeed alive and well. A little confused as what "journal our beefs" means? Clarification please.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.107.127.70 (talk • contribs) 12:00, 5 May 2006.

What personal attacks? See humour. But thanks for calling me a hypocrite. Next! — Matt Crypto 13:03, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Personal attack, as in lecturing the underclass in how to behave with - "this page isn't for us to journal our beefs" . What gives you the devine right to decide how this page is used?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.107.119.57 (talk • contribs) 13:20, 5 May 2006.

By "journaling your beefs", Matt meant listing things about wikipedia that you personally don't like. This article is only for well-documented (i.e. published) criticisms. Furthermore, this talk page is specifically for discussion about how to make this article (Criticism of Wikipedia) better. It's not a place to lodge new complaints. For your personal complaints, visit Wikipedia:General complaints. There, you can complain about our predilection for American English. By the way, we do have a policy about national varieties of English, see WP:MoS#National_varieties_of_English. We try not to be too American-centric, but we're only as good as our volunteers. Maybe you can help? -lethe talk + 13:28, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I have tried in vain on many an occasion but the wikipedia guardians always revert to the previous version.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.107.119.57 (talk • contribs) 13:56, 5 May 2006.

Wouldn't it be just as much "forcing things down people's throats" if American contributors were compelled to use all those quaint British spellings with superfluous extra letters and stuff? *Dan T.* 13:34, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Was wondering when someone would trot out that tired old chestnut. The point I am making is that people visiting this site (who speak English as a second language) are being given the impression that "American English" is the accepted way of doing things English wise. Gross hypocrasy on the part of a site that advocates neutrality.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.107.119.57 (talk • contribs) 13:56, 5 May 2006.

Righty, this looks like trolling to me; I suggest we ignore. — Matt Crypto 14:02, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
How is it that administrators like Matt ("You will assimilate" "resistance if futile")routinely get away with personal attacks, accusing people of trolling for advancing reasonable concerns? A valid criticism shared by many, whose documents I would cite if I were inclined to donate more than a comment to this project, is not so much that Wikipedia doesn't provide nationally appropriate language for diverse dialects, but that the group process after several years has still failed to resolve these critiques, leading to inevitable conflict between users in the absence of policy. C right thru 19:14, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
Based on these comments there is no reason to call 'troll'. Could be an upset person who's had legitimate edits reverted just because they are using an ip (this is pointless and happens far too often on WP lately). heqs 07:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Dear user: in addition to WP:MoS#National varieties of English, you may also be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. heqs 07:49, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I hate to say it, but I find the dismissive replies from established users here almost as offensive as the supposed trolling remarks. Anonymous user raises valid complaint (albeit in the wrong place and in an inflammatory way), and is greeted with derision. I think if you don't feel like responding in good faith, then just don't hit the edit button at all. -lethe talk + 07:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
When people start using words like "childish" and "hypocrite", that typically gets people's backs up, oddly enough. — Matt Crypto 08:31, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Sure, I understand. Like I said, anon was inflammatory. There's always the high road option, though. -lethe talk + 09:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough, point taken. Will try to be less tetchy! — Matt Crypto

Perhaps we should have uk.wikipedia.org, ca.wikipedia.org, us.wikipedia.org, au.wikipedia.org, nz.wikipdia.org, ie.wikipedia.org, and any others I forgot... so that users who desire a particular dialect of the English language can browse Wikipedia in peace, secure in the knowledge that they will never encounter a superfluous or missing, depending on your POV, letter u during their browsing experience. Seriuosly, (and in full observation that this isn't really the correct place to discuss this), Wikipedia policies concerning regional dialects of English are well-established; and no, they don't permit or encourage arbitrary conversion of pages from one dialect of English to another, without a good reason (it would be awkward, for instance, were the page on Manchester United to be written in anything but a UK dialect). It probably happens that US-based editors outnumber our UK-based counterparts; and often times the dialect used by the initial editor of a page becomes the dialect used throughout the page's existence. If you have a better suggestion than that, I'm all ears. --EngineerScotty 19:11, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

  • uk.wikipedia.org, ca.wikipedia.org: speaking of narrow perspectives, these would actually be Ukrainian and Catalan, respectively. - Jmabel | Talk 23:53, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree, after all the Chinese Wikipedia has broken out into Min Nan and Cantonese apart from Mandarin now, so there is no reason why the English one shouldn't. To be honest I'm not a big fan of American English either, so I second the motion! 219.95.161.233 13:06, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Respectfully disagree wholeheartedly. Churchill's "divided by a common language" should not be taken so literally as to divide up the English wikipedia. WP:MoS#National_varieties_of_English is an excellent and fair treatment.
The Americans', Aussies, Canadians', Indians', and the UKs' various "standard" forms are not so unintelligible to each other that they deserve segregation. The Story of English. ISBN 0142002313. is an excellent study of these and treats them all with deserved respect. Frankly "Standard American" and "Standard Canadian", outside of minor spelling and punctuation, have far more in common than American New England, Californian and Southern have. Then there's Black American and Tex-Mex. I have a friend, a recent immigrant from Ethiopia, who finds Black American almost opaque, yet his British English is serving him just fine elsewhere.
The comparison with Cantonese/Mandarin is mis-placed. There is serious debate as to whether or not these are in fact different, if related, languages. Nobody seriously considers American English to be a different language from the Commonwealth varieties.
I agree with EngineerScotty that the usage should be natural to the subject. That's covered in WP:MoS#National_varieties_of_English.
I've found the differences enlightening. I think the American use of quotation marks ridiculous now that I've tried out the English usage. And don't ask me why I have to think about spelling it c-o-l-o-r and c-e-n-t-e-r when colour and centre fly from my fingertips. The difference can also be humorous: trunk/boot, boot/rubber, rubber/condom. <chuckle> MARussellPESE 14:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV slant.

Can we break off statements like "Also, to stop the continuous reverting of pages, Jimmy Wales introduced a "three revert rule", whereby those users who revert an article more than three times in a 24 hour period are blocked for 24 hours." and "Wikipedia's policy is to fairly represent all sides of a dispute by not making articles state, imply, or insinuate that only one side is correct" into a section called "Wikipedia's Reply to Criticism", or, better yet, just shift it completely to WP:RCO? Reading the article fully for the first time it sounds a lot like Wikipedia is trying to defend itself or negate negative arguments rather than show the criticism it generates. (Oh, hey, look at the irony of the quotes I picked.)--Avillia 17:36, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. WP:NPOV says, "Even when a topic is presented in terms of facts rather than opinion, an article can still radiate an implied stance through either selection of which facts to present, or more subtly their organization — for instance, refuting opposing views as one goes along makes them look a lot worse than collecting them in an opinions-of-opponents section." -- noosphere 20:22, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
I also agree. This isn't a forum for bickering pro-wikipedians versus anti-wikipedians. This is an article about the criticisms of wikipedia's failings. And wikipedia does has its limitations, as we've learned the hard way. -lethe talk + 21:25, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Avilla you are removing most of the citing info also, a few parts should be removed of course, especially the one sentence in the lead but others including info on the Nature study should stay. Lets discuss what sections would be removed and what not. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 00:37, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Alright. Re-add what's in contest, just been getting a lot of browbeating before I even -made- the removals. --Avillia 00:38, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I removed the obvious though Jaranda wat's sup 00:46, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed expert editors guideline

While this page isn't normally the place to address policy proposals; this one is relevant. A new proposed guideline, Wikipedia:Expert editors, is in the works; and further comment and suggestions are now being sought in advance of a vote to adopt. If you have comments, questions, or suggestions, feel free to contribute at Wikipedia talk:Expert editors. --EngineerScotty 21:17, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Guarding the Status Quo

I wrote this in wikipedia talk:Why Wikipedia is not so great#Why NPOV is not so great, but I think it applies here too. Tell me what you think:

"Another point [regarding to why the NPOV, and Wikipedia along with it, is no so great]: It favors well established and widely accepted ideas over ideas held by minorities. This is the kind of thinking that helps the status quo, strenghten those who are in power and harms possibilities of social and economical change.

Example: Some centuries ago most people thought the Earth was plane. According to the idea of NPOV, in those times saying that the earth isn't plane would have been dismissed as a marginal and not notable idea, as it actually happened at the beggining. That, of course, served those in power: the church. It slowered the spread of ideas contraries to those approved by the church, ideas that later on undermined its authority.

This is just an example among thousens I could give. I'm not sure I'm allowed to post this directly in the page couse Wikipedia is not a place tu publish original thought (another problematic point BTW), and I happened to have thought this by myself. Of course, this is not wholly original, it's a pretty obvious consequence of marxist thought and neo-marxist criticism as applyed in many other fields, and it wouldn't surprise me to find a similar argument somewhere else. The marxist idea that the established way of thought (part of the superstructure) is meant, first of all, to justifie the established relations of power (and above all the production relations, the infrastracture) is widely explored in literary, media and cultural studies. Sorry for my english."

--Rataube 09:58, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Flat Earth is a nonexample, as that article will explain. Scholars (and the Church) have known that the Earth is spherical since early antiquity. The idea that before modern times people believed in a flat Earth is a myth, part of a range of modern backlash against medieval thought. There were (and are today) particular people who have held the belief in a flat Earth, but now and throughout history, the educated majority has believed in a spherical Earth. Therefore, following mainstream thought is correct in this instance. Your thesis that "well establish ideas" are somehow wrong and harmful is dubious. But you'd be much better off citing belief in meteorites as an example; for a few decades, the bulk of scientific opinion refuted the existence of meteorites, even after direct evidence was observed. Didn't last too long though. -lethe talk + 10:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Change the example if you like, use the meteorites thing or whatever. The example is just an illustration of the idea. Pardoxically, I had to choose a widely accepted idea as the examplification, for the sake of simplicity. Besides, I am not saying that mainstream thought is harmful in itself, the harmful thing is to mark any thought as legitimate on the grounds it belongs to the mainstream. The automatical bias in favor of mainstream thought is indeed harmful, and that´s what the NPOV does.--Rataube 22:26, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
I would say this criticism is a reasonable "theoretical objection". That is, if someone described Wikipedia's NPOV policy to me and I didn't know anything about the content actually on Wikipedia, I would definitely come up with that potential problem. However in practice it does not seem to be a problem at all. Pcb21 Pete 09:20, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Not Notable

We have Wikipedia:Criticisms, Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is not so great, and Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. Doesn't this article seem just a bit redundant? Outside of Wikipedia this isn't a notable subject of discussion except by disgruntled banned editors. We don't need to keep it around just to acknowledge criticism of the project. That's not the point of the project! This article is flame-war and edit-war bait and saps the resources of talented editors and administrators. The topic is only mentioned in the press when Wikipedia itself is discussed. Why can't this be condensed and merged into the Wikipedia article? Then we can just delete it. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 15:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Some of the criticisms of Wikipedia are notable, if for no other reason than they are well-publicized and/or come from notable sources. No notable criticism (which isn't repeated elsewhere) is found on WR, unfortunately; unlike most critics, several of the ex-Wikipedians there seem determined to piss in the well. However, this page is a good summary of some of the interesting criticism; and I think that writing about our deficiencies in a NPOV-way is a good thing.
You're free to propose another AfD if you like, of course. This page has already survived at least one.
--EngineerScotty 15:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Generally I view this subject as not being substantially notable by itself, but this article doesn't exist alone... it's a section of the main Wikipedia article which has grown too large to avoid being split out. So the question is not "should we delete this?" but rather "should we shrink this down?" or "should we delete Wikipedia?" and I think the answer to those two are clearly no. ... Now why are we making seperate article for various non-notable criticism sites rather than just including them here? The only thing I can say is that we're falling prey to our own bias. --Gmaxwell 17:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it's redundant, as the Wikipedia namespace articles are not encyclopedia articles. For example, the they do not need to be written from the NPOV. — Matt Crypto 17:57, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with Malber. It is notable. Malber has also made this and this personal attack (as well as uploading an attack image WRquote.JPG that was deleted)and reverts any talk page edits that mention wikipedia critcisms. DyslexicEditor 19:21, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Malber's personal opinion of WR is probably irrelevant to this discussion--as is the notability (or more appropriately, lack of notability) of WR. In Malber's defense, he (along with User:SlimVirgin, User:SnowSpinner, and User:Raul654 and Jimbo himself) seem to be the Wikipedians most often subject to the juvenile and abusive rants which permeate that forum. --EngineerScotty 20:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
He is constantly doing talk page vandalism by content blanking of Talk:Daniel Brandt. I found also he does User page vandalism and he was blocked for other personal attacks and again for talk page vandalism (which he still does) DyslexicEditor 20:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Addition of External Link

Noted author and essayist Neil Gaiman posted a lengthy criticism of Wikipedia on his blog; I would ask that an admin add it to the external link section under "dated links":

Thank you. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 16:12, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

done. -lethe talk + 18:07, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 21:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Dunno that I'd call that a "lengthy" criticism. It's not much more than your average, anecdotal, blog post about a relatively trivial topic. heqs 19:36, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
He denotes how one of his own creations is inadequately covered on Wikipedia; I think it's worthwhile as an external link. Maybe not main coverage in the article, but still worthwhile to have in here. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 21:11, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
There are probably hundreds of such links we could add. Not worth including imo. heqs 00:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Given Gaiman's popularity and prominence as an author, I respectfully disagree. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 02:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I'd also note that if indeed there are "hundreds" of authors complaining about how their own creations have entries with errors on them on Wikipedia, then we're in more trouble than we already are. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 04:17, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
The unencyclopedic category of fictional characters is among the least of WP's concerns. heqs 07:12, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I'd respectfully disagree and furthermore suggest that your belief on this point is in the minority. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 12:35, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Clarification: your belief being in the minority on two distinct points. First, that fictional characters are unencyclopedic. Second, that an article being criticized publicly in a very high profile weblog is something that should be considered "the least of [Wikipedia]'s concerns." Of course, my disagreement is entirely my own opinion, but I do believe it's a shared one. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 16:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page Protection

Why is this page protected, anyway? I don't see any recent section in the talk page justifying it. -lethe talk + 09:03, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

If you'd like the page unprotected, you could request same at WP:RFP. — WCityMike (talk • contribs) 16:14, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't have a particular reason to want to see the page unprotected. But protection is supposed to serve a purpose. It's supposed to force people to use the talk page when there's a dispute. The person who protected it is supposed to keep a close watch, and unprotect as soon as it's feasible. I see no signs of edit warring, and apparently the person who protected took a hike.
Rather than go to RFP, I can also simply unprotect it, which I now do. But thanks for the pointer. -lethe talk + 08:38, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links section

Some articles listed under Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source are critical of Wikipedia, eg. this one. Should those articles be listed under this article under its external links? Shawnc 08:29, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Why has someone removed the commenting for notability requirements? It now looks messy. --Coroebus 13:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Cheers, fixed.--Coroebus 14:07, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
It was uncommented in this edit [4]. Based on the edit summary I don't think it was accidental, but no reason was given. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 14:32, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sourcing standards

Are we using different standards for this article than other articles? I can't believe that we would allow talk page comments or edit summaries to be allowed as references. They certainly aren't reliable sources. -Will Beback 06:08, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

They're primary material surely. WP:V says "For example, the Stormfront website may be used as a source of information on itself in an article about Stormfront, so long as the information is notable, not unduly self-aggrandizing, and not contradicted by reliable, third-party published sources." although WP:RS says "Posts to bulletin boards and Usenet, wikis or messages left on blogs, are never acceptable as primary or secondary sources.", but that still wouldn't rule out edit summaries. Certain leeway has to be given when talking about wikipedia itself, see the first three references at wikipedia for instance. -- Coroebus 08:39, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I'd say that talk page comments and edit summaries are equivalent to forum posting. Wikistatistics and emails to the mailing list from Wales are very different. -Will Beback 16:20, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
How? The wikipedia entry relies heavily on references from within wikipedia, violating the WP:RS objection, and highlighting that articles about wikipedia need more leeway than other articles because of the problems of being self-referential, I note that we take wikipedia's statistics on trust, while we wouldn't for many other organisations --Coroebus 16:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm not defending the Wikipedia article, perhaps its sourcing should be improved. But a general principle of RS is that we don't accept sources that editors can modify easily to prove their point. So we don't allow someone to post a "fact" on a blog and then cite it in an article. That's just what is being proposed here. An editor is asserting his own criticism that was contained in an edit summary is proof that such criticisms exist. It's a self-fulfilling citation. It's the equivalent of my saying that Pres. Bush is criticized for his poor choice of ties and then if you asked me who had made that criticism I were to respond "I just did." If we follow that route even for this article then anyone can add anything that comes to mind. -Will Beback 01:35, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Granted you shouldn't just take 'facts' from wikis at face value, I still think there is some validity in considering the goings on in edit histories and talk pages in the round. For example, the edit history and talk for this page suggests a battle between a number of wikipedia admins and users over the inclusion or exclusion of a link hostile to wikipedia - that seems like it would be a relevant point (although I'm not going to add it, that would escalate it into a meta-battle). --Coroebus 07:30, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
  • It has been said [5] that this section of text itself has been censored to prevent the addition of material which is not sympathetic to Wikipedia by those who are themselves perceived to be censors.

Can I add, "It has been said that people who complain about censorship on Wikipedia wouldn't know a censor from a sensor"? It would be accurate, since it has now been said. -Will Beback 06:54, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

That paragraph should clearly not be included. Saying that "Wikipedia is censored because this paragraph will be removed soon" is quite frankly, ridiculous. Talk about criticism another way, but don't make it self-referencial and point to the removal of that paragraph as a source to your claim. It's circular logic. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:21, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WW again

Concerning User:Malbers recent edits to nowiki the URL for Wikipedia Watch: If the site is deemed notable to include as a reference, and/or have an article, we shouldn't treat it as a spam link. Links which are truly spam should be deleted completely from article space (and perhaps nowiki'd in talk space, if we have to mention them). Links which merit an article should be clickable.

(As a technical note, is there any way in Wikipedia to tag a specific URL as nofollow? Actually, I've always thought that it might be a good idea for WP to put nofollow in its robots.txt file, or at least for anything other than the article space.) --EngineerScotty 16:42, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I stated "spam link" in the edit summary because Brandt has chosen to redirect traffic from Wikipedia to an attack forum whose sole purpose is to abuse WP editors and admins without providing them an opportunity to respond. This is Brandt's way of spamming Wikipedia with links to that site. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 16:53, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I believe that was a reaction to Wikipedia Review being blacklisted as "spam" in the first place...
Like I said earlier, it's only natural for the banned of a community as large as Wikipedia to congregate some place. They really have very little power to "abuse WP editors and admins" considering their locus of power resides on an external site. I think it would be best for the people distressed by WR to just ignore it. heqs 17:39, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
However, Brandt's decision to redirect to another site makes all links to his site invalid. Hence the de-link. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 17:44, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
See most recent edits which add a "disclaimer"/explanation to the link. The reason I used red in the note is to point it out as a meta-note. ==ILike2BeAnonymous 20:13, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Troll Forum

Could we have a definition of 'troll forum' and a reference to policy about such forums? I would have thought the existence of a forum of disgruntled ex/banned users is sufficiently notable for this article, particularly given the efforts gone to to exclude it, the widespread mention of it on wikipedia itself, and the reading of/contribution to it by many wikipedians (e.g. 'snowspinner'). What is gained other than a fleeting feeling of 'victory' by excluding it? We're starting to look very silly here, and rather nicely making people's point for them --Coroebus 07:25, 26 May 2006 (UTC)



[edit] Wikipedia Review again

First off, we've got an odd problem here - namely two sites that seemingly take you to the same place. I am unaware if this works for everyone from this site, but clicking on the wikipediawatch link sends me to the wikipediareview site. Looking at the alexa of the site it has crushed past 100,000 already, so notability arguements are starting to become more questionable (although perhaps it needs a light warning about possible personal attacks etc.)... perhaps a compromise would be to keep the explanation in, and then link to wikipediareview like:

  • Wikipedia Watch by Daniel Brandt Note for users reading this article on Wikipedia: As of May 2006, the preceding link may instead take you to a forum that critiques Wikipedia called "Wikipedia Review" (WARNING: May contain trolling and/or personal attacks), as the site's administrator has configured their web server to do so when following a link from Wikipedia. To properly view this site, manually copy the URL from the article text, and paste it into your web browser's address bar.

What do people think? Maybe this will end the revert war... RN 20:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Not if you leave that sentence you proposed as-is. Let me extract it here, and you tell me what's wrong with it:
... (WARNING: May contain trolling and/or personal attacks), as the site's administrator has configured their web server to do so when following a link from Wikipedia.
Hint: it's an error in logic, easily fixed in editing. ==ILike2BeAnonymous 20:40, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I have a question. Should we be promoting a site whose sole purpose is to harass and intimidate Wikipedia editors, contains no valid commentary or criticism but does list the personal information of editors, has been responsible for driving off three administrators and one being harassed by the local campus police, and is populated by primarily disgruntled users who were banned for being too disruptive to the project? Is this exemplary of the typical Wikipedia criticism? -- Malber (talk • contribs) 03:18, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

No, it's the way you've posed the question that's ridiculous. How on earth is including a link to this site "promoting" it? Or even implicitly claiming that it's somehow "exemplary"? I see no such claims in the article, neither implicit nor explicit. It's just a link. Let it be. ==ILike2BeAnonymous 03:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Simple, linking to it helps improve its Google page rank. We don't need to be helping them like that. It's also inapropriate to link to a site that publishes personal information on Wikipedia editors. Doing so is considered a personal attack. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 03:36, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
First, whether it does or doesn't improve a website's page rank is utterly irrelevant (I refer you to Stormfront_(website) for something worth getting angry about). Secondly, personal attacks are linked to from here, for instance this was referenced from one of our pages for some time, and WP:NPA has nothing to do with linking sites. Third, the site is relevant because it's whole raison d'etre is criticism of wikipedia, and the wikipedia community. Let's just face facts, there is a website where people who've been booted off wikipedia, or who have criticisms of it congregate, they often criticise individual editors and administrators on wikipedia, everyone talks about it, but people are trying to suppress references to it because they don't like the criticism. By preventing this link we are just confirming a large part of the wikipedia review's criticism of wikipedia, particularly when you look at the shifting and often incoherent arguments that have been deployed against including it. If we can just remove links to websites because we don't like those websites wikipedia would be in a state of utter chaos, maybe I should be heading off to delete that stormfront article to prove my WP:POINT --Coroebus 09:31, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
There are plenty of anti-Wikipedia sites to link to without including a cesspit site whose sole purpose is to compile information on Wikipedia editors and admins for the purpose of harassing, intimidating, and blackmailing those editors in real life. As Golbez once said:

"This is a forum for people who were banned from Wikipedia and want to complain about it. There is no review here, just empty complaints from people who...probably deserved to be banned, considering how disconnected they are from reality and civil discussion."

-- Malber (talk • contribs) 13:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Do you have any evidence that its "sole purpose is to compile information on Wikipedia editors and admins for the purpose of harassing, intimidating, and blackmailing..."? (are you the same User:Malber that I see has contributed to that site?) -- Coroebus 13:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
All it would take is a cursory review of several of their subforums and a brief review of the Katefan0 and Phil Sandifer incidents to come to this conclusion. Besides, WP:NOT a link farm. There are already enough reputable anti sites linked. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 14:22, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
A cursory look at the Katefan0 incident suggests to me (like I say, cursory) that someone else, already deeply involved in a campaign against individual wikipedia admins, was responsible for that - that they posted about it on WR doesn't seem particularly good evidence that the site is setup specifically to harass people (as an aside, I'm British so I don't really understand the whole journalistic ethics argument behind the controversy, our journalists don't have ethics). The Phil Sandifer (User:Snowspinner) incident, where it seems someone (presumably from WR, although I didn't find who) told the police about a story about murder on Sandifer's website (i.e. 'ooh, was he writing about a real murder he committed officer?'), and some people agreed with it, others thought it was stupid, also seems like pretty poor evidence that the website is a conspiracy, it looks like Phil Sandifer has also posted to that same website. Wikipedia is also not censored, the link farm argument does not hold water, even if the WR people had been responsible for the Katefan0 and Sandifer incidents that would just make it even more relevant! --Coroebus 14:50, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
What valid and reputable review/criticism did you find? Tinfoil hat wearing crackpottery doesn't count. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 14:53, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
looking further, both the User:Katefan0 and Phil Sandifer incidents appear to have been attributed to Daniel Brandt, who has his own bloomin' wikipedia entry, plus links to his websites! User:Malber, you, and others opposed to referencing this website, have constantly ducked and dived, failing to give consistent or valid reasons why it should not be included, I, and others, have frequently asked you to explain your reasoning, yet I have still not seen any good reasons, or references to relevant wikipedia policies, why this site should not be referred to. Having looked at the website, and references to it from within wikipedia, I can only conclude that the opposition is driven by personal grudges, not by considerations of what does and doesn't belong in an online encyclopedia. --Coroebus 15:04, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I've stated my reasons very clearly: The site is not about criticism or review; its an attack site. It is off-topic to include this site in a list of links about criticism when it contains none. It is certainly not a notable website. Several editors have already expressed this sentiment in the consensus reached above. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 15:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I certainly did not find consensus in the archive or in the discussion above, and I am asking you to state clearly, here and now, valid reasons to oppose the website. It has already been pointed out that reference to 'notability' is a red herring. I say it is relevant because it does contain criticism (e.g. here, and here, and here and here and here and here). --Coroebus 15:33, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Regarding "personal attacks", I took out the disclaimer (that I had put in). I first considered copying it over to the Wikipedia Review link, as this is the same site the disclaimer referred to, but then I realized, no, that's insane! What, now we're warning people that there might be bad language and not-nice things said on a website? What the fuck? That's like warning people before reading a newspaper that there might be articles that would be "a bummer, man; might bring you down all day". What is this world turning into, Disneyland, where every protruding thing that could possibly hurt you is covered in nice soft padding? Sheesh! ==ILike2BeAnonymous 19:37, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

If I wanted to be a real arsehole I'd point out that the article User:Malber has added is not a criticism of wikipedia, or about criticism of wikipedia, but about the Phil Sandifer case, and mentions WR only in passing, and that it is sourced from a weblog. So it doesn't really belong here. I'd recommend you add it to Wikipedia Review if you could, it is already in Phil Sandifer. --Coroebus 16:42, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Boing Boing is not a blog. If weblogs are not suitable references, then a link to Wikipedia Review (a web forum) is wholly inappropriate. Can you please provide a synopsis of the valid criticism you found? I prefer not to divulge my IP address to a hate speech site where the administrators may use that information for stalking purposes. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 16:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
"Boing Boing...is a publishing entity...later becoming an award winning group blog" according to BoingBoing. And you are misunderstanding the distinction between a reference to a source, and a reference to an entity. So while Boing Boing may not be suitable as a reference for whether or not Phil Sandifer was visited by police, it would be a suitable link from the bio of Cory Doctorow. "Blogs...and forums should generally not be linked to. Although there are exceptions, such as when the article is about, or closely related to, the website itself...". You can read those links yourself, you have posted on that site before, and as far as I can tell they already know your IP range. --Coroebus 17:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Ok, quick summary of those links (in order) - critiquing individual wikipedia articles for style and content, essay by Avillia on wikipedia the project versus wikipedia the community, discussion about improving dispute resolution on wikipedia, discussion of flaws in current event reporting on wikipedia, discussion of what made people question wikipedia, discussion of WP:OFFICE. --Coroebus 17:20, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
"Not enough active participants" (from User:Malber's edit summary) - what is that supposed to mean? What new policy is this? Looking at some recent contributions of yours (e.g. here and here) I'd say your interest in this is not entirely dispassionate. --Coroebus 07:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
So I guess Wikipedia Review has now been cited in a real source. Time to fire that article back up! :) heqs 17:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Agree with Coroebus. The boingboing link does not belong in the article. This is just getting silly. heqs 17:10, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revert warring

Can we stop revert warring please. How about a discussion on the talk pages? I'm sure no one needs WP:3RR pointed out to them --Coroebus 19:11, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Problem solved. --Avillia (Avillia me!) 19:18, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Ho ho, want to place bets on how long it lasts? --Coroebus 19:21, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Uh... 67 cents, a paperclip, and three melted gummybears. --Avillia (Avillia me!) 19:31, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
20mins, not even long enough to take the damn bet! --Coroebus 19:46, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Trying again. Sigh. --20:44, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
The simplest solution would be to remove links to trollboards...er, ahem forums and stick to sites that post articles and essays. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 20:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Unclear statement

"Criticism in general: Entries for criticism are needing citations, obviously the person editing the page holds that criticism or is only a public figure allowed to hold criticisms."

I moved the above statement from the text because I wasn't sure what it was trying to say. BuildControl 08:47, 6 June 2006 (UTC)



[edit] wikipedia review 3rd

I don't particluly care if the link goes in or out but if it's going to go in then .org doesn't seem to actually work whilst .com does. Why is there a revert war over this, I don't understand? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:35, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Because some people really don't like it, I guess. I think it is to WP's detriment if it doesn't include the link though... RN 20:45, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
The .org site is the more legitimate site run by Blu Aardvark. Most of the posters and admins defected to the .org site after some totalitarian moves by Selina. (Wikicriticdrama!) However, several other editors seem to view that the link is not necessary at all as it has since been removed by no more than three administrators. The .org site was working yesterday but appears to be experiencing DNS difficulties today. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 20:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Well in that case, why not add both sites with a brief explanation of what happened so that the reader gets to decide rather than us. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 20:57, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we should encourage or reward the very same trolls who have a history of harassing contributors (both on wiki and in real life). Raul654 21:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Harly a reward.They all look like twats. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 21:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Would we even consider including a link to such a ludicrous forum were the article on any other topic? Gamaliel 22:05, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

No we probably wouldn't. This is an unusual subject because we always try to make ourselfs look good by embracing all criticism. We can't have anyone saying that we are trying to censor critics. But this probably does make us swing too much in favor of linking to lower quality sites than we would not link to on another article. Does wikipedia review have any redeeming features? Why do those who are adding it think it should be linked to? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 22:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, for a Criticism article (total side note: now that I've read it reads really silly and if I was the dictator I would probably just redirect it to wikipedia until there was more real substantive stuff to put here), it seems appropriate to have a link to a "traditional" forum of some kind (other articles have them as well, for example Criticism of Microsoft). RN 22:26, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I originally changed the link to .org because Blu Aardvark had made a promise to keep his forum clean and police any harassing behavior. However, in a hissy over his pending Arbcom decision, he's taken the site down. The question is this: how do we link to a community that is this unstable? How do we call this genuine criticism and not just a rabble of disgruntled blocked editors, crackpots, loons, and conspiracy theorists? -- Malber (talk • contribs) 13:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Malber's comments are contrary to any policy related to Wikipedia content. Raul's assetion that decisions about content may be related to encouraging the subject of content are not consistent with policy. Knott's assertion that WR contributors look like twats presumes twats are not attractive, inviting or conducive to survival of a species. "Crackpots, loons..." is a personal attack against critics. Malber is not an arbiter of legitimacy. His original research about the reasons one site was taken down is original research, and perhaps not at all accurate -- he offers no source other than his claims. His assertion that most members went to the new site is not based in evidence. Malber's assertion that he included the link based on his views of what he claims is a personal promise to him from one site owner is an attempt to edit based on his point of view. His assertion that "we link to a community that is unstable" is poor analysis. The link is to a Web site that includes content by members who come and go, not to a community where legitimacy is defined by stability. Stability? The site in question was created to review Wikipedia. When does Wikipedia plan to release a stable version? Waldon 18:57, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
This wikilawyering is the first and only contribution by Waldon (talk • contribs • logs • block user • block log), and is a fairly good representation of the type of contribution you'll see at WR.com. Where is the authority "Wikipedia Review" site, Igor Alexander's proboards version, Zordrac and Selina's private site, or Blu Aardvark's? Might as well just delete the link as none are really that relevant. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 19:16, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
Is comparing Wikipedia's content to Wikipedia's editorial guidelines nothing more than "wikilawywering"? Why is Wikipedia operated as an open wiki if talk-page comments are discouraged? What is Malber's reason or justification for disclosing alleged personal information of someone who operated a critical forum in 2005? Waldon 19:43, 30 June 2006 (UTC)



[edit] Advocron

I have moved Advocron's threads to Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Moved_from_Talk:Criticism_of_Wikipedia. Just zis Guy you know? 10:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV argument

I've been going through the article and replacing all the old cites with <ref> tags which makes the citations clearer. I wonder though, would people here consider MediaShift a reputable source? I think this blog entry would fit as an example of someone denying the attainability of NPOV. Last, is there something special about the dated links section of external links or is that just to separate the links? Otherwise, I'll try to take evidence from those links and add them into the article. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:20, 15 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] original synthesis

The term "community" appears in the article nine times as of now. Few critics refer to Wikipedia as a community. In one case, a critic that refers to it as a cult is characterized as criticizing dynamics of the "community." Whether or not some or all Wikipedia editors are a community is debatable. But it is original synthesis to conclude that all Wikipedia editors are members of a community and that all criticisms of any process in Wikipedia is a criticism of "the community." The article reads as if someone is attempting to reinforce a sense of community and not as if it is intended to accurately represent perceptions of critics and their criticisms. 01:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

  • It's really more of a communist regime than a community. -Debunktor 03:45, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Whatever it is, I just took it out. Ken Arromdee 13:53, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Integrate The Onion parody into a reference?

Obviously The Onion's article (recently linked at the bottom, but I saw it on the cover of the paper yesterday) is a parody, but at the same time it's definitely one of the more public criticisms of the website. Despite it's aim at humor, the article is clearly a statement on the problem of vandalism and other shenanigans. Any of the more experienced caretakers of this article want to try and integrate mention of the piece into the main body of the article? --Bobak 15:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Very confusing sentence

In the section Usefulness as a reference: "Wikipedia should not be used as a primary source for serious research according to Wikipedia Founder, Jimmy Wales." What exactly did Wales say? Did he perhaps say "principal source"? Wikipedia could really only be a primary source for research about Wikipedia, which doesn't seem to be the topic of this section. On most topics, Wikipedia is inherently a tertiary source. - Jmabel | Talk 20:17, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What should be done with wikipediasucks.com?

Please see What should be done with wikipediasucks.com?. Imgroup 12:54, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Information overload?

Why there is no statement of information overload in this article. Wikipedia is cool, but some people experience information overload after reading it too much. And another thing - who or what protects children from reading explicit content on Wikipedia?! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.240.234.212 (talk • contribs) 20 August 2006.

Got something citable on either point? If so, please, feel free to edit. - Jmabel | Talk 01:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
There is no citation, yet StantonBG added it anyway. I am removing it. Captainktainer * Talk 18:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On NPOV and neutrality more generally

The section Systemic bias in perspective fails to differentiate between neutrality of coverage (a very broad issues) and neutral point of view; the latter is a technical issue about what is said in the narrative voice. For example, if I were to write "According to Rush Limbaugh, Iran is merely trying to buy time until Bush is out of office," there is nothing non-neutral about the point of view of the sentence, nor should there be any doubt that the sentence is true. It is an entirely separate question—a question of neutrality, but not a question of neutral point of view—whether Rush Limbaugh's opinion belongs in an encyclopedia.

Colloquially, among those of us writing Wikipedia, we lump these both as "NPOV", but this article is not in Wikipedia space, it is in encyclopedia space, and it should follow normal usage of words, not our internal jargon. - Jmabel | Talk 18:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See also

See also Wikipedia:Expert Retention and Wikipedia:Expert rebellion. Olin 19:55, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia

Wikipedia has too many rules. People don't want to sit down and read all day all Wikipedia's rules on every different page. My advice to you is let all the rules be put into a big list on one page so maybe we're spending an hour or less on it. I think some of the rules allow for editors to make foolish little corrections like this NPOV thing and then throwing in all these spoilers. Another thing is no disputes ever get resolved on wikipedia. damn! TareTone 09:32, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Waffling" prose and "antiquarianism"

This section is basically a summarization (though lengthy) of the Roy Rosenzweig essay. There aren't any other writers mentioned in this section. I think in the interests of editing down the length of this article, we should incorporate the material in the rest and remove this section. It really only relates to one person's opinion, not a general topic of criticism. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 16:32, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I could not disagree more. This is a summary of the criticisms raised in what is probably the single most thoughtful, insightful, evenhanded essay that has been written about Wikipedia. - Jmabel | Talk 15:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
But it's by one guy. Are we going to include a section for everyone who writes an essay critical of WP if well written? The article is already overlong. -- Malber (talk • contribs) 16:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
It's not a matter of it being "well written". It's a matter of it being good academic work about Wikipedia. It is an even-handed essay about Wikipedia, nearly 40 pages in length, written by a prominent academic historian and published in a major journal. It is one of the few works cited in this article that clearly meets Wikipedia's standards for reliable sources. - Jmabel | Talk 01:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Angela Beesley

Just a note that I'm having some trouble with people who don't want Angela Beesley to contain references to her article deletion controversy. Sbwoodside 22:36, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Purpose of discussion pages

Another criticism could be that some discussion pages do specify that they are meant to be discussions of the article as it appears in Wikipedia, not for discussing the topic in general, but some Wikiepdians (and I shall plead guilty here) may still have used discussion pages to discuss a topic rather than the article. ACEO 19:45, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Again: this is an article about notable, citable criticisms. This is not a substitute for internal discussions in Wikipedia-space or on our mailing list. Your comment is a perfect illustration of the issue you are raising! - Jmabel | Talk 06:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Incredibly vague statement about universities

"The use of Wikipedia is not accepted in many schools and universities in writing a formal paper. Some educational institutions have blocked Wikipedia in the past while others have limited its use to only a pointer to external sources." No citation. No school or university named. No indication of what is meant by "use". Are we just saying it is not citable as a source of facts in a student paper? Of course it is not. And neither is Britannica, as a rule. Encyclopedias are not generally considered citable sources in academia: they are considered reality checks, good introductory overviews, etc. and often a good starting point on research, but never more than that. Is there any evidence that Wikipedia has a different status in this respect than a typical mid-range encyclopedia, say World Book? If not, this is more a criticism of encyclopedias than of Wikipedia. It should not necessarily be removed, but it should be qualified, clarified, and cited. - Jmabel | Talk 15:50, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Provided a cite which actually quotes a teacher on the use of Wikipedia in schools. As for the general use of encyclopedias in schools and universities, that sounds more like a discussion point for the Encyclopedia article, rather than this specific article on criticisms of Wikipedia. I don't see the need to comment on school use of World Book, Britannica, or any other encyclopedia in this article. Casey Abell 16:58, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Irony in the article re: style

I find it ironic that there is inconsistency in this article in two obvious ways:

1. "Wikipedia" being spelled variably with a capital and a lowercase 'w'

2. Inconsistent use of the emdash and, also, with spacing before and after or not spaced.

Apollyon48 13:04, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like you have a pretty low irony threshold. If you wish to make this consistent, I can't imagine anyone will object. - Jmabel | Talk 02:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, but you are wrong! There is at least one editor who pretty strongly objected, and reverted my changes (on other pages), referring me to the style manual - which completely supported what I had done. When I quoted same in reply, this editor has been notably silent.

As far as a low irony threshold...ahh, I got nothin'. Apollyon48 21:18, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Intelligent design articles are "biased", says ID activist...

Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute, the intelligent design creationism publicity machine says of Wikipedia:

I know of numerous people who have tried to suggest changes to Wikipedia to lessen the current bias of the ID entries -- including staff of Discovery Institute. They were rebuffed. The moderators of Wikipedia's ID-pages have repeatedly rejected and censored changes that would provide some semblance of balance or objectivity to the discussion. Basic accuracy on dates and names have suffered, never mind the downright falsehoods about the science.

Putting Wikipedia On Notice About Their Biased Anti-ID Intelligent Design Entries

  1. Should this be put in?
  2. Where should this be put in? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Paul A. Newman (talk • contribs).
This is little more than a "letter to the editor" and isn't significant enough for inclusion. Gamaliel 14:06, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes but what about other extremist groups having a whine? Like holocaust denialists, or scientologists or Moonies.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Paul A. Newman (talk • contribs).

Or AIDS denialists, global warming denialists, Jehova's Witnesses, Momons,

All the right enemies. - Jmabel | Talk 02:33, 23 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] need help

Can anyone help me, im looking for the article about the most famous wikipedia flame wars. I cant find it anymore. Thanks for help...

Unencyclopedic topic. I would imagine that if it ever existed it has been (appropriately) deleted or moved somewhere other than Wikipedia. - Jmabel | Talk 05:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
It's in the Wikipedia namespace, under "Lamest Edit Wars Ever" or something. It's kept around as an example of what not to do on Wikipedia; I've found it helpful. Captainktainer * Talk 06:24, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The signpost as a reference

Do we want that? See the last ref in the list... It may be against the law, and is certainly against the spirit. - crz crztalk 04:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] NPOV

For a site allegedly being NPOV there certainly is a bias to this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.153.96.166 (talk • contribs) 2 December 2006.

In what direction? - Jmabel | Talk
I would say negative. The whole article is a WP:POVFORK. —Malber (talk • contribs) 20:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Overly negative about what? Wikipedia or its critics? Also, of what article are you saying it is a POV fork? - Jmabel | Talk 06:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
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